The practice guidelines are to be used by design practices—the entire staff of independent design consultancies or entire design teams within businesses—to address how the functional operations of designing can be transformed toward postcapitalist principles both in the long term and on a day-to-day basis. The goal is to erode capitalist structures and logics by formalizing and instituting postcapitalist models in the structure and daily operations of practice. The questions that make up the guidelines should be considered a starting point. They should be addressed and updated through ongoing discussions with a practice’s participants and constituents (in today’s terms, “clients” and “users”) as well as with the broader communities—local geographic and global associations—in which a practice is socially embedded.
It is recommended to begin and sustain this process through regular workplace-shared-governance meetings and community-of-practice meetings. These meetings should be held at least annually, if not more often. The goal of these meetings is to map challenges and opportunities in determining the future work to be done by the practice. Workplace-shared-governance meetings include everyone directly involved in the design practice, even administrative, technical, facilities maintenance, and support staff. Community-of-practice meetings include the entire “community,” which comprises all employees, partners, vendors, clients, representatives of the constituent community (people who use the designed outcomes), and neighbors in the physical community. Community-assets and community-needs maps should be revised at these meetings as living documents that can continually guide the PCD practice.
👉 Home
Postcapitalist Design Guidelines