Preconfigurative Designing

Design is typically understood as the creation of objects, systems or processes that interact with what we call the real world. This applied form of creation is preconfigured by underlying conditions. Such conditions can include particular methods embedded within a specific design practice. In turn, these practices are often grounded in a theory of design that emerged from a particular assumption about the world. Here is a common example to illustrate this. The design as practiced in many organizations today is framed by an anthropocentric assumption, from which theoretical ideas such as human-centered design have emerged. The centering of humans is mostly applied to product and service design practices, often relying on ethnographic and other research methods to meet the needs of people. This stream of preconfiguration shapes how design is practiced in the real world, while often remaining unconsidered as an object of design. This has been widely criticized, leading to concepts like more-than-human-centered design or planet-centered design alongside broader critiques of centeredness itself. What these concepts and critiques attempt to do is to move further upstream of preconfiguration and rethink the assumptions and conditions that design the actual design practice. Given that many concepts, even those that appear contemporary, can quickly become outdated in a rapidly changing world, design practices may need to regularly redesign their underlying preconfiguration. While design theory has long engaged with this, the continuing separation between theory and practice has resulted in a multitude of practitioners operating within strongly anchored preconfigurations. It is still uncommon for design to operate across multiple levels of these underlying conditions, but it arguably should be. Engaging with foundational questions could therefore be understood as an integral part of design practice, not as an end, but as a starting point to continue redesigning the stream of preconfiguration until real-world conditions take shape.

Mar 17, 2026