The practice guidelines are to be used by design practices—the entire staff of independent design consultancies or entire design teams within businesses—to address how the functional operations of designing can be transformed toward postcapitalist principles both in the long term and on a day-to-day basis. The goal is to erode capitalist structures and logics by formalizing and instituting postcapitalist models in the structure and daily operations of practice. The questions that make up the guidelines should be considered a starting point. They should be addressed and updated through ongoing discussions with a practice’s participants and constituents (in today’s terms, “clients” and “users”) as well as with the broader communities—local geographic and global associations—in which a practice is socially embedded.
It is recommended to begin and sustain this process through regular workplace-shared-governance meetings and community-of-practice meetings. These meetings should be held at least annually, if not more often. The goal of these meetings is to map challenges and opportunities in determining the future work to be done by the practice. Workplace-shared-governance meetings include everyone directly involved in the design practice, even administrative, technical, facilities maintenance, and support staff. Community-of-practice meetings include the entire “community,” which comprises all employees, partners, vendors, clients, representatives of the constituent community (people who use the designed outcomes), and neighbors in the physical community. Community-assets and community-needs maps should be revised at these meetings as living documents that can continually guide the PCD practice.
PCD Guidelines
PCD 30
How might we distribute and institutionalize social, economic, and political relations through patterns of operation?
Socializing the Enterprise
Social Power x Practice
PCD 31
How might we build a socially empowered organizational network of constituents, collaborators, and contributors?
Socializing the Enterprise
Social Power x Practice
PCD 32
How might we socialize the workplace, including everyone directly involved in the design practice?
Socializing the Enterprise
Social Power x Practice
PCD 33
How might we socialize the community, including all employees, partners, vendors, clients, and neighbors?
Socializing the Enterprise
Social Power x Practice
PCD 34
How might we operate cooperatively, sharing ownership and governance with those whose efforts, knowledge, and labor support the enterprise?
Socializing the Enterprise
Social Power x Practice
PCD 35
How might we determine and achieve what is necessary for the practice’s and community’s personal and social survival?
Commoning the Surplus
Community Economies x Practice
PCD 36
How might we determine whether and how social surplus will be produced and consumed with and for the practice and its community?
Commoning the Surplus
Community Economies x Practice
PCD 37
How might we appropriate and distribute social surplus collectively, with and for the practice and its community?
Commoning the Surplus
Community Economies x Practice
PCD 38
How might we build and sustain a (or some) commons—commons of materials, equipment, knowledge, information, space to be used for diverse activities, file sharing, peer-to-peer instruction or guidance, and so on?
Commoning the Surplus
Community Economies x Practice
PCD 39
How might we reduce material and energy needs in operating a practice?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 40
How might we reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels in operating a practice?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 41
How might we strategize the ongoing reduction of fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources in all that the practice produces and consumes, including energy needs of digital services and production of designed outcomes?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 42
How might we localize production of material goods to minimize shipping and fuel use?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 43
How might we ensure participants the “right to unplug,” support non-work-related interests, fulfill educational interests and personal flourishing of participants, collaborators, and constituents?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 44
How might we design so that our collaborators and constituents can flourish and live comfortably while consuming less material, energy, and cognitive or attention resources?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 45
How might we normalize PCD practice by sharing processes, methods, outcomes, and challenges?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 46
How might we demonstrate successful models of design and community flourishing through our practice, sharing our best practices and nurturing new participants?
Organizational Degrowth
Degrowth x Practice
PCD 47
How might we generate design-driven desire for PCD ways of living, making, knowing, and working?
Postcapitalist Designers
Postcapitalist Subjectivities x Practice
PCD 48
How might we share, disseminate, and promote PCD models of practice for adoption by others?
Postcapitalist Designers
Postcapitalist Subjectivities x Practice
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