This doctoral programme focuses on research in the field of design, understood in overall terms, and based on its systemic, complex and global dimension. The programme is organised and run jointly by the Department of Graphic Engineering and Design, the Department of Architectural Representation and the Centre de la Imatge i la Tecnologia Multimèdia (Image Processing and Multimedia Technology Center), which are all institutions at the UPC.
The research focuses on emerging and interdisciplinary aspects of design, opening up new, unprecedented knowledge areas with the potential for exponential growth. Design associated with businesses and organisations on both a global and local scale is one of Catalonia's strategic assets. Research, innovation and reflection on the future in the field of design are obvious contributions to improvements to both the social and economic system, and to people's well-being. Design is also currently a strategic activity for business competitiveness, and has been recognised by both the public institutions responsible for industrial policies (the Government of Catalonia's Business Innovation and Development Centre; the former Design and Innovation Development public company of the Spanish Ministry of Industry), as well as by private institutions (Chambers of Commerce).
This programme focuses on DESIGN as a knowledge area with its own specific characteristics and importance, which is the core area for research. Its interdisciplinarity arises from the growing need for participation by various disciplines, and as such the system in which each case is located must be considered, while taking into account all aspects of its complexity. An interdisciplinary and systemic approach to design must include aspects with various registers, but which are always present. These include humanistic aspects (related to people); environmental aspects (related to the environment); and technological aspects (related to the mediums used).
Research on design within the programme must always be able to relate specific factors from these different aspects to each other, while considering the extent to which each one is involved, and the level of quality in that involvement. The diverse nature of the UPC institutions organising this programme, and their complementarity to each other, offers vast potential for research in new fields and subject areas, where design can establish unprecedented relationships, fostering innovation and creating knowledge in emerging sectors in which design plays a significant role as a catalyst for the future.
The programme treats design as a knowledge area in its own right, with its own characteristics and area of action. As the research often covers new and emerging topics, one of its characteristics is the difficulty involved in categorising it. The areas listed below should not be considered as restrictive categories but instead as areas to be developed, fostering both the relationships between them and the emergence of new and previously unknown research areas.
The study and practice of digital design offers new approaches to critiques, aesthetics, formats, possible futures and thinking in terms of the technological, social and cultural transformation of the digital age. The design methodologies applied in human-computer interaction for new interfaces, immersive experience design, video games, data and digital art, contain innovative approaches to experiential design. Approaches focusing on human factors including More-than-human and post-digital perspectives, digital ethnography and feminist and inclusive approaches enable innovative research to be undertaken, which prototypes or critically studies experience and new digital social and communicative ecosystems.
A systemic approach to design in terms of interdisciplinary themes which discuss new, emerging and/or innovative situations. Design as a tool for interconnection and the transfer of influences including:
Research focused on the architectural design process, in all its breadth of scales and themes. From the object to the territory, including its relationship with both the definition of cultural concepts and aspects, and the tools and technologies used.
Insight into design's capacity as a tool for previsualisation, anticipation and preconfiguration of reality and the future. Design understood as an instrument that has enabled us to construct the present, which at the same time permits us to give thorough consideration to the consequences and evolution of the decisions made and alternatives selected as they relate to issues with an impact on the future.
