Design como modo de pesquisa coletiva no território: Experimentos, correspondências e cartografias

Abstract

This thesis approaches design as a way of collective research in territories based on correspondence with anthropology and education. It starts from a local experiment, which has expanded the understanding of public space to “matters of concern”. Then, it takes on the challenge of placing design between different scales and dimensions of territory, seeking articulations between local initiatives and the strategic planning of cities. Between correspondences and cartographies, it explores a dialogical, critical, and political perspective of design facing research issues, in the field, with people and territories, in the sense of changing to an attitude of care and attention to projects that cover different modes of life. For this, it develops and analyzes a series of experiments involving design and participation in territories, with different groups and places, which constitute the fundamental structure of this thesis, stimulating movement and dialogue between theory and practice: the master's project in the Rio Comprido neighborhood; the Coletivo Baixo Rio, operating in the same neighborhood; the Mapa-Praça-Máquina course at Praça Tiradentes, in the center of Rio; workshops held together with researchers from LaDA, applied in academic seminars, in Complexo da Maré and in Rocinha; activities developed at the Uerj Application College (CAp-Uerj); undergraduate courses at Esdi-Uerj; the Metropolitan Strategic Plan of Rio de Janeiro. It goes through the critique of the modern city project through urban planning, reflecting on the challenges of participation and possible paths for political engagement in territories through design. It also encompasses dialogues and conversations between design and education in relation to territories – “teaching of design and design in teaching”, as spaces for collective learning that enable engagement on issues of common interest, aiming at the transformation of situated and the formation of active, critical, and reflective subjects for citizenship. Based on Design Anthropology, Codesign and “Design and/as Education” approaches, designers act as co-investigators in seeking to identify issues, debate ideas and imagine future possibilities, always engaged with the field and people. For this, they adopt tools and methods called “conversation devices” as meeting spaces that bring together heterogeneous agents with different knowledge and practices to investigate issues of interest and future alternatives in a dialogic and speculative process. These approximations place design as a mode of research from a transdisciplinary and dialogic perspective that aims to identify issues, articulate knowledge, build bridges and stimulate debate for collective transformation.