Systemic Design – a sustainable approach

Abstract

This article introduces Systemic Design (SD) as an approach for addressing complex and wicked problems, a category that encompasses those constituting the paradigm of unsustainability in contemporary ways of life and hindering local and global sustainable development. Using Literature Review as the primary method, it conceptualizes Systemic Design, identifies, and locates its main schools today, and, aiming to harmonize knowledge and terminology, presents the exogenous concepts adopted and shared by them in the form of a foundational theoretical framework. Subsequently, it provides an overview of the assimilation process of systemic and complexity theories by the epistemology of Design, especially Design for Sustainability, with the goal of promoting SD in the national context of education, research, and the development of sustainable solutions.