Systems are shaped by dominant mindsets that constrain which futures can be imagined or made possible. Supporting system transformation requires shifting temporal boundaries and revealing the hidden system logics. This study explores how design can contribute to understanding and reframing sociotechnical system change from within. In an empirical study conducted within a research consortium investigating the electrification of road freight transport, we, as design researchers, entered the system change as participants. Using a practice-oriented lens, we learned from riding in trucks, conducting contextual observations, and interviewing drivers and transport planners whose everyday work sustains the system. What is often portrayed as a tightly controlled, planned system instead revealed itself as held together by human skills. This study uncovered how systems are maintained by workarounds – established practices and improvised actions that expose hidden tensions and logics. We propose that workarounds can be used as potential leverage points for transformative change.

Moving across time horizons and system levels is challenging in collaborative innovation, where multiple agendas amplify complexity. As designers increasingly engage in processes aimed at transforming systems and fostering collaboration across boundaries, questions arise about how to navigate such complexity and orchestrate collaborative innovation. Situated within a collaborative innovation research project, this study draws on two empirical components: interviews with experienced design practitioners leading the multi-actor innovation processes, and the development and testing of a parallel design game. Design activities used for orchestrating collaborative innovation, identified through the interviews, informed the principles of the design game. The study presented here (1) identifies five key design activities used by designers to orchestrate collaborative innovation, (2) introduces design games as tools for orchestrating collaborative innovation, and (3) develops a framework demonstrating how design games can function as rehearsals for collaborative innovation, helping to establish real-world testbeds for systemic transformation.

Conducting living-lab research as part of transformative and transdisciplinary sustainability research presents both practical and methodological challenges. Design approaches and designerly ways of knowing offer alternative ways for generating actionable knowledge. This study examines how designerly living labs facilitate transformative learning through real-world experimentation. As part of the Mistra Sustainable Accessibility and Mobility Services (SAMS) research program, our consortium established a living lab in a semi-urban residential area south of Stockholm, Sweden. In collaboration with academia and private and public actors, we co-designed future prototypes of shared mobility services and implemented and tested them in participants’ everyday lives. This study explores the effects of various interventions, ranging from strict to soft disruptions, on participants’ engagement with sustainable mobility practices and transformative learning processes. The findings suggest that softer disruptions of practices can foster awareness; however, for deeper engagement in transformative learning, intervention strategies that disrupt practices are necessary. The article contributes to sustainability science by conceptualizing designerly living labs as intentionally designed learning spaces. By integrating design methods into living-lab research, the study demonstrates how situated experimentation and the rehearsal of future practices can support transformative learning.

The urgency of the climate crisis necessitates new forms of mitigation, and within the transport sector, a key measure is to reduce car use. This study presents empirical findings from a 10-month living lab experiment in which participants residing in a semi-urban area were challenged to halve their car trips while gaining access to new mobility and accessibility services. The results indicate that car trips were not significantly reduced despite high levels of motivation among participants, and the offered services were not integrated into participants' everyday life. These findings underscore two key points. First, reducing car dependency and transitioning to sustainable mobility in semi-urban areas requires more than the introduction of new technologies or services. Successful integration of new mobility and accessibility services demands a comprehensive understanding of local everyday practices and their associated mobility practices. Second, it is essential to acknowledge the established role of the car in everyday life in semi-urban contexts and to promote a willingness to adapt planning and infrastructure in ways that prioritise sustainable modes of transport, and restrict car access and use. We argue that without addressing these issues, efforts to reduce car use through adding new mobility services are likely to fall short, limiting their effectiveness in achieving sustainable mobility goals.

This paper describes a participatory pastcasting workshop designed using action-oriented design research methods in close collaboration with practitioners from Omställningsnätverket (the Swedish Transition Network) as co-researchers. The paper deepens the theoretical understanding of how to implement pastcasting, a novel addition to futures studies methodologies aimed at societal transformation. We outline the process of designing the workshop format and insights from running the workshop in two different locations in Sweden. We propose that exploring complex problems such as climate change as if they have already been solved in an alternative, more desirable present and then imagining what we did to address them in the recent past is liberating and generative of ideas for action. We argue that this methodology is a powerful addition to other futuring techniques as it concretises urgently needed societal transformations and brings them closer to people and their communities.

Transitions of transport systems are necessary to meet climate targets and reach sustainable development goals. Sustainable transport needs to be equitable, efficient, safe, and green. Transport systems need to become less resource-intensive, whereby sharing and utilising resources more efficiently can be a route forward. However, for well-functioning sharing, the involved stakeholders need to collaborate. Thus, sharing resources can mean sharing material and physical resources, such as vehicles and places, but it can also mean sharing immaterial and intangible resources, such as time and responsibilities. Through an interview study exploring shared resources in goods deliveries at off-peak hours in Stockholm-based trials, opportunities for organising transport system innovations have been investigated. Interviews were carried out with thirteen respondents involved in, or related to, off-peak logistics, and trigger materials were used to deepen the conversation when discussing the logistics service systems. Off-peak trials can be seen as innovation processes affected by several conditions. Innovation processes are collaborative, and collaborative innovation involves decision-making coordination across organisational boundaries. The concepts of sensemaking and sensegiving are used to analyse the studied collaborative innovation processes. However, stakeholders engaged in innovating sustainable transport systems must find new ways to collaborate, as ambiguity and uncertainty are more extensive than in their day-to-day business development or the incremental development of new services. This study shows that conditions for such collaborative innovation processes vary between different types of collaborative settings, as innovation depends on the transformative capacity to alter types of stakeholder agreements and roles and agree on how to share resources and design such sharing. Designing for resource sharing requires understanding how to design tangible and intangible buffers, and for the involved stakeholders to make sense of such new designs.

Self-driving vehicles have been hailed as a revolutionary force that will benefit society through increased accessibility and reduced accident rates. However, implementing such a new technological system will be complex, requiring immense societal adaptions and changes. In this paper, we analyse the challenges faced in implementing self-driving vehicles based on interviews with onboard operators and stakeholders responsible for the operations of self-driving buses in northwest Stockholm, Sweden. From these interviews, we suggest a framework for understanding which societal changes would be required to implement self-driving vehicles.

We highlight the complexities of self-driving and the sociotechnical perspective needed to understand the challenges of implementing self-driving vehicles, underscoring human drivers' complex and tacit knowledge. Further, we identify a crucial technological gap in the vehicles' understanding of context, suggesting that comprehensive self-driving operation requires a form of general intelligence beyond the current, specialised, driving-only intelligence. The findings presented in this paper pave the way for further research and efforts needed to enable broader adoption of self-driving vehicles and offer insights for policymakers to guide future legislation in self-driving transport. 

In conclusion, several adaptions are required to facilitate self-driving vehicles. However, policymakers are advised to uphold stringent transport requirements, regardless of human or machine drivers, and resist any pressures to unnecessarily relax regulations. Such a cautious approach will ensure the continued prioritisation of safety and efficacy without compromising the human norms and behaviours that are integral and necessary to transport systems. 

To support sustainability transitions several different design approaches are required. In a series of Designerly Living Labs, we have prototyped possible sustainable futures in the context of people’s everyday lives to explore the complexities of lifestyle changes and socio-technical system shifts. Together with users engaged as reflexive co-researchers, we have explored potential new practices and uncovered system-level tensions and deficiencies. System changes have been initiated by engaging relevant actors in learning processes and by bridging learning to decision-makers. However, the approach requires some rethinking of design as a practice. Instead of supporting people’s current needs and lifestyles, we design for sustainable futures that users do not yet request. This emerging design practice challenges traditional co-design and user participation methods, leading to new ethical considerations.

When designing for sustainability, design as a practice needs an altered position. Designing learning spaces with a practice-oriented design can be such an approach. In three mobility interventions that were design-led practice interventions, this design practice was tried out. Furthermore, in these interventions, conditions for sustainable mobility practices were studied. As a suggested design for sustainability approach, aiming to transform socio-technical systems, a design focus on enabling learning spaces where collaborative sensemaking takes place is proposed. However, designing such learning spaces requires careful crafting and designing with altered design postures.