Why design: labs

For some years I have together with my colleagues used the design:lab as a shorthand description of open collaborations between many stakeholders sharing a mutual interest in design research in a particular field. The design:lab is to us as acoherent format for design research organized as participatory inquiry. Initially we did not put too much thought into calling this format a laboratory. Many colleagues have reacted to the label as foreign and awkward to design, but in this paper I will develop how I see the laboratory metaphor as both suitable and useful, as it puts
emphasis on a transparent, delimited process that is potentially scaleable.