Drawing things together

in total agreement, we do not need to gather to solve disputes, since there are none. Instead, the need for a common place, where conflicts can be negotiated, is motivated by a diversity of perspectives, concerns, and interests. This shift in meaning of the word thing is also of interest when reflecting on the practice of design. We suggest that we revisit and partly reverse the etymological history of things. A major challenge for design today has to do with what is being designed—not just a thing (an object, an entity of matter) but also a thing (a socio-material assembly that deals with matters of concern). How can we as professional designers work, live, and act in a public that permits a heterogeneity of perspectives together denotes who is participating and how they are included. We find this challenge utterly relevant to contemporary design practice and design thinking, and have collectively (as A. Telier) for a decade reflected upon how to respond to such a challenge. First as participants in Atelier, a European research project focusing on designing and understanding digital tools and mixed-media support for collaborative design environments [2], then as the collective writers of a book, Design Things. In short, this is the response we gave in that book [3].