PhD Thesis

This practice-led design study expands the image of the designer-researcher pursuing an individually framed project and employing self-reflective methods. By inviting other practitioners to explore shared modes of ‘thinking through making,’ I illustrate what happens when the boundaries of one’s creative practice are socially and materially reconfigured. The result is a novel approach to investigating how individuals and things become entangled in collaborative and distributed design situations, providing adequate tools to navigate this entangled space from within and maintain analytical clarity. Thinking With People and Pots offers a mind-opening perspective for anyone aiming to integrate practice and research. Through the lens of three pottery-based design experiments staged to provoke unanticipated forms of sociomaterial negotiation, the study invites readers to interrogate established research methods and second-guess preconceived ideas about practice.

The thesis consists of an introductory summary and four peer-reviewed publications:

1. Distributed thinking through making: Towards a relational ontology in practice-led design research. Conference paper published in Matters of Scale, Proceedings of the Design Research Society NORDES2021 Conference.

2. Moments of entanglement: Following the sociomaterial trajectories of an intersubjective studio practice. Journal article published in FORM Akademisk: Research Journal of Design and Design Education.

3. Listening to the sociomaterial: When thinking through making extends beyond the individual. Journal article published in Design Studies.

4. Thinking through making together-apart: The sociomaterial becoming of a geographically distributed design practice. Book chapter to be published in a Springer Nature volume.