Dan Lockton

Dan Lockton is a British interaction designer and researcher. His work centres on tools and methods for participatory (re-)imagining: helping people, together, create and explore possible futures, imagine new ways to live, and understand ourselves and the world around us better, in an age of crises in climate, health, and social inequalities. He joined the Department of Industrial Design at TU/e in 2021, as an assistant professor, with climate futures and design research methods as particular focuses. Dan also runs the Imaginaries Lab, an independent research-through-design studio—now based in Amsterdam—originally established in 2017 as part of Carnegie Mellon University.

Before joining TU/e, Dan was an assistant professor and Chair of Design Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, where he retains a courtesy appointment. Dan contributed to the Transition Design subject area, and was also a Faculty Affiliate of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at CMU, a member of the Center for the Arts in Society, and collaborated with the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and Metro21. Between 2013–16, Dan worked at the Royal College of Art, London, first as a senior associate at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design’s Work & City and Age & Ability Labs, and then as a research tutor in Innovation Design Engineering and for other doctoral programmes, supervising and advising PhD researchers. He was also a guest tutor in the Master’s programmes in Information Experience Design, Textiles, Global Innovation Design, Design Products and Service Design, and part of the RCA’s External Education projects in Sweden, Qatar and the UK. Before the RCA, Dan was a research fellow in Experiential Engineering at WMG, University of Warwick (2011–12) and a research assistant in Environmentally Sensitive Design at Brunel University (2010–12). Earlier in his career, Dan worked in industry on a range of product design projects, including R&D for Sir Clive Sinclair (on mobility products and some unusual folding bikes).

Dan has been an investigator or researcher on projects bringing together design and technology with societal, community, and environmental challenges, including: IMAGINE: Contested Futures of Sustainability (2022–25), led by Oslo Metropolitan University and funded by the Research Council of Norway; Playing With The Trouble (2022–23), funded by the Centre for Unusual Collaborations; Game Your Way Through: Games as a method for transformative collaborations (2021), also funded by the Centre for Unusual Collaborations; Spooky Technology (2020–21), funded by the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art at the Frontier and Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts; Sleep Ecologies (2019), funded by Philips; Legible Policy (2015–16), with Laboratorio para la Ciudad Mexico City, Superflux and the Future Cities Catapult; SusLabNWE (2013–15), a European Union sustainability and energy research ‘living lab’ collaboration led by TU Delft; Media, Community & the Creative Citizen (2013–15), a Research Councils UK Connected Communities project; Creating Sustainable Innovation through Design for Behaviour Change (2014), funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council; and Empower (2010–12), an energy research collaboration between Brunel University, University of Warwick, startup CarbonCulture and the Department of Energy & Climate Change, funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board. In 2015 Dan was project manager for the RCA’s role in GATEway, a driverless vehicle research programme.

Dan is creator of the Design with Intent toolkit (Equifine, 2010)—which has been widely adopted by educators, researchers, designers and businesses worldwide—and New Metaphors: A Creative Toolkit for Generating Ideas and Reframing Problems (Imaginaries Lab, 2019), which has been applied in contexts as diverse as robotics, corporate culture, and the circular economy. He is an editor of Spooky Technology (Imaginaries Lab, 2021), Living Labs: Design and Assessment of Sustainable Living (Springer, 2016); he led the editorial team for Creative Citizens’ Variety Pack: Inspiring Digital Ideas from Community Projects (RCA, 2014); is a co-author of Drawing Energy: Exploring Perceptions of the Invisible (RCA, 2015); and is author of Rebel Without Applause (Bookmarque, 2003), a history of the Reliant Motor Company.