academic BACKGROUND
Bachelor in Environmental Engineering, at Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (2004-09);
Masters in Transdisciplinary Design, at Parsons The New School for Design (2014-16);
Ph.D. in Design for Transformative Education, at Monash Arts, Design, and Architecture (2018-23).
Research areas
Awareness-based Design: How might we bring embodied awareness to design? What are the comprehensions and sensitivities to knowing, being, doing and relating—required for awareness-based design? How to design in the middle of an apparent gap between ourselves and others (i.e. the inner and outer dimensions of experience)?
Awareness-based Collective Creativity: How do we collectively grow our capacity for awareness-based creativity—i.e. our abilities to access, discover and express our inner experiences while co-creating social realities with others?
Tangible (Materiality) and the Intangible: Is it possible to materialize our intangible experiences in tangible, visible forms? How do we make complexity, paradoxes, longings and hopes visible in the systems we are a part of? What is the relationship between the tangible and the intangible? How do materials evoke, prompt, initiate, surface, sustain intangible experiences in us? What do each material (i.e. 2D, 3D and 4D) afford?
Future-making: How to prototype emergent futures? How to translate fresh insights into tangible outputs?
Language and Experience: What must be the attributes of a language to support, enhance, deepen our understanding of embodied, felt experiences?
Transformative Education: How to make transformative learning visible? Can the combination of three or more modes of inquiry afford deeper transformative learning—e.g. combining embodiment, video and photography; or embodiment, sketching and object-making, and so on?
PhD Dissertation: Awareness-based design
Our subjective experiences are often non-verbal, unconscious and intangible. If we make non-verbal experiences visible in the context of transformative education, we will become more aware of these experiences and make sense of them in a fresher way—which will permit deeper learning to take place. This PhD asks how to make intangible experiences that occur during transformative learning visible? I focus on four types of experiences: thoughts, emotions, felt senses, and sensations. My research considers the subjective, non-verbal, embodied, relational, and creative dimensions of these experiences.
PhD’s online exhibition here.
PhD’s complete dissertation here.
other research projects:
PUBLICATIONS:
Gonçalves, R. D. (2023). Awareness-based design: The role of making aware for a transformative learning practice [Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, Monash University]. https://makingaware.cargo.site/
Hayashi, A., & Gonçalves, R. D. (2023). Awareness-based collective creativity: A studio-based practice for future-making. In Donelly, G., & Montuori, A. (eds.), In Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures (1st edition, pp. 325-335). Routledge.
Diatta, M. D., Gonçalves, R. D., & Grocott, L. H. (2022). A family of sensibilities: Toward a relational design practice grounded in materiality and embodiment. Journal of Design & Culture. https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2021.2018539
Gonçalves, R. D., & Hayashi, A. (2021). A pattern language for social field shifts: Cultivating embodied and perceptual capacities of social groups through aesthetics, and social field archetypes. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 1(1), 35-57. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i1.478
Hayashi, A. (2021). Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making a True Move. Cambridge: PI Press. (Graphic Designer: Ricardo Dutra).
Diatta, M. D., & Gonçalves, R. D. (2020): Threading notes on a writing collaboration: Family of Sensibilities. Figshare, online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13353374.v2
Gonçalves, R. D., & Karp, U. . (2019). Emerging design and the embodiment of social transformation. Book: Unfolding: Education and Design for Social Innovation. Centro, 44-56.
Gonçalves, R. D., & Hayashi, A. (2019). Aesthetic Language Cards: A pattern language for making visible deeper structures of social fields. Cambridge: PI Press.
Gonçalves, R. D., & Ojha, S. (2016). Designing learning environments for social dreaming: From inquiry to insight, and action. FabLearn '16: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3003397.3003402
McEntee, K., Brandalise, I., Gonçalves, R.D, Riendeau, S., Thao, K., & Grocott, L. (2016) Archipelago of possibilities: Priming teachers to reflect on intrinsic motivations for change. Pilot Project Report. ILETC Project: The University of Melbourne.
Gonçalves, R. D. (2016). Social dreaming: From inquiry to insight, and action. Masters Thesis. New York: Parsons The New School for Design.
Gonçalves, R. D., & Teixeira, C. (2015). Emerging livelihoods: Thinking design practice through engagement models. New York: Parsons The New School for Design.
CONFERENCES:
The 10th Nordic Design Research Conference 2023. Linköping University, Sweden. PhD Consortium. Link here.
Aalto University's Radical Creativity Workshops 2022. Helsinki, Finland. Facilitator. Link here.
FAAD Workshop 2021: Co-Creando el Futuro Emergente. Temuco, Chile. Workshop Facilitator. Link here. Session here,
Anticipation Conference 2019. Oslo, Norway. Speaker. Link here.
Social Field Research Summer School 2019. Berlin, Germany. Speaker & Co-organizer. Link here.
2018 Grant-makers in the Arts Conference, Oakland, CA. Speaker. Link here.
Design Strategy Conference and World Tour 2017. Design Researcher and Participant. Illinois Institute of Technology. Mexico City, 2017. Interview on The Huffington Post about the conference here.
Presencing Foundation Program, MIT's Presencing Institute. Researcher. Boston, MA.
Verge New York City, 2016 – Elasticity (through design). Facilitator. Video here.
FABLEARN 2016: Annual Conference on Creativity and Making in Education. Speaker. Stanford University, Palo Alto.
Design Strategy Conference and World Tour 2016. Design Researcher and Participant. Illinois Institute of Technology. São Paulo. Video here.
Awards & GRANTS
The Vice-Chancellor’s International Inter-campus PhD Travel Grant (Monash University), 2023
The Alternative – solutions for the social domain at Milan Design Week, 2016 *(an iteration of this project has been selected as a finalist in the 2017 World Changing Ideas Award, by Fast Company)
The New Challenge – grand prize winner; social innovation award by The New School, 2016
Unreasonable Lab, Columbia University – thesis project selected among other 100 applicants by the prestigious Unreasonable Institute
Brazil Scientific Mobility Program – fully funded graduate scholarship by the Brazilian Government, 2014\16
1st Place at Dartmouth Startup Weekend, 2015
United Nations Summer School, 2013 – selected among 100 global leaders from a pool of 140 000 applicants. Watch video below.
Ashoka and Staples Youth Social Entrepreneurship Award, 2008
* The Social Design Residency preparatory booklet can be found here.
*Studio and Research are completely intertwined as a practice. The projects that are (collaboratively) done are driven by (exploratory) questions. Writing, and sense-making, then, crystalize projects, questions, methods, and insights as research.