The LCD Lab's Work
Developing and promoting
A Life-centred Design Framework & Toolkit
2022
From 2021-2022, I researched various design approaches that considered more than human and target user needs to summarise the emerging life-centred/planet-centric/environment-centred design movement. I spoke to experts and completed short courses in systems thinking, biomimicry, circular design for business, behavioural design, foresight and designing futures, and sustainable UX. From this I created a speculative framework and published this in The Life-centred Design Guide in 2021, along with the free toolkit.
The Life-centred Design Compass
2022
To help convey the scope of life-centred design, I created the Life-centred Design Compass, a visual diagram showing the scope of what to consider in life-centred design. I also created various interactive versions.
Non-human Persona Framework
2023
To develop the creation and use of non-human personas, I interviewed designers from around the world who were using them, applied them to my LCD LAB, experimented with them in hypothetical projects, and gathered insights from their use in workshops with designers and students. In 2023 I published The Non-human Persona Guide with the free Backpack of templates and resources, along with the Non-human Persona Course and Library.
Life-centred Design Tools
From 2022
Through research and experimentation, I have developed and shared over thirty design tools with a non-commercial license for others to remix and reshare.
A Life-centred Digital Style Guide
2022
Just like accessibility, life-centred digital design is easier to implement if it is embedded in a style guide. To develop life-centred digital design, I proposed four considerations for a LCD style guide—sustainability, accessibility, ethics, and diversity—and published a proposed starting point for others to take and develop further.
Sharing research, experiments, tools, and other practitioners
2022 to present
Co-founded ‘Life-centred Design Collective’
2022
Gathering designers from around the world who were exploring life-centred design, I co-founded the ‘Life-centred Design Collective’ with these great people to further promote and develop life-centred design.
Producing Research Papers with Academics
From 2024
I have co-authored two academic research papers to develop the LCD process and promote community awareness and adoption.
2024, LCD Research Paper —”Reflections on the Usefulness and Limitations of Tools for Life-Centred Design”
2024, NHP Research Paper —”More-than-human proxies in Environment Futures: Implementing post-humanist imaginaries in speculative practices” (Published in early 2025)
Talks & lectures
Introducing LCD for RCA & Design For Good Academy
Global workshop | November, 2023
I was honoured to be invited to the Design For Good Academy to present life-centred design and non-human personas as a toolkit for innovating solutions in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with other speakers like Don Norman, and Daniel Christian Wahl.
Gallery
Life-centred design and climate adaptation
Sydney, Workshop | November, 2023
I was honoured to be invited to the AdaptNSW 2023 Forum to present life-centred design as a toolkit to assist with adapting to climate change, and then workshopping with 50 climate professionals about how human spaces could be redesigned to also nurture urban wildlife to support world biodiversity.
Gallery
Introducing LCD to students of business
Sydney, Workshop | November, 2023
I was honoured to be invited as a Guest Speaker by RMIT to speak to Business Innovation students who had just completed a human-centred module, to introduce them to how life-centred design expands human-centred design, with a focus on ESG commitments and digital strategies.
Introducing LCD to a banking design team
Sydney, Presentation | 2022
Consumers and business are getting more serious about sustainability and design for good. But how do design teams get there? I was asked to share my research for The Life-centred Design Guide with the awesome innovation team and business stakeholders at ING.
Training & Workshops
Introducing LCD and Ecosystem mapping to students and sponsors in Portugal
Lisbon, Portugal | April 2024
I was honoured to be invited to the NOVA School of Business and Economics in Lisbon, Portugal, to present life-centred design, and then to run a workshop with 44 participants to use ecosystem mapping to explore the environmental and social impacts of everyday and luxury products.
Gallery
Life-centred design and climate adaptation
Sydney, Workshop | November, 2023
I was honoured to be invited to the AdaptNSW 2023 Forum to present life-centred design as a toolkit to assist with adapting to climate change, and then workshopping with 50 climate professionals about how human spaces could be redesigned to also nurture urban wildlife to support world biodiversity.
Gallery
Introducing LCD to students of responsible innovation
Sydney, Australia | October 2022
Invited as a Guest Lecturer by The Responsible Design for Innovation course at The University of Sydney, with Phil Gough, my on-site lecture introduced students to strategies for tackling complex problems with responsible, regenerative, and inclusive innovation for products, services and processes by fostering inclusion and regenerative design practices. The students created non-human and non-user personas, and explored how to use data to life-centre their designs.
Exploring life-centred design in the future
Sydney, Australia | June 2022
As a guest workshop facilitator for Speculative Design Sydney, I introduced participants to life-centred thinking via a workshop set in 2030, where participants designed with AI, future tech, life-centred design, and a non-human persona to speculate a future life-centred version of an everyday product. In four teams, we explored a future world that prioritises repairing and reusing over making new things by designing a future, life-centred version of mattresses, a ubiquitous product that uses a lot of resources and creates a lot of landfill.
Gallery
Designing life-centred future products with futurists from around the world
Global, Workshop | 2021
In 2021 I was invited to facilitate Future Scouting® for the Speculative Futures Sydney Meetup with players from around the world. Future Scouting has since been played in the Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Australia, and it received a Notable Design Education Initiative Award in the Core 77 Design Awards 2021.
Gallery
Introducing LCD to a supermarket design team
Sydney, Australia | Aug 2022
Invited by the Wollies X Design Team as a Guest Lecturer, I shared life-centred design, foresight and speculative design. In a follow-up session, I took the designers through a workshop about connecting their design projects to the SDGs, and a ‘decentering’ exercise to use their privileges as design powers to help others.
Gallery
Introducing values-driven design to futurist students
Sydney, Australia | 2021
Guest lecturing a class for the ECHOs Designing Futures course, I had a lot of fun guiding students through my Future Scouting Rapid Future Product Design method to design future values-driven products based on advanced technology. The method incorporates speculative design and life-centred design.
Gallery
Consulting
Incorporating non-human personas into two curriculums
Sydney, Australia | 2023
I was invited to work with The University of Technology Sydney to incorporate Non-human personas in both the Centre for Compassionate Conservation and the Transdisciplinary Design School
Design Projects
Urban Design
Digital Design
Industrial Design
Art & Fiction
Creating life-centred design fictions from artworks made from waste
Sydney | Sep, 2024
Experimenting and mixing disciplines is important to the Life-centred Design Lab. With the Land Unfill artwork series, we created artworks from urban waste and then storified them as things from the future (‘design fictions’) to imagine life-centred futures. “Waste inspiring art, inspiring life-centred futures”
“The Lenz”, a science/climate fiction novel
Published 2019
How might advanced mixed reality evolve in a future impacted by rising sea levels and forced migration? Will it help connect us with each other and the planet, or will we use it as a filter to see less of what we don’t want to see?
Tell me about your needs and I'll arrange a chat with you shortly!
Take the lead
Lead the way by redesigning your products and business to reduce environmental and social harm and regenerate the people and environments your system relies on.
#2 Amazon Best Seller in Engineering Design, Dec ’22 (The Life-centred Design Guide)
“Super helpful tools for designers… I’ll be sharing them with the students.”
