Everyday interactions with the Tecnosphere: a critical educational path

Contemporary design risks becoming irrelevant or complicit in a technocratic agenda that prioritizes evidence over values unless future designers are trained to critically understand technology and its impacts on social, economic, political, environmental, and psychological structures. What role does design play in this process? What stance will tomorrow’s designer embrace? These questions form the backbone of the Theories and History of Design course at Università Iuav di Venezia, which focused on the transformation of everyday actions mediated by technology. At the sociological level, two perspectives collide: a critical approach that acknowledges risks to individual freedoms and a techno-optimist view that prioritizes opportunities over consequences. Designers, positioned between humanistic and scientific, artistic and technical domains, are increasingly mediators of these transformations. This dual role demands a critical sensibility, a focus of the course’s teaching activities. Avoiding reductive rhetoric on technology’s detrimental or salvific properties, the course framed technological mediation through social structures and explored how it reshapes daily life. The pedagogical model adopted a four-phase structure: establishing a theoretical foundation, engaging in participatory activities, analyzing technological mediation with a cross-eyed perspective, and synthesizing insights through creative outputs. Students investigated actions such as waking up or chatting, analyzing their historical evolution, social implications, and systemic impacts. Deliverables included timelines, experience maps, impact ripple canvases, and speculative audiovisual projects, fostering a deeper understanding of technology’s pervasive role. This article presents the course’s methodology and discusses its potential to train designers as critical and mindful mediators, equipped to reimagine a Technosphere that values inclusivity and sustainability over efficiency and control.