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.

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

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) — core principles summary

Agreed in Washington in 1973 and in force since 1975, CITES exists to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species. Rather than banning trade outright it sorts species into appendices by how threatened they are and applies graduated controls, from near-total prohibition of commercial trade to monitored licensing. Every party must build the Convention into its own national law for it to be enforced at borders and inside its territory. With 185 Parties it affords some degree of protection to more than 40,000 species of animals and plants.

Adopted: 1973

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.

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

ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution

A binding regional treaty adopted by the member states of ASEAN in 2002 and in force since 2003, written for one specific recurring harm: smoke from land and forest fires that crosses national borders. Prevention and monitoring are named as the primary duty, with emergency response as the backstop, and the treaty followed more than a decade of softer regional measures that proved insufficient. It was the first regional treaty anywhere aimed specifically at haze pollution, and it is now ratified by all ten ASEAN member states, Indonesia only in 2015.

Adopted: 2002

ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) — core principles summary

A political declaration adopted by the ten ASEAN member states at Phnom Penh in 2012, and the first region-wide human rights instrument for Southeast Asia. It affirms a broad set of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to a safe, clean and sustainable environment, modelled on the structure of the Universal Declaration. It is not a treaty: it creates no enforceable individual claim and no regional court or commission with binding authority. Its clause requiring rights to be considered in the regional and national context drew sustained criticism from UN human rights bodies and civil society as a possible basis for limiting rights, and that criticism belongs with the text.

Adopted: 2012

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

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.

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

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention) — core principles summary

UNESCO's 1954 Hague Convention is the first and most comprehensive multilateral treaty devoted to protecting cultural heritage in wartime. Its stated premise is that any damage to cultural property, irrespective of the people it belongs to, is damage to the cultural heritage of all humanity, because every people contributes to the world's culture. States commit to preparing protection in peacetime through inventories and evacuation plans, to refrain from acts of hostility against cultural property and from using it in ways that expose it to destruction, and to register the most important sites for special protection under a distinctive emblem. They are also asked to create units within their armed forces responsible for protecting cultural property, and to set real sanctions for breaches.

Adopted: 1954

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

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.

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

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1984 and in force since 1987, this treaty defines torture and commits every state party to prevent it in any territory under its jurisdiction. Its central rule admits no exception: neither war, internal political instability, any other public emergency, nor an order from a superior officer can ever justify torture. It also bars returning anyone to a state where they would be in danger of being tortured, and reaches beyond torture itself to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Adopted: 1984

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 ...

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.

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,

WDO World Design Agenda

The World Design Organization, the successor body to ICSID and a holder of United Nations Consultative Status, adopted the UN Sustainable Development Goals as the shared framework and common language for industrial design. The Agenda names eight goals its members judged particularly relevant to their field, from health and education to clean energy, sustainable cities and responsible production, and attaches a plain commitment to each. It calls itself a living document and a plan of action rather than a rulebook, and its five proposed actions are about talks, working groups, shared best practice and reporting rather than obligations on any designer.