Wildfires rage, species vanish, and entire ecosystems collapse—yet, much of contemporary design still centres select human needs, reinforcing extractive, market-driven solutions that exploit natures and peoples alike, especially in the Global South. Since its inception, design theory and practice have been governed by rationalist, technocratic, and human-centred perspectives that treat “nature” as something to be fixed, managed, or optimised, always from the outside. But human activities have profoundly shaped the planet, blurring the very boundaries between what we call “natural” and “artificial.” If these categories no longer hold, how must we rethink our ideas of humans, nature, and technology—and, with them, the role of design?

The concept of the more-than-human builds on posthumanist thought, which challenges anthropocentric notions of autonomy and human exceptionalism. Posthumanism recognises that agency is not exclusive to humans but shared among plants, animals, rivers, bacteria, algorithms, satellites, things, materials, etc., all of which co-create the worlds we inhabit. Simply put, more-than-human refers to that which is not only human (it includes and exceeds it) and is constituted by humans and nonhumans and their interactions (e.g., a more-than-human world). While posthumanism critiques modern human/nature, culture/nature, and nature/technology dualisms, more-than-human design brings these insights into practice, expanding design’s scope to include these nonhuman entities not as background, tool, or resources but as stakeholders and active participants in design activities and processes. This approach invites designers to work in ways that acknowledge relationality and interdependence and address the ethical and political implications of such entanglements.

This seminar takes a critical and justice-oriented approach, moving beyond hegemonic modernist frameworks toward more-than-human perspectives in design. Drawing from Indigenous scholars, feminist posthumanities, and decolonial thought, we will explore design as a relational practice within an interdependent world of humans and nonhumans. We will question inherited Western dualisms and investigate how material agency, multispecies relations, and distributed networks of actors shape our social and political realities. What does it mean to design with and for the more-than-human world? How can we reimagine design ethics and politics when agency is shared across humans and nonhumans? How can design attend to the urgent socio-ecological crisis without reproducing the very structures of inequality and exploitation upon which it was built?

Through weekly readings, discussions, writings, and excursions, we will:

• Analyse how social, political, and ethical values are embedded in designed artefacts, systems, and infrastructures.
• Engage with case studies—from lithium extraction in South America to algorithmic bias in AI—to trace hidden entanglements of power, technology, and ecology within design.
• Develop critical sensitivities for attuning to more-than-human relations and envisioning life-affirming design possibilities.
• Explore alternative design imaginaries that foster respectful, generative, and plural ways of coexisting with both nature and technologies.

Join in!