Designer in Residency 2026: More Than Us

Residency theme:

User-centred design has shaped the way designers and engineers work but even with its good intentions, this approach has stayed tightly focused on humans — and, for a long time, mostly on men. Meanwhile, the billions of animals, plants, and ecosystems that support our lives have been treated as background, as resources we can use without much thought. This quiet distancing has shaped entire industries, allowing extraction to feel normal and hiding how deeply connected we are.

In this years Designer in Residency open call, we invite you to open space for a different kind of design practice, one that recognises the full spectrum of life and sees humans not at the centre, but as participants in a much wider, beautifully interconnected living system.

We invite proposal that answer the following questions:

• How do we know what other species need?
• How can we design with other species, not just for ourselves?
• What changes when rivers, animals, and plants are treated as clients instead of resources?
• How can the design process work together with nature’s unpredictability instead of trying to control it?
• Can we design products where humans and other living beings are allies?

Apply to the Designer in Residency Open call via the link HERE.

Application deadline: 2 March 2026

Residency Dates: 17 August 2026 – 7 December 2026

View the full open call: Designer in Residency 2026 Open Call: More Than Us

All questions received up to 6 February 2026 have now been published here.

Check video highlights from previous participants of Designer in Residency programme below.