About

The framework's origin, the problem it sets out to solve, the book behind it, and Dr. Gonzalo Raineri.

Learning

Courses and resources from Symbiotic Design Academy for putting the framework to work.

Journal

Notes, essays and updates from the Academy.

Community

A shared, growing library from the community — browse freely, log in to go deeper.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

One of the two covenants that turned the Universal Declaration into binding law, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and in force since 1976. It carries the civil and political half of that inheritance. Its preamble grounds those rights in the inherent dignity of the human person, and states plainly that the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want is reachable only where civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights are secured together.

Adopted: 1966

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa ("Maputo Protocol") — core principles summary

A protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, adopted at Maputo in 2003 and, by the African Union's own account, the first regional women's rights instrument of its kind anywhere. It builds on CEDAW, the two international covenants and the Universal Declaration, while going further to name harms those instruments do not address directly: it commits states to eliminate specific harmful traditional practices, female genital mutilation among them by name, and it states reproductive autonomy as a right rather than leaving it to be inferred. Forty-four of the African Union's 55 member states have ratified it, most recently South Sudan in 2023.

Adopted: 2003

New Design Book Born from Decades of Research

Symbiotic Design Academy unveiled a book distilling eight years of research and 360 designer interviews into a personal, sometimes provocative take on design's ethics and future.

December 17, 2025

Cumulus Plus Grant: Join Cumulus Dunedin 2026

Cumulus is offering three grants of up to 1,500 euros each to help design educators and academic staff from regions underrepresented in its network attend the Cumulus Dunedin 2026 conference in New Zealand (25 to 27 November). Applications close 16 August 2026.

Deadline: 16 Aug 2026

The Six Relationship Types Behind Every Design Choice

Every relationship inside a design falls into one of six patterns. Here is how to tell which one you are creating.

July 13, 2026

Healthy Materials Lab | The next generation of materials

Reimagining the built environment to nurture health and planet

Learn X Design Conference 2027 | Istanbul, Sep 8–10

International design education conference at Istanbul Technical University, 8–10 September 2027. Theme: Crossings — for researchers, educators, and practitioners.

Circular Economy

Promoted by organizations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) as designing out waste from the very beginning, abandoning the linear model in favor of a "cradle-to-cradle" approach where materials are conceived as either technical or biological nutrients that circulate at their highest value; the EMF's vision is based on three principles — eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature. While the SDF supports this goal, it maintains a critical distance from the EMF's predominant focus on a market-based circular economy, which it perceives as risking the perpetuation of cycles of consumption. The book also warns that, in its current mainstream application, the concept "often falls into" the trap of temporal parasitism, since "much of what is called 'circular' is merely recycling, which only delays, but does not eliminate, the final burden of waste," and that approaches focused solely on recycling materials risk remaining trapped within fundamentally unsustainable industrial paradigms if they do not also challenge overconsumption, planned obsolescence, and reliance on fossil fuels.

Postdoctoral researcher and design educator 100% I Project duration 3 years from LUCA School of Arts

Postdoctoral researcher and design educator 100% - Project duration 3 years 100% fixed term- Project duration: 3 years LUCA School of Arts Location: Campus Genk LUCA School of Arts is a creative hub for nearly 5,000 people: over 4,000 students and 800 staff members. We provide an educational and research environment in which they can further ...

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

Opened for signature at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and in force since 1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity sets three objectives: conserving biological diversity, using its components sustainably, and sharing fairly and equitably the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. It gives primary emphasis to conserving ecosystems and habitats in place, requires the prior informed consent of the providing country for access to genetic resources, and calls on parties to respect and maintain the knowledge and practices of indigenous and local communities and to share with them the benefits of using that knowledge. Public education and awareness are treaty obligations in their own right.

Adopted: 1992

ILO Core Labour Conventions (Nos. 87, 98, 29, 105, 138, 182, 100, 111, 155, 187) — combined core-principles summary

Ten binding treaties of the International Labour Organization held together in one record: the eight conventions named as fundamental by the ILO's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, plus two governance conventions on occupational safety and health. Between them they cover forced labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining, equal pay for work of equal value, discrimination in employment and occupation, the minimum age for work, the worst forms of child labour, and national policy on safety at work. The ILO is a UN specialised agency with a tripartite structure in which governments, employers' organisations and workers' organisations each hold a voting voice, and the eight fundamental conventions are considered binding in principle on all 187 member states whether or not each has been individually ratified.

Adopted: 1930

Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention) — core principles summary

UNESCO's 1972 convention linked cultural site preservation and nature conservation in a single treaty, treating people and nature as one interdependent system rather than two separate concerns. Sites inscribed on the World Heritage List are recognised as having outstanding universal value that transcends national borders, so the international community shares responsibility for them, while every ratifying state also commits to conserving its broader national heritage. A World Heritage Fund exists so that protection is not limited to the states that can afford it, and the List of World Heritage in Danger makes threats a formal, public status rather than a private failure. Communities were added as a fifth strategic objective in 2007, recognising the role of indigenous, traditional and local communities.

Adopted: 1972

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

A doorstop toolkit of ideas for a sustainable future — biomimicry, green chemistry, sharing systems, adaptive reuse and more. A sprawling atlas of the SDF's Sustainability motto at the Frontier, where design pushes against the world's hardest problems.

WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) Terrestrial Animal Health Code, Chapter 7.1 — Guiding Principles for Animal Welfare

Chapter 7.1 of the World Organisation for Animal Health's Terrestrial Animal Health Code, first adopted in 2004 and last updated in 2019, is the closest thing that exists to an officially adopted international statement of animal welfare principles. WOAH is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1924 with 183 member countries, and since a 1998 agreement it is the World Trade Organization's recognised reference standard-setter for animal health in trade, which gives its codes real weight even though they are formally recommendations rather than a treaty ratified state by state. The chapter defines animal welfare as the physical and mental state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies, and builds its guiding principles on the internationally recognised five freedoms and three Rs.

Adopted: 2004

Four Weeks Teaching the Design Framework at Henan University

Gonzalo spent four weeks teaching the Symbiotic Design Framework to first-year architecture students at Henan University, leaning on translation apps to bridge the language gap.

June 13, 2026

Amsterdam international design competition

The City of Amsterdam will launch an international design competition at the end of this summer. A pre-announcement has recently been published on TenderNed, marking the start of an ambitious project that will help shape a vibrant new urban district in the iconic Amsterdam-Bijlmer. We are looking for motivated, multidisciplinary teams that combine expertise in urban design, landscape architecture,

Al Gramo

As an example of this approach, consider Al Gramo, a chilean platform that partners with major brands to offer products in reusable packaging, collected, cleaned, refilled, and reused. This system dramatically reduces single-use packaging waste, demonstrating a practical application of circular principles by extending the life of packaging materials through multiple cycles. However, even in such a closed-loop system, the packaging will eventually degrade or be damaged, requiring its eventual return to the environment or recycling streams, thus acknowledging the temporal limitations of circularity and the need for designs that account for eventual material exit from the cycle.