Designing the X

The power of design for transformational change and innovation.

As we transition from the Information Age into the Imagination Age, where creative intelligence and human-only traits are vital to navigating supercomplex and rapidly changing environments, design has become an essential partner to science and technology, driving transformational change and innovation: integrative, inventive, and profoundly human.

As the pace of global change accelerates—ecologically, socially, and technologically—our traditional ways of understanding and responding to change fall short. We now live in an era of supercomplexity, where challenges like technological disruption, climate instability, resource depletion, and systemic inequality converge and defy conventional solutions.

Designing the X meets this moment with a bold and timely proposition: when data, science, and analysis alone are insufficient to move us forward, we must turn to design as a powerful mode of reasoning through synthesis, where intuition meets insight and imagination drives action. Design enables us to move with complexity, not against it, and to shape futures beyond the limits of the present. 

Grounded in praxis and research—including more than 60 interviews with designers, technologists and scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs, urbanists, and educators—Designing the X makes a compelling case for design as an essential partner to science and technology. The “X” stands for what’s missing in today’s analytic methods: the leap from parts to greater wholes, from current conditions to future potential.

This book is for anyone seeking agency in an age of accelerating change. It’s a compass for those ready to imagine—and design—the future we cannot yet see.

See book webpage: designingthex.comI. Confronting The X

• A Call to Action
• Designing the X: A Framework
• The Role of Design in Complex Problem Solving
• Designing the X: A Framework (overview of the framework)

Key Conversation

• Hashim Sarkis, Professor, and Dean, MIT School of Architecture and Planning

II. Align: Essential Intent

• Define Intentions
• Align Objectives
• Identify Desired Impact

MITdesignX in Practice

• Biobot: biobot.io
• Bandhu: bandhu.work

Key Conversations

• John Ochsendorf, Professor and Founding Director, MIT Academy for Design
• Peter Coughlan, Founding Partner, IDEO

UNICEF
Example of Historical Design Deployment
III. Engage: Strategies

• Identify Opportunities
• (Re)Frame
• Visualize

MITdesignX in Practice

• Quipu: about.quipumarket.com
• Roofscapes: roofscapes.studio
• Example of Historical Design Deployment

Key Conversations

• Dava Newman, Director of the MIT Media Lab and Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics
• Nicholas de Monchaux, designer, author, Professor and Head of Architecture at MIT
• World Health Organization

IV. Flow: Process

• Iterative Action
• Elastic Response
• Multiscalar Focus

MITdesignX in Practice

• TULU: tulu.io
• Frolic: frolic.community

Key Conversations

• Maria Yang, Associate Dean MIT School of Engineering and Associate Director MIT Design Academy
• Kengo Kuma, Architect and Founder of Kengo Kuma and Associates
• Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School
• Example of Historical Design Deployment

V. CHOREOGRAPH: Sensemaking

• Take Risks
• Follow Intuition
• Apply Soft Skills
• Think Ethically

MITdesignX in Practice

• Re-fuse: refuse.eco
• Visible Hands: visiblehands.vc

Key Conversations

• Molly Steenson, Vice Provost for Faculty, Associate Professor in the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University
• Marcelo Coelho, computation artist and Head of Design at Formlabs

NASA
Example of Historical Design Deployment
VI. TAKE ACTION: Make Change

• Creating Value
• Generating Meaning
• Making an Impact

APPENDIX

• Timeline of Evolving Definitions of Design
• Catalog of Design Tools+Methods

"What makes this book so timely—and timeless—is that it speaks to the designer in all of us—not only the one who sits in front of a screen sketching icons or products, but anyone who wakes up each morning and tries to make something better. A conversation. A company. A society. A culture. A future. It reminds us of something essential: that every choice we make is a design decision, and that the future is not written. It is designed."
—Mauro Porcini, President & Chief Design Officer│Samsung

"This book is a ‘must-read’ for those of us looking to discover new ways of designing in this AI-enhanced design era."
—Diane Hoskins, Global Co-Chair at GenslerDennis Frenchman is Professor, Post-Tenure, at MIT. He has taught and practiced extensively in Asia, Europe, and South America, and served as external advisor on urban livability to the president of the World Bank. A registered architect, he is also founding principal of ICON architecture in Boston, an international architecture and urban design firm.

Svafa Grönfeldt is a professor of the practice in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. She is a founding member and faculty director of MITdesignX, a program focused on design innovation and entrepreneurship, and a member of the board of directors of three publicly listed companies on Nasdaq OMX and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Sigurdur Thorsteinsson is Partner and Chief Design Officer at Design Group Italia. He leads strategic design projects across industries for clients like 3M, ABB, Unilever and Unicef and is a recipient of multiple awards including the Compasso d’Oro, numerous Red Dots and iFs. His work is continually featured in publications, such as Dezeen, Wallpaper, Financial Times, and Time magazine.