Figure caption: The parallel rhythm of virtual and physical learning modules in CAS#3 Systemic Design.

Study mode and preconditions

This is the third CAS counting towards the MAS (Master of Advanced Studies) ETH in Regenerative Systems. This CAS#3 with its respective MOOC#3 is a hybrid program that you can study virtually from wherever you live, in a pace that you can combine with your professional and private life. The distinctive physical, in-person component adds the real-world facets with all their unmatched qualities to the flexible virtual part, and makes it hybrid.

To qualify for being accepted to this CAS, you must have finished MOOC#1 and #2 at the time of the final application day, and commit to finish MOOC#3 – once it is online – until the end of CAS#3. Additionally, the general requirements of the ETH School for Continuing Education apply.

Course modules and themes

Module 1: Introduction This introductory module explains this CAS with its goals, content, structure, phases and organization. It launches the individual Quest process as a new or prolonged activity for those who had taken CAS#1/#2. The field design trip is introduced.

Module 2: Field design trip
The physical, in-person field design trip is a central element of the CAS. It takes about one week and visits a DRRS-partnering Living Systems Lab (LLS), a long-term relation with place, curated by a so-called “weaver”, who enacts the local-regional systems for long-term relation building and cross-governance scale design for regeneration.

This CAS#3 field design trip is to Mallorca, meeting DRRS lecturer and regional weaver, our co-guide, Daniel Christian Wahl.

Module 3: Origins and advances in systemic design
What is Systemic Design? The emerging field or “sphere” Systemic Design (SD) is not a discipline but a post-discipline – a hybrid combination of science, design, and systems thinking-sensing, a set of challenge-based navigation processes, techniques, and cultures. In Systemic Design, we ask questions to enact complexity through reflexive processes, applying various types of methodologies where and when of help. SD, as framed in this course, is a science-based holistic navigation approach to design in complex systems.

Module 4: Scientific and engineering methods and reasoning
In this module we build our understanding of scientific and engineering methods and scientific reasoning. We learn a set of key scientific and engineering methods for the context of DRRS and practice them in relation to the individual Quest. We consciously explore the regenerative potential of generative AI and the potential negative feedback loops and systemic side effects.

We acquire a basic skill set of scientific and engineering methods and gain sufficient practice to be able to self-advance in further practicing those and other scientific methods and apply them to real-world challenges, i.e., one’s own Quest – to a level of understanding the method sufficiently for its usage and value, to be able to study and practice it further oneself, or through specific follow-up courses. We do not expect or claim a full proficiency level after this course, but you will know enough to be able to employ these methods in context.

We study and practice scientific and engineering methods to describe, analyze, and quantify systems properties. What MOOC#3 introduces, is expanded and deepened here with practical exercises.

After a recap of philosophy of science, we select a set of quantitative and qualitative methods that have shown to be of direct value in building a scientific base and argumentation stock when describing and analyzing systems in the context of designerly enacting them.

In specific, we will learn to work with specific quantitative methods, i.e.

• a carbon equivalent footprint analysis to quantify the climate footprint of a product or a process and to show carbon flows in a system;
• a life cycle analysis (lca) to quantify the environmental footprint of a product or a process and to show various flows in a system;
• a circularity assessment of a product-process relation with five types of circular flows;
• a social network analysis (SNA) to quantify network metrics and assess a social system for its resilience (building upon MOOC/CAS#2);
• (ecological) sampling by, i.e., observation and grid-counting of species distribution;
• basic statistical analysis of data, such as from the previous sampling;
• large language models (LLM), generative AI, its possibilities, and critical aspects.

We will work with selected qualitative methods from the social sciences, i.e.

• developing a social survey as a semi-structured interview with online tools;
• content analysis of texts, audio, and visuals with specific software;
• focus groups as guided group discussions;
• participatory modeling;
• transdisciplinarity.

We will explore selected engineering (-design) methods in the context of systemic design, i.e.

• geographic information system (GIS) tools to work with spatial data and develop layered maps as a basis, e.g., for bioregional mapping;
• point cloud development to compute basic 3D models of a product, a room, and a landscape site – using a basic lidar (laser) scanner for a product in product design, and for a room in a building as the basis for architectural design; 
• point cloud development through drone flights protocols, using photogrammetry software to develop a terrain model such as for permaculture planning or simply detailed local map development for visualization and planning of local landscaping intervention;
• Computer Aided Design (CAD) as a method of Engineering Design – digitally drawing a basic 3D object – such as a cube – as a technical design method, while considering structural constraints;
• 3D printing (with bio-based filament) based on the pointcloud development of the previous step – for a product, for a terrain, as an illustrative communication object.

Some of these methods will be demonstrated in person during the field design trip to Mallorca where we can collect data, such as the drone flight protocol, the lidar scanning, the 3D printing, the focus group, the ecological sampling, and serve as basis for further virtual practice after the field design trip.

Module 5: Designerly methods and cultures
In this module we build our understanding of designerly methods and cultures of working as designers. We learn some design techniques and practice them in relation to the individual Quest.

How do designers work? What are cultural differences to science when being trained in design? Science and design often have different approaches and cultures of reasoning, yet both are of critical relevance for enacting complex systems. What are design disciplines, methods, and practices? What is research by design? Where is design thinking related to systems thinking, and where is design doing to systems sensing? Where relates systemic design with design disciplines like product design, landscape design, service design, experience design, landscape design, communication design? What is a rich design space, what is research by design?

We explore such questions and embody a number of practices that help us to better understand techniques and cultures of design. We relate to existing SD methods, such as the Systemic Design Toolkit, and discuss them in context.

The goal here is to become familiar with designerly practices and understand their value and meaning as such, and as a Systemic Design facet that interplays with other fields of inquiry. We are aware that we won’t train new designers in this course, but we open pathways to learn to think, practice, and train like a designer and employ some of the field’s techniques.

We introduce, demonstrate, discuss, relate, and practice a set of designerly techniques that have shown to be relevant in the DRRS context. In addition to deep-diving into the Systemic Design Toolkit, we specifically look at the following practices as a non-exhaustive list:

• design thinking and doing: iteratively empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, testing, implementing
• research by design, design research 
• developing one’s own rich design space
• user-centric, human-centric, planet-centric design
• product design – introduction
• service and experience design – introduction
• landscape design – introduction
• graphical expression: sketching by hand, digital sketching
• graphic design supported by generative AI
• systems-oriented design, with a focus on visual dialogue techniques around gigamapping (wirefame, ZIP analysis, IMP analysis)
• developing systems narratives and expressing them through synthesis maps, using both artistic and AI supported processes

Module 6: Cross-scale design
We take eight scales of decision-making, of science-based design interventions toward regenerative systems, and learn how to navigate within and across these scales with their inherent complexities, using a scientific, designerly framework.

How can we bring the different data types and forms of inquiry together, with a larger aim to contribute to co-designing regenerative bioregional economies? How do small steps, tiny interventions, different foci span together in a systemic way? We employ the circular cross-scale spiral model of auto- and sympoietic complexity with its eight scales of governance as a proven framework for navigating across systems types and scales. We practice entering a system and focusing on a specific scale, such as the product, the city or the landscape scale, and looking at each scale’s circularities (plural), and relating this to all the other scales in continuous zoom-out-zoom-in processes. We allow for an exciting experiment and explore a potential scale 0 in the framework – Quantum physics/mechanics – and what this may mean for DRRS practice as a mental exercise.

We employ the above-named spiral framework and work through each of its eight scales in the context of participants’ Quests, and relating to the different methodologies we explored.

For example, we look at the scales of

• green chemistry – how are nutrients and carbon equivalent cycles related to the systems we deal with? The green chemistry scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework.
• raw materials – what regenerative materials can we introduce or substitute within existing material supply chains? The materials scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework.
• product design – building upon engineering design work from before, we work on the raw material/products and goods scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework.
• service and experience design – the community, cities, and their services scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework.
• landscape design – building upon GIS work from before, we work on the landscape and community/city scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework
• how does this feed into the (bio)regional scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework?
• and how do such systems become less dependent on global supply chains – the transnational scale of the DRRS circular cross-scale design framework.
• finally, we explore a potential “scale 0” of this framework, Quantum.

Module 7: Embodied and transformative practices
We explore embodied and transformative practices that enable us to sense, feel, and enact complex systems, their place specificities, social processes, communication techniques, and our inner selves on our paths to become better guides for navigating and enacting complexity.

We enact complex systems in various ways – next to scientific, engineering, and design methods, we learn to see and feel and practice through embodied cognition. We learn practices to connect with place, with people, and with our inner self. A goal is to develop a rich understanding of embodiment techniques, of the reasons why they are helpful and needed in a DRRS Systemic Design context, and how they relate to scientific and design methods of inquiry. Participants will develop their own set of embodied practices, of inner development processes, and techniques and relate them to their Quests. 

As future guides navigating complexity, we thrive to start building a holistic skillset we entitle “organic emergence” – the (inner) capacity to deal with and befriend certain and uncertain challenges – through technical tools, inner practices, and collective inclusion.

We enact complex systems in various ways – next to scientific and design methods, we learn to see and feel and practice through embodied cognition. We learn practices to connect with place, with people, and with our inner self. A goal is to develop a rich understanding of embodiment techniques, of the reasons why they are helpful and needed in a DRRS context, and how they relate to scientific and design methods of inquiry. 

We study – hear, feel, sense, discuss, embody – exemplified specific practices that have shown to be of direct relevance to DRRS and join the facets of Systemic Design. 

To connect with place, we practice Systemic Cycles, a bicycle-focused consciously question-asking set of practices for slow-traveling through a region. To connect with the non-human nature, we do a deep ecology observation and sensing practice.

To connect with people, we experience council practice, community work, and learn the local language.

To connect with our inner self, we challenge ourselves beyond the individual mental and physical comfort zone through a Systemic Cycles tour on the field design trip; we practice stillness and embark on a solo night in the Tramuntana mountains of Mallorca as part of a rite of passage, a transition ritual.

These are examples of embodied practices we explore; others include View from Above drone flying and climbing, derives, facets of mind-body work feeding from meditation, yoga or calisthenics; and self-compassion practices. All these will help to slow down, to speed up, to build inner resilience, meta-awareness, to identify one’s own set of fitting practices, and to eventually fuel the aim of building organic emergence.

Participants will develop their own set of embodied practices and relate them to their Quest.

Module 8: Navigating complexity
We learn about the process and art of navigating complexity as a challenge-based employment of methods, practices, embodiment, meta-awareness, communication, and inner development – what we frame as a new direction within the field of Systemic Design.

In this module we engage in various concrete real-world situations, both spawn from the DRRS-partnering Living Systems Labs, and in direct relation with the individual Quest projects. 

What are examples for emergent processes where we can illustrate and practice a systemic navigation process – as of systems sensing, systems questioning, and employment of systemic intervention techniques with scientific, designerly, and embodied methods and practices? How do we build our own organic emergence capabilities? Relating to concrete, real-world applications, we deeply reflect processes of navigating complexity as a challenge-based employment of methods, practices, embodiment, meta-awareness, and inner development. 

How do we communicate complexity and emergent processes? We learn communication skills and graphical techniques that help us to collectively engage with complex systems.

We develop a rich understanding of what differentiates a Systemic Design approach from other fields of inquiry and application, and how this helps with our Quests. Finally, how do we become guides for our own, and for collective journeys through complexity, for designing resilient regenerative systems?

Module 9: Synthesis and Quest
In this last CAS module, we bring the previous modules into a systemic context with the individual students’ Quest projects. We recap content of the other modules and synthesize the learnings through systems mapping, through visual dialogues. This involves specific module summaries and the overall relating with the DRRS program and the specific Quests contexts, with a special lens on inner processes, and on the use of AI. This module is as well about mentoring the CAS deliverables.