1

Distilling Social Design Principles

Image: www.zandmotor.nl
Presented by Jill Slinger
 2

For Indonesian

Image: www.zandmotor.nl
participants:

This represents a
preliminary version of
the social design
principles.

Your feedback and

suggestions are
welcome.

Thank you!
 3

Complex Systems
• Non-linear processes
• Feedbacks
• Influence of scale (time and space)
• Small changes can induce large effects and vice versa
• System components and interactions
• Emergence
• Context and history matter
• Adaptive
• Wicked problems
• Change starts from within
• Failure to acknowledge the complexity of a situation is
a technical and ethical error
 4

Designing partial solutions

• Partial solutions are contextually-informed

• Place-based
• Include lived experience

• Trans/interdisciplinary in nature

• All involved are part of the solution

• Including scientists, consultants
• Local people

• Principles rather than rules

 5

Social Design Principles

• Non-exhaustive set of principles
• Ordered in 3 categories

Substantive Social Design Principles

Principles for the Engagement Process
Fundamental Social Design Principles

9
9
 6

Fundamental Social Design Principles

Principles underlying the social design component of the BwN approach
1. Adopt a complexity-informed stance
2. Acknowledge differences in values and perspectives
3. Recognise different types of knowledge such as lived experience and
disciplinary expertise
4. Appropriate stakeholder, community, science, engineering and decision-
maker participation
5. Engage in co-creation, co-learning and co-design to stimulate knowledge
sharing
6. Strive to build coalitions for nature-friendly design
7. Issues of scale
Coordinators are intrinsically part of the engagement process
 7

Principles for the Engagement Process

Palmer, Copteros & Slinger (2020)
1. Tolerate discomfort and unresolved tensions as they are often a gateway to a new
level of knowledge, understanding and trust
2. Be sensitive to “Aha!” moments of insights
3. Engage with balanced generosity: enquiring, listening and sharing. Managing
contribution and constraint is closely linked to listening
4. Practice tolerance, build integrity and mutual trust
5. Create and use reflective opportunities
6. Be sensitive to the ‘arrivals’ of both people and ideas
7. Manage discontinuities, people come and go and arrangements change suddenly
8. Sustain enquiry (keep going when it is tough)
9. Be conscious that everyone involved is a whole, multi-dimensional person, with
the potential to engage with their whole self and with many ways of knowing
 8

Substantive Social Design Principles

Vanclay et al. (2015)
1. Characteristic way of life
2. Cultural integrity
3. Maintain community
4. Recognise political systems
5. Identify environmental uses and opportunities
6. Enhance health and wellbeing
7. Recognise personal and property rights
8. Acknowledge fears and aspirations

9. Identify cumulative effects and opportunities

 9

Presented by Jill Slinger

with thanks to Heleen Vreugdenhil,
Tally Palmer, Jacobiene Ritsema and
Floortje d’Hont
 10

Acknowledgements: