Call for Papers
Call for Papers
We invite you to join us for the Twenty-First International Conference on Design Principles & Practices, the annual meeting of the Design Principles & Practices Research Network, taking place 10–12 March 2027 in Dublin, Ireland, and online, in partnership with our host institution, TU Dublin School of Art & Design.
Founded as an interdisciplinary forum for exploring the meaning and purpose of design across disciplines, professions, and contexts, the International Conference on Design Principles & Practices brings together designers, architects, artists, educators, researchers, and practitioners concerned with how design operates as inquiry, collaboration, and transformation. The annual conference serves as the Network’s central meeting point for those working across interconnected disciplinary, professional, and cultural settings to address the social, cultural, technological, and environmental challenges of contemporary life.
In 2027, the conference’s special focus, “Design Tolerance,” invites participants to examine how design responds to difference, variability, uncertainty, and constraint in a world marked by increasing diversity and complexity. Design tolerance speaks to the capacity of systems, objects, environments, and practices to accommodate multiple uses, bodies, identities, cultures, and futures—moving beyond rigid standardization toward more flexible, inclusive, and resilient forms. In contrast to earlier eras that privileged uniformity and control, today’s design challenges demand approaches that acknowledge plural needs, contested values, and dynamic social conditions. Design tolerance thus emerges not as compromise, but as a critical design principle—ethical as well as technical.
This special focus encourages reflection on how designers negotiate tensions between precision and openness, regulation and creativity, safety and experimentation, efficiency and care. It raises questions about how tolerance is embedded in materials, infrastructures, interfaces, policies, and processes, and how design decisions shape who is included, excluded, protected, or placed at risk. Contributions may consider tolerance in relation to accessibility and disability, cultural and linguistic difference, sustainability and environmental limits, participatory and co-design practices, and the politics of standards and compliance. Design tolerance also prompts reflection on professional responsibility: how designers internalize social imperatives such as equity, access, sustainability, and safety, and how these imperatives reshape design practice itself.
Dublin provides a particularly resonant local context for these conversations. As a city shaped by layered histories, rapid urban change, cultural hybridity, and creative industries, Dublin offers a living laboratory for examining how design operates within conditions of social diversity, regulatory complexity, and cultural negotiation. TU Dublin School of Art & Design, with its strong emphasis on practice-based learning, public engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration, offers an ideal host setting in which to explore design tolerance as both concept and practice, grounded in real urban, social, and cultural environments.
Alongside the special focus, we welcome proposals aligned with the Network’s ongoing concerns, including design theory and philosophy; design education and pedagogy; participatory and user-centered design; multimodality and digital design practices; sustainability and social design; design and professional practice; and design’s role in shaping culture, meaning, and social change. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, methodological, practice-based, creative, or community-engaged, and may draw from architecture, industrial design, visual communication, interaction design, fashion, service design, urban design, and emerging design disciplines.
Knowledge Experience
The conference will be held in a hybrid format, combining in-person sessions at TU Dublin School of Art & Design with live online sessions and asynchronous presentations. All registered delegates—whether attending in person or online—have access to the full online program and its growing archive of presentations and discussions.
Hosted within the Network’s shared digital environment, the conference is conceived as part of an ongoing knowledge experience rather than a one-off meeting. Proposals become Presentation Pages, sessions are woven into a shared schedule, and digital media and discussion spaces support engagement before, during, and after the event. This model enables sustained, reciprocal exchange across geographies, time zones, and design disciplines.
Publication Pathways
Accepted presenters are invited to further develop their work for possible publication in the journals associated with the Design Principles & Practices Research Network. These include Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, which provides a comprehensive forum for integrative and cross-cutting scholarship on the nature, meaning, and purpose of design, as well as the Network’s thematic journals: The International Journal of Designed Objects, The International Journal of Design Education, The International Journal of Design in Society, The International Journal of Design Management and Professional Practice, and The International Journal of Visual Design.
Presenters may also propose extended works for the Design Principles & Practices Book Imprint, which publishes monographs and edited collections advancing research and practice across design disciplines. All journals and book imprints offer options for traditional and Open Access publication.
Membership and Community
Membership in the Design Principles & Practices Research Network is included in all Presenter Passes, making conference participation a meaningful way to activate and extend membership throughout the year. Membership supports the ongoing work of the Network—its conferences, journals, books, and shared digital infrastructure.
Members participate in an online knowledge community that connects the full research and practice cycle: preparation, presentation, reflection, peer exchange, and publication. This shared space sustains dialogue and collaboration well beyond the scheduled conference sessions.
Join Us
We warmly invite you to submit a proposal and to join us—either in Dublin or online—for the Twenty-First International Conference on Design Principles & Practices. Together, we will explore how design tolerance can inform more inclusive, responsive, and resilient design practices in a world defined by difference, change, and interdependence.
Sincerely,
Aija Freimane, Conference Chair, TU Dublin School of Art and Design, Ireland
Con Kennedy, Conference Committee, TU Dublin School of Art and Design, Ireland
Ceri Almrott, Conference Committee, TU Dublin School of Art and Design, Ireland
Benjamin Readman, Conference Committee, TU Dublin School of Art and Design, Ireland