Planting and Tending Digital-Nature Hybrids in a Walled Kitchen Garden

Elizabeth Edwards is a designer and PhD candidate based in the HighWire Centre for Doctoral Training at Lancaster University. Her work uses a research-through-design approach to explore the design of hybrid physical and digital artifacts used to interpret nature and outdoor places. Her research draws on values-led design and critical theory of technology.

Paul Coulton is the chair of Speculative and Game Design at Imagination Lancaster—an open and exploratory, design-led research lab at Lancaster University. His research practice primarily embodies “research through design” to develop design theories from the speculative design of novel, hybrid, as well as physical and digital interactive future-focused experiences and artifacts. The most recent examples relate to the use of Design Fiction as a way of exploring futures of emerging technologies.

Andy Darby is a PhD candidate in the HighWire Centre for Doctoral Training in the School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University. His research explores design fiction as a participatory method.

Mike Chiasson is a professor of Information Systems in the Faculty of Management at the University of British Columbia. His research examines how the broad social context affects and is effected by IS development and implementation, using a range of social theories. He has examined various topics including: system development and the effects of IT with particular types of IT in medical, legal, entrepreneurial, and governmental settings. His empirical work mixes both quantitative and qualitative data, with an emphasis on “participant” observation, resulting in various contributions to social theory, action research, research methods, and ethics.