Designing Questions is a reader from the Department of Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, setting out an approach to design education built on asking better questions rather than supplying ready-made answers.
About This Book
Edited by Nikolas Heep, Anab Jain and Stefan Zinell, the book asks how design teaching can sustain hope when crises overlap—climate breakdown and fast-moving technology among them. Its answer is a pedagogy of curiosity: students are trained in speculative practice, in building worlds through hands-on work with materials, and in storytelling as a design tool.
Alongside documentation of the department's approach, essays from international voices in design, art and theory widen the frame. The result is less a manual than a method—one that treats the framing of a problem as the most consequential design decision.
Key Features
- Edited by Nikolas Heep, Anab Jain and Stefan Zinell
- Contributions from Zoy Anastassakis, Paola Antonelli, Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Lilli Hollein, Rory Hyde, Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and Fiona Raby, among others
- 125 colour illustrations
- Designed by Theresa Hattinger
What You'll Discover
- How speculative design and world-building can be taught as rigorous practices
- Why framing a question well matters more than arriving quickly at a solution
- Ways material experimentation and storytelling feed into design thinking
- How design education might respond to climate change and technological acceleration
About the Editors
Anab Jain is a designer and professor who leads the Department of Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Nikolas Heep and Stefan Zinell teach in the department, bringing interdisciplinary expertise to its work across speculative, ecological and critical design education.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Dimensions: 171 × 241 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783775761857
- Publisher: Hatje Cantz
Perfect For: Design students and educators, researchers in speculative and critical design, and practitioners looking for methods to approach complex global problems.