About us

Stained glass window in Ramsay Gardens, the home of Patrick Geddes.

The Critical Change research group – based in the School of Design at The Univeristy of Edinburgh – directly addresses the implications of change through design. As a group of interdisciplinary researchers across design, anthropology, geography, science and technology studies, sociology, architecture we set out to question the very notion of change itself. But also what meaningful change across a variety of registers might look like, and how design in its multifarious forms can address change critically.

The group is co-convened by Dr. Rachel Harkness, Dr. Craig Martin,  and Arno Verhoeven.  Together, they also operate a taught postgraduate programme called Design for Change which embraces a studio perspective of interrogating change, leading to design-led propositions across a range of disciplinary perspectives and cultures.