Hypervernacular Design: Rethinking the Vernacular Design Paradigm

Niek Kosten is a designer, lecturer, and researcher at LUCA School of Arts in Genk, Belgium. His design research practice explores critically opening up political issues in society and focuses on topics such as civic engagement, social cohesion, displacement, and invasion ecology. His PhD examines the role of vernacular graphic design in these critical, contextual, and collaborative processes.

Liesbeth Huybrechts is an associate professor who works in the areas of participatory design, design anthropology, and spatial transformation processes in the research group Arck, University of Hasselt. She has developed a research interest in the design for/with participatory exchanges between humans and the material/natural environment and the “politics” of designing these relations. Liesbeth explores this interest in several research and educational projects.