In May 2026, I joined Dr. van Amstel for a guest lecture at the DRS Special Interest Group in Design Education (EdSIG) on Paulo Freire’s impactful praxis of critical literacy and its application in design education from the Global South to the Global North. In design classrooms, design students are encouraged to re-read and re-design their worlds, using generative toolkits like LEGO Serious Play, Racism Untaught, Beautiful Problems, and New Metaphors. This guest lecture invites more design educators, researchers, and designers to decentralize the privilege of design positionality and technology through designing the world alter/natively.
Recorded lecture with Q&A:
References
Freire, P. (1983). The importance of the act of reading. Journal of education, 165(1), 5-11.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum, New York.
Garde, J., and van der Voort, M. (2016) Could LEGO® Serious Play® be a useful technique for product co-design?, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking – DRS International Conference 2016, 27 – 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.24
Phan, H.L., Jalali, A.,and Van Amstel, F.M.(2025) Designing the world precedes designing the word: The Paulo Freire Method applied to typography education, in Clemente, V., Gomes, G., Reis, M., Félix, S., Ala, S., Jones, D. (eds.), Learn X Design 2025, 22-24 September 2025, Aveiro, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.091
Phan, H. L. D., & van Amstel, F. M. C. (2025). The Contradiction of Institutional Diversity in the Design Student Body. Diseña, (27), Article.6. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.6
Phan, L. D. H. and van Amstel, F. M. C. (accepted). Mapping migration paths through the dwindling institutional diversity of Florida, in Sharma, A., Dey, S., Venkataraman, S., Khadilkar, P., Kar, G., Singh, S., and Tewari, S. (eds.), ICDHS14: Cultures of Design, 10–12 October 2025, at IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India
Sanders, EBN., & Stappers, PJ. (2012). Convivial toolbox: Generative research for the front end of design. Bis.
Souto-Manning, M. (2010). Freire, teaching, and learning: Culture circles across contexts (Vol. 350). Peter Lang.
Van Amstel, F.M. (2024, August 28). Reading the world with Lego Serious Play. Retrieved from Frederick van Amstel website: https://fredvanamstel.com/talks/reading-the-world-with-lego-serious-play
Van Amstel, Frederick M.C., and Rodrigo Freese Gonzatto. (2016) “Design Livre: designing locally, cannibalizing globally.” XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 22(4), p.46-50. https://doi.org/10.1145/2930871
