Epistemic Design
Epistemic design is a field of research and practice that investigates how design operates as a mode of knowledge production rather than as a solution-oriented discipline.
Instead of addressing predefined problems or producing optimized outcomes, epistemic design focuses on the conditions under which problems, questions, and decisions take form. It operates in situations where objectives are not yet stable, and where designing conditions can generate forms of knowledge that inform decision-making and ontological action.
In this sense, epistemic design does not aim to resolve complexity but to render it intelligible. It works by structuring spaces of inquiry in which assumptions can be displaced, problem structures exposed, forms of knowledge mediated, and agency activated.
Epistemic design is not a methodology, nor a framework to be applied. It is a mode of practice that unfolds through concrete interventions—conceptual, spatial, and organizational—that make certain realities legible while suspending premature closure.
Epistemic Actions (DEMA)
Within epistemic design, practice unfolds through a set of actions rather than through phases or steps. These actions describe what design does to a situation, not what it produces.
DEMA refers to four recurring actions:
Displace — shifting frames of reference in order to unsettle inherited assumptions and habitual ways of seeing a problem.
Expose — making visible the structures, constraints, and asymmetries that shape a situation but often remain implicit.
Mediate — translating, staging, or spatializing forms of knowledge so they can be collectively perceived and negotiated.
Activate — enabling forms of agency by opening conditions for action without prescribing outcomes.
These actions do not operate in a linear or sequential way. A single intervention may activate multiple actions simultaneously, or at different moments, depending on the situation.
In this sense, DEMA functions as an epistemic device, articulating four actions that shift the center of representation and reshape how reality becomes intelligible and actionable.
What Epistemic Design Is Not
Epistemic design is not strategic consulting, decision optimization, or innovation management. It does not aim to deliver solutions, roadmaps, or actionable recommendations.
It is also distinct from speculative or critical design practices that primarily operate through representation or provocation. While epistemic design may employ speculative devices, its focus lies in producing operative conditions for understanding rather than critique alone.
Epistemic design does not assume an external or neutral position. It proceeds from the understanding that there is no outside from which problems can be observed without implication, and that design itself participates in shaping the realities it investigates.
Practice and Research
Epistemic design operates through interventions that are often situated at early stages of projects, before objectives, strategies, or solutions are defined.
This approach informs the work developed within Conceptual Devices, an epistemic design practice founded and directed by Antonio Scarponi, and connects research, spatial practice, and curatorial work across different institutional and cultural contexts.