The lab researches socio-ecological challenges using a participatory, research-through-design approach. It works in collaboration with local communities, governments, experts,  nature to develop and implement sustainable solutions by employing design as a system-shaping, community-building practice. In addition to promoting a sustainability mindset, it aims to develop feasible, adaptable strategies and methods for everyday application. The lab focuses on three key areas: more-than-human perspectives, environmental literacy, and ecosystem resilience. 

The lab focuses on health awareness and reimagining the future of healthcare services. Rather than merely addressing medical and psychological issues through design, it reimagines the future of care at the intersection of human–technology interaction, design, and the arts. Its research is grounded in the understanding that ageing, mental health, chronic illness, and disability pose not just medical but also social and cultural challenges. The tools, services, and systems developed here can help promote destigmatisation, improve quality of life, and preserve human dignity. 

The lab explores how digital acceleration and deep mediatization are reshaping our relationship with time, how slow systems and cultural rhythms can be preserved in a hyper-accelerated, information-driven age, and whether culture, design, and art can help foster a more time-conscious way of life. The lab’s three key research areas include cultural heritage as a temporal anchor, artistic practices that resist speed culture, and the tools of futures studies and trend research. In this context, time is treated as a constructed and designed element of our environment that can be reinterpreted through art and design practices.  

The lab investigates social phenomena such as migration, social reproduction, gender equity, and urban cohabitation through participatory, practice-based design research. It aims to use design as a tool for social innovation, grounded in a responsible design and creative mindset. As an active member of the international Social Design Network, the lab integrates the knowledge of 32 institutions across 22 countries, and places strong emphasis on educating socially responsible artists and designers, and cultivating socially engaged changemakers.