70 309 Participatory Gigamapping (Autumn 2025)

The course objectives are to learn principles of wicked problems and how to tackle them by applying systems-oriented service design and Gigamapping. Wicked problems are complex problems such as unemployment, immigration, childhood obesity, city planning, sustainability to name a few. 

It will be essential for students to understand what are micro, meso and macro level challenges, ripple effects, causalities, and interconnectedness of the wicked problems in question. During the mapping sessions, students will learn facilitation skills and how to listen and engage people into dialogues. Students will create and design a portfolio of recommendations of systemic interventions to a case. These recommendations could be designed in a form of a leaflet, video or any other creative way that are contextually relevant to their specific case. 

Students will learn to be comfortable with the ambiguity, not knowing what the end result or deliverables will be. We might touch on ‘transition design’ principles since wicked problems have taken decades if not centuries to be formed. Similarly the understanding of power dynamics involved is important since designers need to navigate inside different power structures when working with wicked problems. Students will also learn skills of working in groups and running a design project in a complex context. 

KNOWLEDGE

• Recognize, understand and explain what wicked problems are.
• Visualize wicked problems via Gigamapping.
• Learn how to plan and conduct participatory workshops.
• Identify and address power structure with Power Compass template

SKILLS

• Facilitate a joint wicked problem illustration using Gigamapping in workshops.
• Students will learn synthesizing and questioning the complexity in question and understand what possible domino effects an intervention in the system may cause.
• Learn to use Power Compass to understand power structures in a project.
• Create and design recommendations for what to consider and how to move forward.

GENERAL COMPETENCE

• Deal with uncertainty.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and facilitate workshops.
• Understand interconnections of a wicked service context.
• Take ownership, autonomy, independence in a group to manage and lead the project in a complex context.

The case will be given by a private company or public organization and during the case students will work as professional consultants/ research assistants. Some of the activities covered:

• Reading of texts, discussions and mind maps
• Gigamap
• Workshops
• Learning diary
• Final presentation
• Slides for your personal professional portfolio
• Project management

Attendance:

This is an intensive course and it demands consistent and hard work from the participants. Although the projects are often developed in groups, individual deliverables will also be required during the projects.

Form of assessment: Assessment folder

Grouping: Individual

Grading scale: Pass/fail

Assessment criterias:

The course will consist of one design projects with group and individual deliverables that will receive qualitative assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses. The students will be assessed on the quality of submitted deliverables throughout the course. The student must submit all assignments in the course to receive final assessment.

Students are assessed individually also in the group works.

The student’s progression throughout the course will be assessed by means of:

• Gigamap
• Recommendations how to plan interventions in a form of a leaflet, video or

any other creative way that will make sense in the specific case.

• Workshops
• Learning diary
• Final presentation that will capture the process and the outcomes of the project
• PowerPoint or PDF slides for your personal professional portfolio of the case in question
• Project management and working/collaborating in groups

If a student does not submit these deliverables for whatever reason (medical absences etc.), or if the delivery is too weak, the student can deliver an improved project later in the semester, but must deliver before the end of the course.

The project will have a final presentation, that will be assessed in pass or fail by an external sensor and the course leader.