Search

This paper addresses the issue of the configuration of a network for the digital fabrication of personal protective equipment to fight the pandemic of COVID-19. The main aim is to highlight how creative and innovative design practices, based on digital fabrication, have contributed to combat the new coronavirus in Brazil, concerning the design, production and distribution of face shields. The paper is the result of both exploratory, descriptive and qualitative research. In addition to documentary data and revisiting design literature, this work sought to understand the network formation modus operandi for digital manufacture of face shields, based on examples carried out in every region of the country. In conclusion, it argued that these social mobilization networks are based on the assumptions of the maker culture and reveal the potential for an open, distributed and resilient design to face this contemporary and future crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the first signs of the Covid-19 pandemic, the uncertainty around the global stock of medical supplies sparked a response in the DIY communities around the world. In the case of Spain, a community called Coronavirus Makers (CVM) appeared to supply ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE) to hospitals and people in need. This paper explores the evolution of this community-driven development, detailing the patterns proposed by members of the group acting as design experts to tackle different problems. More specifically, the paper uses face shields, the most produced PPE in Spain, as a boundary object to highlight the relationships between individuals, institutions, and companies. These objects of design, being devices for medical use, must overcome validation at the technical level. Authors will also explore some of the controversies surrounding the transfer of these products from horizontal innovation networks to traditional production companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a chronological account of design's response to the Covid-19 crisis as it unfolded globally. From January to May 2020, we documented over 500 design interventions that have been created by individuals, networks, amateurs, professionals, and public and private organizations and institutions. This international response witnessed the rapid design and development of products, networks and systems such as facemasks, hospitals, infographics, respirators, sanitizers, and virtual communities all created in an effort to save us. In response to the Covid-19 virus the problems that the world faced were highly complex, interdependent, and could not be addressed by conventional means. As such, this paper presents over 500 design-led responses that illustrate comprehensively that when pressed we can find new ways of designing. In short, this work outlines what we might think of as a new model for designing. This new model does not describe a new condition to come after what we currently call design. Rather, what we witness here is the revival of the practice of design - from handmaiden of Capital to one of Care - which is expressed in a new critical attitude for looking at the design world, probing its practice, its theoretical position and its product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze metaphors by simile in the context of the covid-19 pandemic, taking into account sense relations that encompass conceptual domains, socio-cultural aspects, as well as pragmatic and discourse functions raised in the circumstances examined. For this purpose, we assume a theoretical framework that conceives metaphor as a multi-faceted phenomenon that permeates distinct linguistic levels. In addition, we adopt a method that resorts to the web as a corpus to identify the metaphors, by applying triggers such as coronavírus é como, covid-19 é como, coronavírus é que nem e covid-19 é que nem. In the light of our findings, in general, we can assert that, although speakers use similar metaphorical domains, they do so based on different discourse-argumentative positions and intentions, which can result, for instance, in positive or negative attitudes towards the effects of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I try to show that some radical right and left-wing political discourses manipulate the language about the coronavirus, in order to sustain their biased and baseless claims about the Covid-19 pandemic. This kind of manipulation fits the view that political manipulation of language is based on a fusion of partial truths and whole lies (Katukani, 2018). The data was collected from the Brazilian far-right news website criticanacional.com.br and from the book The sovereign virus?, written by the postmodern leftist philosopher Donatella di Cesare. Data analysis shows that the most noteworthy manipulation found in these political discourses is the concealment of relevant information about where the virus is. The large majority of sentences about the virus found in the corpus offers no hint where the virus is located or how it is spreading. It will be shown that this concealment favors the baseless claims of both radical political discourses. In order to make a comparison with the results from those studies, I collected data from the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo. The finding is that the sentences from this newspaper are much more precise about where the virus is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, our objective is to ascertain how the Covid-19 pandemic impacts the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God rhetoric. Our hypothesis is that the social impacts of the crisis rescales especially the pathos projection, that is, the speaker's reading of this church target audience's interests and values. Our theoretical framework settles on the sociocognitive studies of the text, in which the reference, that is, the way we make the world known through language, is the central notion and organizer of the epistemological field. Thus, and considering metaphor as an essential element of religious rhetoric, we pursue our objective by examining how this church's founding leader conceptualizes via metaphor references about the pandemic, embedding it to the rhetoric. In this path, we selected three audiovisual records, spaced approximately thirty days since the declaration of Covid-19 pandemic by the WHO, and raised thematically relevant metaphorical referential processes. In our analysis we have applied a dynamic notion of context to observe how relevant social, cultural and political events to the church's life are embedded in the emerging referential processes. In our conclusions, we point how the data confirms our hypothesis and, also, exploit the meanings of the Universal Church's reaction to the pandemic inside the neoliberal rationality spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design is recognized as a discipline that is ideally placed to work across boundaries to tackle wicked problems and help cope with uncertainty. As humanity continues to become more interconnected it is thought that we are becoming more exposed to viruses such as COVID-19. Therefore, the current pandemic offers us opportunities to re-think and re-design many of our practices to ensure we are resilient in future similar crises. Through the creation and analysis of a database that captures design interventions that have emerged during the pandemic, the paper considers the role design can play in collectively recovering from the current pandemic and building resilience for the future. Whilst the findings represent the beginning of this process, (from late March until June 2020) we find that design has been deployed in a wide range of ways and on all scales, from the personal, communal, organizational, national and international. However, as we live through and emerge from the pandemic we should reflect, within the realm of design research and beyond, on how we might harness design to enable recovery and build resilience for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maker Networks indicate how society organizes itself to overcome significant challenges, such as the lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze initiatives that produced PPE for frontline health staff to propose design guidelines for implementing RDM-Maker Networks: networks of people and organizations in the Maker Movement that collaboratively produce goods or services organized in a redistributed manufacturing (RDM) model. This paper has two main results: five Maker Networks in Brazil analyzed in terms of their RDM features and the subsequent design guidelines. We selected cases through several criteria like their location and the type of one of their nodes. Those criteria also represent limitations that further works can address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to reflect about opinions and reports about the Covid-19 impact on society and on the fashion industry from retail, luxury market professionals and consumer behaviour researchers. The pandemic impacts are analysed under the perspective of consumer behaviour and the demand for connection and affection from the isolation caused by the pandemic. Within these two dimensions, variables like biosafety, risk, time and technology were considered to formulate reflections on the future and to visualize opportunities, external threats and the impact on the internal strengths and weaknesses of different luxury, mass and differentiation business. The analysis was formulated based on books, research on websites in the digital sphere that encompass different opinions involved in the fashion world, as well as recent trend studies. To meet new consumer demands, a brand needs to be present in the digital environment and connect to its consumers on an emotional level through its purpose, values and communication, by means of virtual and physical channels in a fluid, direct and transparent way. Small businesses may have a greater capacity to adapt to the new post-Covid-19 moment, due to the agility of responding to adversities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered as the most severe medical threat of last decades, which forced billions of people to live in isolation and alienating conditions while millions have lost their lives. So far, the design interventions created to contrast the pandemic have been largely focused on the design of products for personal use (i.e. PPE), which however will not be very effective in the long run. In post-pandemic scenarios, designers will be asked to create new enabling solutions to foster socially inclusive and sustainable 'new normalities'. These solutions will play a fundamental role in the transition toward future sustainable and inclusive living conditions. This paper proposes three inclusive-oriented design scenarios containing some promising design ideas conceived to enhance the social and sustainable qualities of living places and communities. Later, a number of promising testing grounds will be listed for immediate interventions in the post-pandemic's transition stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The systemic disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic amplified the effects of some social inequalities and revealed positive environmental effects associated with slowing the economy. In order to explore the repercussions of contagion prevention and community engagement initiatives such as deploying face masks and visualizing Covid-19 statistics, we resorted to an ethical model of Design for Responsible innovation (DRI). This interactive model is useful for identifying, exploring, and describing analytical and generative paths of inquiry departing from, or arriving at, diverse matters of concern such as the impact of commodification and manufacturing in society and nature, the relativism of truth, the segregation of identities, and the reduction of agency. In this paper we argue that the human-centered perspective on design relies on a biased value system that either disfavors some social groups or disregards nonhuman living agencies, and we emphasize the analytical capacity of the model to chart and rationalize alternative inquiry paths. In consequence, future responsible design interventions would benefit from positioning life at center stage and embracing the relational and dependent nature of human beings from a posthuman perspective. To achieve this, research methods capable of handling human-nonhuman units of analysis and allowing the examination of systemic impact in complex systems are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This position paper seeks to address the operational logic that created the conditions for the pandemic to take hold. Grasping the crisis as an opportunity for an anthropological inquiry across disciplines, this exploration firmly anchors design inside the social commitment required by breathing bodies and life-enabling atmospheres. By infusing the self-understanding of design with experiences and conceptions from Eastern and Western 'breathwork' practices the adaptation strategy in uncertainty shifts from perpetuating the status quo towards the creative reinterpretation of internal priorities. It also changes the nature of our projects, from making to enacting, from preprogrammed solutions to earthly engagement, from interfacing with inert matter to caring for living matters. Taking our universally shared breath as the resounding call for action, 'breathful' design is about the never-finished, perpetually opening task of persisting through bodily vigilance, diligence, and self-critical forsight for 'knowing what to do when no one knows what to do'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This position paper presents a prototype research agenda for design for sustainability transformations (DfST) in the (post-)pandemic context. COVID-19 has made visible vulnerabilities, structural dysfunctions, inequalities and injustices across health, environmental, social, economic, provisional and political systems. In response to the crisis, rapid, adaptive, technological and social innovations have started to emerge across all levels of society, opening up a multiplicity of alternative futures. This is an opportune time to address long-standing and urgent sustainability challenges in ways that move beyond the ineffective and business-as-usual approaches of ecological modernism. The authors used a co-creative process to identify weak signals relevant to sustainability transformations. In alignment with the deep leverage points framework, the identified weak signals are presented under two main headings: first, social structures and institutions; and second, values, goals and worldviews. The deep leverage points form the basis of a research agenda on how DfST could contribute to sustainability transformations right now and in the longerterm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic has revolutionized economic, social, and political models and broken down private and public systems, perhaps irreversibly. The gap between top-down and bottom-up approaches has widened, favoring divergences between centralized approaches and distributed solutions. The need to rethink rhythms, places, organizations and governance models emerged, together with the need to rethink the way we design and create relationships. This paper suggests the adoption of an empathic component in the governance of complex ecosystems to make them more resilient to unexpected phenomena such as Covid-19. The aim is to bring a design perspective while discussing the need for an 'empathic revolution', namely the adoption of empathy as a lever of innovation for communities, businesses, organizations, and governments. The hypothesis is to adopt empathy not only to understand the users' needs in the development of new products and services, but to extend its adoption also in organizational changes up to transformative processes. In the first part, empathy is described through an extra-disciplinary observation. The second part outlines how empathy has been adopted in the design field. The third part analyzes - through the empathic component - some phenomena that occurred during the pandemic at a community, organizational, and governmental level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents "OPER.TEN", a ten days program that hybridized Human Centered Design (HCD) with Open innovation (OI), developed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The program adapted an HCD methodology to face the challenges of designing during a pandemic, such as relying on remote interactions only. The article presents methodological challenges as well as tools and methods developed to overcome those challenges. OPER.TEN, Transform Emergency Now! is a hybrid methodology that relies on HCD and OI tools and principles. OPER. TEN ensures fast implementation of the results involving stakeholders of the territory with implementation capacity. The final network involved Universities, Companies, Municipalities, and Government. After the design phase, three of the four solutions were successfully implemented. Results report how to hybridize an HCD with OI to push rapid implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new COVID-19 context has transported work to a domestic setting. These new locations, heterotopic, do not always adequately respond to user needs. This paper explores the relationship between the domestic built environment and certain elements that shape it, the perception, emotional state and productivity of the users. A pilot case study was carried out with 11 volunteers who evaluated their home offices for seven work days using physical environment tools, two tests -fixed data and daily evaluation-. Also, environmental parameters of the territory were monitored. Among the main findings, we observed that the perception of size does not relate to actual size; a balcony is associated with happiness and calm. We have verified how biophilic elements promote well-being. Happiness and calm are related to hight and low levels of lux. There is a tendency of happiness associated with collaborative tasks, and calm with individual ones. This article opens up a path for exploratory research on resilient situations in which physical barriers force people to seek creative solutions and offers tools to empower users. Current trends in data-driven design and teleworking support research proposals like this one, with a focus on well-being, productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to slow down the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, it is vital to adopt measures to inform citizens about preventive actions. Such an operation requires a wideranged system that comprises a variety of interfaces as channels between citizens and healthcare authority's information services. Amongst such interfaces, the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems can present benefits for informing citizens about the pandemic. Although the literature shows that IVR systems have been used for healthcare, the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic demands new examinations on the role of IVR systems on a multiplatform system for delivering information. This paper aimed to identify gaps and opportunities for the use of IVR systems to inform citizens about the COVID-19 pandemic. A case study was conducted by mapping the Brazilian Ministry of Healthcare's channels of information about the coronavirus and analyzing the Disque Saúde IVR system - a phonebased ombudsman channel - based on literature recommendations. The results showed that while IVR systems have great potential for accessibility, it is essential that all types of information are available and continuously updated for citizens. Furthermore, the vast and mutable availability of information in a pandemic scenario may be a challenge for the usability of such systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the emergency scenario generated by COVID-19 pandemic, the development of fast solutions to reduce the contagious curve can mean saving lives. Democratic access to prevention methods is essential, especially in places with high exposure to contamination and whose activities have not been interrupted, such as public transportation. This work presents the development of a hand sanitizer dispenser for public transportation and other possible locations in the urban environment, designed during an online marathon. The focus is on the development of the Design Sprint method and its adaptations to fit the remote work and other constraints due social distance. The final product was designed to be produced by 3D printing and open design, to fast distribution and replication. It fits in the bus's handrails, with some positioning possibilities and the use of PET bottles as alcohol containers. As a result, the paper highlights the particularities of agile methods for the design process at a distance and demonstrates that the process used allows for quickly responding to solutions for emerging needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the approaches undertaken by organizations, coordination between healthcare, design, and regulatory communities, to respond to the needs of the COVID-19 crisis and bring about models for agile innovation and disease mitigation. The COVID-19 Design Innovation team was born at the core of a major university to operate as a hub for innovation. In an effort to connect designers, makers, and healthcare professionals, the initiative converged with the main motivation to organize collective efforts to assist in managing the crisis and deliver creative design innovations related to those efforts. Several products were brought about through the initiative efforts: off the shelf solutions and community driven, hybrid prototyping (reutilizing parts), distributed manufacturing, material investigations, and rapid prototyping that turned labs into manufacturing facilities. As solutions reached refinement and healthcare called for volume, solutions were brought to the community as a rapid response to the crisis. Limits of time and production posed challenges, the crisis catalyzed the coordinated efforts to form agile networks of stakeholders working towards a common goal, hacking the COVID-19 crisis by design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 demanded initiatives beyond the sole provision of physical artifacts, urging the development of new services and system innovations in order to produce effective solutions. In this paper the authors report one of such initiatives, where a streetwear brand (ÖUS) and Paraná Federal University have joined efforts to develop a sustainable Product-Service System for mask provision, aiming at the protection of vulnerable school children in the surrounding area of a shoe manufacturing plant in the state of Ceará, one of the epicenters of the pandemic in the country. This consisted of an Action Design Research where, due to the pandemic context, all participants were in social isolation and, therefore, the design process was carried out remotely. In the article, the authors explore in-depth the induction of a more distributed economy paradigm on the PSS Design. A distributed approach presents itself more aligned with the health requirements during pandemic, with a higher potential to contain locally the flow of people. Furthermore, it also addresses the need for generating income locally, thus merging the health and economic concerns of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]