Stack of library books, most of them about sickness.
Chronic design is a short research paper (and a preliminary theoretical contribution) that asks what new possibilities emerge when design frees itself from a paradigm of “fixing.” Drawing on theories of illness, disability, and design philosophy, I put forward a model for how living with illness can become an ethic of its own.
If the disciplines of medicine and design each seek to improve situations, designers have much in common with doctors. In creating prostheses, wearables, and assistive technologies, designers intervene in bodies to improve function and alleviate discomfort. The ethics of this, however, are contested, as scholars critique how ongoing design interventions can problematize minds and bodies as requiring perpetual repair. With this in mind, how can designers alleviate suffering while ethically engaging with chronicity?
I suggest that deriving the concept of ‘chronic’ from the medical field for use in the design field may ignite new approaches to long-term human-object relationships. While acute (short-term) contexts are amenable to clean-cut solutions, chronic (long-term) contexts often involve problems that can only be managed, never solved. Thus, living with a long-term design intervention or object is like a chronic condition in itself, one with deep implications for agency and personhood. The idea of ‘chronic design’ is an ethical provocation that considers chronic conditions not simply as problems to be solved, but as sites of experience, identity, and imagination.
Design4Health Amsterdam, 2020 (solo author)