Designing Questions

A groundbreaking reader in design pedagogy from the Department of Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, asking a foundational question: how can design education foster hope in times of crisis rather than simply training students to serve existing systems? The book introduces a radically different approach to teaching design, one that emphasizes speculative practices, world-building, material engagement, and storytelling as tools for addressing urgent contemporary challenges. Rather than training designers to provide ready-made solutions, this pedagogy cultivates the essential but neglected ability to ask better, deeper, more transformative questions.

Contributors include Paola Antonelli, Fiona Raby, Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, Lilli Hollein, and Rory Hyde, each opening up different perspectives on design's potential role in a world undergoing transformation. For design educators seeking alternatives to market-driven curricula, for students wanting to understand design as a critical practice, and for practitioners interested in how design can engage with the most pressing questions of our time.