Designing for wellbeing

that are characteristic of visual arts. Second, design competence and the
societal role of design is also built on the long traditions of craft, including
knowledge of materials and manufacturing techniques, respect for precedents,
the ability to make thoughts tangible and a passion for high quality
craftsmanship. Third, design aims at initiating change and, as such, needs
to be seen within the practices of innovation. Designs need to be realised
to become socially or commercially beneficial, making collaboration with
technical, commercial and administrative partners a key requirement for
impactful design. Fourth, good design is based on a proper understanding
of reality and justified assumptions. Consequently, design applies methods
and knowledge parallel to those used in research. In some cases design
can also be seen as a way to produce new knowledge that supplements
traditional methods of academic knowledge creation. Depending on the
particular design project, the team involved and the stage of the process,
designers can choose approaches, points of view and arguments that
borrow from various different disciplines. Competent designers have the
skills to draw from the methods of art, craft, innovation and research. To
summarise, design is a complex and integrative field, drawing on a broad
repertoire of sources.
Wellbeing is a concept used to refer to quality of life in a broader sense
than just health, adequate income, or satisfying social relationships. Wellbeing
is something that is experienced subjectively and individually, but is
at the same time fundamentally social and dependent on the man-made
environment, i.e. on design. Often the wellbeing of the weaker is seen as
needing the stronger to share their wellbeing. In some other cases wellbeing
is seen as an extra for those that can afford it. It is a key concern of
our social value systems and in political decision-making about how to
allocate common resources.
In 365 Wellbeing, the complex idea was practically managed by adopting
a couple of different stakeholder perspectives or levels of analysis. In
some of our projects, wellbeing was looked at from the point of view of
10 · Design, wellbeing and design for wellbeing