Exploring Transition Design: Shaping the future we want

Many of us hold values that point towards different, more just and sustainable futures, yet find ourselves working within systems that often perpetuate the problems we hope to change. We can feel caught between our values and our work, wondering what we can actually do about it.
Climate Designers Singapore invites you to a hands-on session exploring this tension through the lens of Transition Design, a transdisciplinary field of design and research that focuses on solving complex, large-scale societal and environmental challenges.
Hear from two designers, Karin Aue and Damien Teo, as they share their personal journeys in design, what led them to question the status quo, and why they have chosen to pursue PhDs in Transition Design.
Through humour and open conversation, we'll explore the values and structures that shape our work, unpack the tensions and polarities we navigate, and exchange strategies for creating change. Together, we'll consider how we might move beyond the systems we're working within to help shape the futures we want, leaving no one behind.

Agenda

1:00 - Doors Open & Registration
1:30 - Opening and Meme Icebreaker
2:00 - Conversation starts
2:45 - Q&A
3:00 - Group Exchange: Tension Tables
4:00 - Closing & Sharing
4:30 - Event Ends / Netweaving

Event Details

📅 Saturday 28th November 2026

🕠 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm

📍 The Foundry / Room: The Anvil
11 Prinsep Link, Singapore 187949

Tickets

Students - Free
General admission - $8

We want our events to stay affordable and open to as many people as possible.

Students attend free. If you register and find you can't make it, please cancel your ticket so someone else can take the seat.

General admission ticket sales go towards refreshments on the day and towards planning and hosting future Climate Designers Singapore events.

About our speakers

Karin Aue
Karin is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead for the Master of Design in Integrated Design (MDes) at the Division of Industrial Design, National University of Singapore (NUS).

With two decades of experience as a design practitioner across Europe and Asia, she brings together expertise in strategic design, innovation, and a commitment to impact-driven projects. Before joining NUS, she led a multidisciplinary design team at Chemistry, an award-winning innovation design consultancy with offices in Singapore and Amsterdam, where she remains a Partner. She has also worked with internationally renowned organisations, including IDEO (Singapore), Tama Art University (Japan), KesselsKramer (UK), and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (Netherlands).

Her work focuses on the role of design in advancing transitions towards just, sustainable, and regenerative futures, with particular interests in circular economies, systems transformation, and planet-centred participatory design. Since 2026, she has also been an external PhD researcher at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT).

Damien Teo
Damien is a Singaporean service designer and design researcher with over a decade of experience working across Singapore and the United Kingdom. His work draws on participatory design, systems thinking and futures thinking to help public organisations understand and respond to complex social challenges. He has worked with organisations including Lancashire County Council, the UK Government Digital Service, Singapore’s Ministry of Education and the DesignSingapore Council.

An Australia Awards Scholar, Damien will begin a PhD at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in 2027. His research explores how communities experiencing climate-related migration develop ground-up co-design practices, and how these might inform more inclusive policy on sustainability and migration. His wider interests include post-growth thinking, community-led ways of living, and design’s role in enabling sustainability transitions.

About Climate Designers

This event is produced by Climate Designers Singapore, part of the Climate Designers community.

Event venue & nearby stays

The Foundry, 11 Prinsep Link, Singapore, Singapore

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.

Get the app →

Discover more events by tag