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Design Forge 2027

design forge 2027 logo with cultivation theme

March 24-26

Cultivation

The 2027 Design Forge will explore how we design for cultivation. To cultivate is to devote oneself to the ongoing processes of nurturing, seeking and growing, through intentional attention, learning, and care.

As we explore this theme together we invite you to consider how design might help us draw from the past, reimagine what is possible, reshape our relationships, and cultivate more intentional futures:

  • Remember: How might we tap into deeply rooted knowledge systems that might nourish future generations?
  • Reimagine: How might we design for cultivating resilient communities and diverse social-cultural ecosystems that balance needs and resources with care, and which allow for emergence?
  • Remake: How might we design systems that allow for continuous refinement of relationships with ourselves and others?
  • Restory: What might happen when we reframe design as a process of cultivation? How might design as praxis open opportunities for more intentional growth and decline?

Logistics

The 2027 Forge will take place online and at Ƶ on March 24 & 25. On March 26, in-person attendees are invited to extend their time together through a Forging Fridays Writing Fellowship.

 

 

Presenters

Watch this space for more info about Design Forge sessions as we build the schedule.

Rafe Steinhauer

forging fridays presenter Rafe Steinhauer

Cultivation, Care, and Gardening in Design & Education

Session Description

How might “cultivation” help us rethink design education and practice? Our opening keynote asks us to consider the conference theme as a provocation for our time together and beyond.  “Cultivate” carries a botanical inheritance in tension with modern design and education. Cultivation’s connotative opposite could be “bootcamp”: intensive, bounded, output-driven. Design loves a good bootcamp, charette, workshop; higher education slices life into terms, credit hours, class years. Both traditions run on what Allison Gopnik might call “carpentry logic”—define objectives, arrange the parts, move on. Our goal will not be to resolve the tension between cultivating and boot camping, but to leave with a sharper sense–and tangible ideas–for how we might cultivate more in our work.

About Rafe Steinhauer

Rafe is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College who studies, teaches, and practices the design of education. He founded an Education Design Clinic in which teams of K-12 educators and administrators learn and apply methods of co-design to school improvement projects. In higher ed, he leads faculty development workshops on everything from Metacognition & AI to Applying Philosophy of Education to Practice. Rafe was the 2025 winner of the Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching. He holds a BSE in from Princeton University and dual MBA/MEd degrees in Innovation in Education from the University of Virginia.

Susie Wise

Susie Wise design forge speaker

Design for Emergence: Ways to Cultivate Emergence with the Tools and Mindsets of Design

Session Description

Our world and the circumstances we inhabit are in a constant state of change and yet we plan as if we know the future. Design for emergence is the notion that we can use the tools of design to be with what is and move accordingly as conditions evolve, embracing change as a method of cultivating the future. In a nutshell planning is bullshit. As a field we have a need to develop in ourselves and support in our co-design collaborators approaches to be with what emerges. Prototyping as a method and a mindset helps us do this. In this interactive session we will explore how we turn classic design tools from synthesis and prototyping into ones we can use to design for emergence.

About Susie Wise

Susie wrote Design for Belonging: How to Build Inclusion and Collaboration in Your Communities (2022), a visual guide that explores ways to create trust, respect, and stronger connections among teams and communities. Her work focuses on reducing “othering” and creating spaces where people feel included. She has worked as a design leader across education, technology, and social impact.

Carlye Lauff

Carlye Lauff, design forge speaker

Prototypes as Invitations

About Carlye Lauff

Carlye is a design researcher, innovation strategist, and enthusiastic instructor who blends human-centered design practice with systems thinking approaches. She has helped more than 25 global organizations re-think their design processes and strategies, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies to universities.

Desiree Gonzalez and Isabella Thomas

Restorative Design in Practice

Desirée Gonzalez design forge speaker

About Desiree Gonzalez

Desirée Gonzalez is redefining the meaning of aesthetic intervention—her work frames space as a vessel for healing, justice, culture, and ecology. By weaving together restorative justice, depth psychology, trauma awareness, and cultural belonging, she offers a replicable design model that centers dignity, resilience, and liberation.

Isabella Thomas design forge speaker

About Isabella Thomas

Isabella is an Outreach and Engagement Designer with AmeriCorps VISTA, a Junior Architectural Designer at Sky Langan Studios, and a design professor at George Fox University, holding a Master of Architecture and a BA in Management.

Saad Shehab

Saad Shehab design forge speaker

Cultivating Human-Centered Communities: What Can We Build Together in K–12 Schools?

About Saad Shehab

Saad Shehab is the Senior Associate Director of Research and Strategic Initiatives at the Siebel Center for Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He leads research on teaching and learning human-centered design in formal and informal settings. His work focuses on students’ collaborative problem-solving and how teachers support these processes in STEM classrooms.

Evan Small

design forge presenter and elon professor evan small

Cultivating Community through Experiential Education

Session Description

This experiential and highly interactive student-led session will get you moving and encourage reflection on your connections to–and relationship with–the world around you. You’ll be encouraged to utilize principles of experiential education to cultivate a stronger sense of community and belonging, while you reflect with others on how you can conceptualize your relationship with the natural world, wherever you call home.

About Evan Small

Dr. Evan Small is a faculty member in the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education. Evan has been a practitioner and scholar of experiential education in various forms for many years, with a strong background in service-learning, study abroad, undergraduate research, and outdoor education. Evan’s research interests include integrating experiential education with social justice and critical pedagogy, fostering educational communities focused on belonging and mattering, incorporating experiential education into K-12 formal education settings, and facilitator skill development.