This workshop, led by Associate Professor Ilaria Vanni Accarigi introduces place-based design research, integrating ethnographic methods with design interventions. You will explore how designed objects and experiences—such as collaborative maps and sensory walks—can deepen understanding of place while driving positive environmental and social change.

Drawing on recent advances in creative research methods, the workshop demonstrates how ethnographic observation and design practice combine to create meaningful interventions. Through hands-on activities, you will learn practical tools that connect careful documentation with transformative action.

By the end, you will have concrete skills for conducting place-based design research and contributing to a growing toolkit of creative methods for social and environmental inquiry. The workshop provides both theoretical insights and practical applications for researchers, designers, and practitioners working at the intersection of people, place, and environment.

About Ilaria:

Ilaria Vanni is a design anthropologist interested in how design and material culture shape the cultural, social, and political dimensions of urban environments. Her current projects focus on the potential and challenges of urban ecologies amid the growing impact of climate change on cities.

Learning outcomes:

Understand how concepts are embedded in ontological and epistemological assumptions
Learn how to trace these assumptions in the way researchers analyse qualitative data.

Events in the 2025 Qualitative Data Analysis series

Thematic Analysis - Big Q and little q – Tuesday 25 February 2025, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Autoethnography - The possibilities – Tuesday 18 March 2025, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Investigating the Potential for LLMs for Inductive and Deductive Coding – Tuesday 22 April 2025, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Autoethnography - Triangulations – Tuesday 29 April, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Inductive Content Analysis - Tuesday 13 May, 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Using mixed methods to bring together big data, and qualitative research in the Wikihistories project - Tuesday 10 June, 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Mess in QDA – Tuesday 8 July, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Applying concepts and underlying 'ologies' – Tuesday 9 September, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Deep Dive into Thematic Analysis - From Concepts to Practice – Tuesday 7 October, 12:30pm- 1:30pm
Non-word-based techniques in qualitative research and analysis – Tuesday 11 November, 12:30pm – 1:30pm

This is a UTS Aspire event. UTS Aspire is a program of pan-university research development opportunities led by the Research Capability and Development Team.

Contact the host of Place-based Design Research