Practising the analytical phases of Toroidality: a participatory case on the collective knowledge of “Olive”

The remedial interventions of sustainability and circularity have been trying to counteract the ecological crisis through anthropocentric, resource-dependent, and material-driven mentality, far from being regenerative, transformative, and distributive. Toroidality has been proposed as an alternative circular design model that responds to the ecological crisis by prioritising the ecological integrity and the commons of the ecosystem. It functions through participatory action to circulate collective knowledge and facilitate creative transformations around it. Toroidality reduces material dependency and operates circular value creation based on collective knowledge, through its four phases. To realise and develop Toroidality, there is a need to practice and analyse the theoretical foundation within real-life conditions. Therefore, a case study named “Circular Journey of Olive” is designed and conducted through four workshops, resulting in the generation of 19 circular co-design concepts. This paper presents the research design of the case study, focusing on the application and outputs of the analytical phases, “Explore” and “Relate”. As a result, Toroidality presents a practised methodical structure that is beneficial for research projects, innovative projects, and participatory design studies. The findings show how to manage the circularity of collective knowledge, how to hybridise themes, and how to utilise knowledge for synthesis.