Pendleton-Jullian and Brown, Design Unbound

Pendleton-Jullian, A. M., & Brown, J. S. (2018). Design Unbound (Vol. 1–2). MIT Press.


Design Unbound argues that contemporary needs have transcended traditional systems of design, in which there can be known requirements, understood contexts, and deliverable systems. Contemporary contexts are “white-water”: requirements are ever-changing; systems act in the world but also on the world, changing it continuously; the design objects are often networks of people and systems as much as they are objects or mechanisms.

John Seely Brown