Design for Transitions‒from and to what?

As part of its attempt to resituate the practice of designing within a commitment to facilitating social change toward more sustainable futures, the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University has started talking about ‘Transition Design.’ It is risky to invent yet another term which too easily looks like an appropriative branding exercise, but it can also be useful as way of marking an ambition. The following is a further attempt to explain the differences from existing practice to which Transition Design aspires.