Introduction

The central contribution of this edited collection is to foreground relationships between individual designed objects and wider systems of mobility. In bringing a design perspective to bear on understandings of mobilities, we seek to better understand the tools, assumptions and processes through which the subjects, practices and spaces of mobility are ‘made up’. At the same time, bringing a mobilities perspective (that mobility is meaningful and powerful) to design enables us to understand how shifts in the fluidity and circulation of people, practices and materials are reshaping design practices. In broad terms Mobilising design emphasises the role of design as process, practice and outcome in producing mobility. Together, the book’s contributors develop multi-disciplinary understandings of design, drawing upon diverse literatures including design history, product design, architecture and cultural geography.