Systemic Design: Challenge-Based Navigation of Relational Values of Inquiry Types for Enacting Complexity in the Direction of Desirable Change
I had the opportunity to deliver a plenary talk at RSD14 conference Toronto, in October 2025. The talk was entitled “(Non)Intervening in Complexity: The Navigational Wheel of Inquiry”. It is based on long-term scholarly and designerly work on complexity and systemic design, culminating in a scientific publication in progress. Below is an essence of the talk, and a visual note taking artwork by Patricia Kambitsch (https://playthink.com).
This contribution introduces the Systemic Design Wheel of Inquiry, a didactic and practice-oriented framework developed to support systemic designers in navigating complex, evolving systems. Grounded in long-term field-based experience and transdisciplinary research, the framework responds to a central challenge in systemic design: how to discern when, why, how, and whether to intervene in complex systems that continuously change shape, resist control, and push back against well-intended interventions.
The Wheel of Inquiry reframes systemic design from a predominantly problem-solving orientation toward a relational, embodied practice of sense-making and discernment. Rather than seeking optimal solutions, it emphasizes contextual responsiveness, timing, humility, and the legitimacy of non-intervention as a design outcome. This reframing is informed by trajectories spanning engineering, natural sciences, ecology, arts, and lived practice, and addresses a perceived gap in systemic design discourse—namely, the underrepresentation of scientific, engineering, and ecological forms of knowing alongside social, service, and people-centered approaches.
At its core, the framework situates the designer as part of the system, foregrounding inner and collective processes as integral to design inquiry. Six relational types of inquiry are articulated: science, engineering, design, the arts, embodied practices, and inner processes. These are not presented as a canon of methods to be mastered, but as literacies to be navigated—each carrying distinct epistemologies, temporalities, and relational effects. The Wheel supports designers in recognizing which inquiry type is appropriate in a given moment, what it enables, and when it may be counterproductive.
The navigational logic of the framework is structured around recurring questions:
Do I want to intervene? Why? Where? When? And through which form of inquiry?
These questions are deliberately slow and reflexive, encouraging designers to zoom out, sense system readiness, and attend to timing and intention. The Wheel is closely linked to the Adaptive Waves model—an extension of the adaptive cycle—which provides a temporal lens for understanding phases of growth, conservation, release, and reorganization, and their implications for intervention potential.
The framework is deeply informed by over a decade of place-based, transdisciplinary practice within the Upper Po Valley, through educational programs jointly hosted by ETH Zurich and the MonViso Institute. Field examples include regenerative building projects, participatory mapping, photogrammetry, energy modeling, arts-based interventions, cultural facilitation, and embodied practices such as walking, cycling, and land stewardship. These cases illustrate how designers often move in a zigzag pattern across inquiry types—shifting from quantitative analysis to visual dialogue, from engineering precision to artistic opening, and from external action to inner work—depending on system feedback.
A key contribution of the Wheel of Inquiry lies in articulating the relational value of inquiry types: how different forms of knowing shape relationships, open or close possibilities, and influence trust, legitimacy, and system receptivity. The framework challenges instrumental notions of transdisciplinarity limited to project cycles, proposing instead a long-term, embodied engagement with place that includes disappointment, withdrawal, return, and the slow regeneration of relationships.
Ultimately, the Wheel of Inquiry supports the cultivation of what is termed organic emergence: the inner capacity to befriend uncertainty, remain present in complexity, and act with discernment rather than control. As such, it functions simultaneously as a practical navigation tool, a meta-reflection device, and an invitation to ongoing inner and collective practice. The authors position the framework as adaptive and open, encouraging appropriation, reinterpretation, and contribution by the systemic design community through teaching, research, and lived experimentation.
Here is the video recording of the 30min talk – you can login with your name and an email address:
Cite as: Luthe T., Fitzpatrick H., and S. Orczykowska. 2025. The Systemic Design Wheel of Inquiry: challenge-based creative navigation in complexity. RSD14 plenary talk. Publishing work in progress.
