Björn Franke – författare

Multiple answers to the question of what design can be and achieve today.Not at Your Service: Manifestos for Design brings together the broad spectrum of beliefs, subjects and practices of designers at Zurich University of the Arts. It offers different approaches and insights on the present-day role and impact of design. It is not conceived as a finished project, but as a fluid document of its time. Collaborative design, interaction within complex systems, attention economics, the ecological shift, visual literacy, gender-neutral design, "quick and dirty" design ethnography, social responsibility, the value of ugliness, death futures, immersive technologies, identity and crises, design as a transformative discipline – all of these topics are presented for debate with passion, conviction and professional expertise. A compact collection of discursive texts on the many roles and functions of design. Contributions to the current debate on the social role of design. Statements by experts from one of the leading universities of design. All texts are in German and English.

This book examines design as a mode of philosophical inquiry, proposing that design gains critical relevance when it engages the material and technological structures that shape everyday life. Rather than offering solutions, it foregrounds design as a practice of questioning—one that reframes problems, visualizes tensions, and materializes ideas to make them thinkable. Through this lens, design becomes a method of understanding the world rather than transforming it through predetermined visions. The book argues that the real power of design lies in developing tools: tools that construct alternative worlds for reflection, and tools that help us perceive the existing world anew. In doing so, it positions design as an intellectual practice capable of expanding both our conceptual and material horizons.Design as a practice of questioningTools to reflect and understandNew volume within BIRD series