Designers enact and shape the realities as they are in the present, and they create and realize new realities and future possibilities. Designers work on the contingency of the world as it is, and they explore the world as it could be. It is this particular character of a design-specific way of knowing and acting, which is at the core of the BIRD Design Research Symposium 2008 in Basel. The research focus of the conference is on describing, understanding and explaining design as a way of creating new realities, on exploring, discussing and comparing multiple approaches and strategies of designers in this perspective, as well as on their study in design research.
Creating new realities relates to a core dimension of design and the design process in general; the BIRD Symposium 2008 will particularly focus on this core dimension in the context of the present situation: How do designers create new realities, at the beginning of the 21st century? What are particular opportunities and challenges of designing today? Thereby, it will be interesting to discuss, whether they ways in which designers create new realities is particular today or whether is essentially the same independent of specific contexts and situations; whether their interpretations of recent developments and current challenges influences their ways of creating new realities. In essence, we are thus interested in understanding the particular repertoires and ways of knowing, which are important for design practice and design theory today.