The PhD project should develop SOD methodology and practice further to meet the challenges from high-level complexity defined as multiple nested and interlinked “problematiques” or problem networks, involving multiple owners and affecting a range of bystanders, stakeholders and other actors. It should seek to enlarge the repertoire of SOD to embrace an increased trans-disciplinary approach without losing its designerly core.
SOD Theory building
Research in SOD is strongly inter- and transdisciplinary, bridging the creative disciplines of design, including engineering design, architecture and landscape/urban planning, with sustainability science at the natural-social science interface. SOD clearly looks at the entire systems of complex challenges, from natural resources extraction, to material and product supply chains, to services, to people interaction, to the built environment, to communities and urban environments, to landscapes and economies.
SOD aims to develop new methodologies. It draws from a vast literature in the fields of design and systems thinking concerning reflection in practice, design thinking, visual thinking and gestalt theory, soft systems theory, systems architecting, systems engineering, critical systems thinking as well as parts of systems dynamics and second order cybernetics. Most importantly, these methodologies relate to practice-based research and particularly. Theory development here is bottom up through research by (and through) design, fieldwork, and methods related to action research, co-design and enquiry grounded in real life experiences.
