Luis Garcia’s doctoral research emerged from a simple but consequential observation: the ambitious promises of Carnegie Mellon University’s transition design and European Public Design did not account for the institutional realities of the
Mazzarotto, M., van Amstel, F. M. C., Oliveira Serpa, B., Marques, P., Gonzatto, R. F., & Carvalho, R. A. P. (2026, June). The Pasts and Futures of Latin American Participatory Design: Thinking and Making Participation from Where Our Feet S…
Murray, M., Barry, M., Halperin, B. A., O’Keefe, H., Duval, J., Vigil-Hayes, M., … & Robinson, S. (2026, June). Designing for Dissensus: Arts-Based Methods for Generative Friction in Design. In Companion Publication of the 2026 ACM Designin…
Murray, M., Barry, M., Halperin, B. A., O’Keefe, H., Duval, J., Vigil-Hayes, M., … & Robinson, S. (2026, June). Designing for Dissensus: Arts-Based Methods for Generative Friction in Design. In Companion Publication of the 2026 ACM Designin…
Abstract: Reality is so hard to change these days and, at the same time, so easy to deny, that design research is increasingly about virtual, augmented, mixed, and speculated realities. Prospective design is a research program born at UTFPR…
Digital interfaces have replaced so many face-to-face interactions that we almost forget what we are missing. As users, we take action, send orders, and sometimes hurt other people without even knowing whose faces are on the other side of t…
A talk delivered by Frederick van Amstel and Hien Phan at the Futures of Design Education series promoted by the DRS Education SIG. Screenshot Abstract: Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator who defied dictatorships, developed a literacy met…
My published academic work is now cited 1000 times in Google Scholar. Thank you to everyone who recognized its value. Thank you, 89 coauthors. It is hard to break this mark when you are working from the Global South. Open access fees are a
Tavares, Polyana Andrade, Gonzatto, Rodrigo Freese, Van Amstel, Frederick M. C. (forthcoming). Collective handiness in prospective design: a philosophical account of a serious play on articulation work. Proceedings of DRS 2026, Edinburgh. D…
Souza, Eduardo A. B. M., Saito, Carmem, Van Amstel, Frederick M. C., Gonzatto, Rodrigo Freese. (forthcoming). Who designs the designer? An anticolonial response to the world that design us back. Proceedings of DRS 2026 Edinburgh. Design Res…
Prospective Design Studies is a 60-hour graduate-level course in the Master’s in Prospective Design at UTFPR. The 2025 cohort was co-taught with Rodrigo Fresse Gonzatto and Geraldo Augusto Pinto. As an introductory course, Prospective Desig…
Object Theater is an extension of Theatre of the Oppressed that scrutinizes technology-mediated oppression and its symbolic and sensitive dimensions. Building upon the dramatic games developed by Augusto Boal that already engage everyday ob…