Mission Statement
Passionate about transforming design from human-centric extraction to regenerative practice—embedding planetary care as an inherent design principle.
Biography
Florian Sametinger is a professor of Design Research and Design Theory at the University of Art and Design Linz since October 2023. Previously, he led a research team at the design and branding agency KISKA in Salzburg.
His work critically examines the intersections between design research, sustainability, and participation, challenging conventional sustainability approaches in design. Sametinger advocates for “Sustainable Design by Default”—embedding sustainability as an inherent goal of design processes rather than an add-on. This approach moves beyond eco-efficiency towards regenerative principles that actively contribute to ecological and social systems.
Through research-through-design methodology, he explores participatory and transformative design practices that challenge dominant growth-oriented paradigms. His work emphasizes design as a socially embedded practice, questioning anthropocentric approaches and advocating for holistic, interdisciplinary problem-solving that bridges design thinking, social sciences, and ecological perspectives.
Sametinger brings these critical perspectives to his teaching and research at the University of Art and Design Linz, and to his strategic work at KITE Design Research in Berlin. Through collaborative approaches like neighborhood labs and participatory design tools, he aims to foster contexts for possible sustainable futures and empower communities. His work seeks to equip a new generation of designers to navigate the complex, interconnected challenges of our time.
Questionnaire
Where do you want to foster change and why?
Design education, creating spaces for unlearning growth-oriented models while embedding regenerative thinking as default. Future designers need to challenge, not perpetuate, extractive practices.
What or who influenced you during your professional career?
Participatory projects across contexts taught me humility: local wisdom, maker cultures, and community knowledge offer pathways design academia often overlooks. Multiple perspectives are essential.
We all have those significant moments or situations (success or failure); which one was yours, and what did you learn from it?
Early on, communities challenged the participatory research approach, showing us as a group that we were centering academic epistemology. This showed us that knowledge emerges through multiple systems such as craft, embodied experience, locally-embedded wisdom, community practices. I learned to embrace epistemological openness.