MFA in Design with Specialisation in Embedded Design

Companies and organisations in private, public, and non-profit sectors are increasingly seeking competence and knowledge in meeting the challenges of globalisation, digitalisation, and sustainability. In response to these global challenges, organisations and communities must rethink their models of action and their current approaches to value creation. This requires going beyond innovation for novelty's sake to fostering a deeper understanding of designing for change in and with organisations, markets, and economies.

The master’s programme in Embedded Design addresses the field of design that is particularly situated in complex and systemic contexts. It prepares you to be a friendly collaborator while simultaneously taking a critical—and even disruptive—stance in your role as a designer. This stance, the program’s linchpin, emphasizes designerly actions in terms of both material form-giving (gestaltning) and the reconceptualization of systems of relations. This reconceptualization emphasizes an explorative and reflective search for alternative configurations. The programme highlights the situated and messy character of organisational life and the role of material agencies in collapsing or connecting the micro level of practices and routines with the macro level of institutional systems. Therefore, within an embedded design practice, the contextualisation of organisations constitutes an arena for experimentation and intervention whereby artistic skills are crucial.

Sustainability focused

In this programme, you will gain the skills to use design in and around corporations, institutions, public organisations, and society, providing sustainable and long-lasting design solutions involving artefacts, services, social interventions, and organisational changes, among other possibilities. The design process is based on interdisciplinary collaboration, where design tools act as enablers to productively unpack and reframe challenges, as well as, to understand and reformulate complex problems. You will develop a deeper understanding of how design can be used on the organisational level and for social renewal, learning how to approach your projects with a critical perspective and considerations of social, ecological, and economical sustainability issues. 

A collaborative and interdisciplinary learning environment

Lectures, seminars, and workshops are influenced by collaborations with partner organisations and other departments at the University. This interdisciplinary approach contributes to a dynamic learning environment where the studio is a hub for open dialogue and teamwork is a foundational aspect. Our aim is to develop the field of design and to critically reflect upon the role of a designer as collaborator-yet-critical-consultant. Thus, you will learn how to balance working with teams and real-life project partners in a collaborative manner, while also provoking the status quo by employing design skills and methods via, e.g., visualization and communication techniques, interventions, form-giving, experience design and proposals for change, to name just a few. Companies, organisations, and communities enrich the education through our collaborations, lectures, workshops, and real case projects. Volvo Group, Lynk & Co, Afry, Rise, Urban Futures, Act! Sustainable, The Swedish Public Employment Agency, and the City of Gothenburg are recent partners. While the University, itself, provides opportunities and accessibility to other educations, multi-disciplinary research, researchers, and networks. Discussions on the role of the designer happen throughout the programme and can shift as you form your individual career path. Get to know teachers and staff at the Design Unit.