Author: Malé Lujan Escalante

  • Transition Living Lab 25′: Co-creating Sanctuary

    Transition Living Lab 25′: Co-creating Sanctuary

    International Knowledge Exchange Project via Creative Exchange

    Led by Malé Luján Escalante, UAL: MA Service Design
    Merino Triharini Institute of Technology of Bandung : Design Ethnography Lab
    Akino Tahir Just Transition
    Gerarda Tolino Service Designer

    In Collaboration with Utopian Imagination Co-facilitators from UAL:MA Service Design:

    With the contribution of a panel of experts of people with lived experience as refugee in London:

    • Clive
    • Etracy Trish Rukwava
    • Fatima Elamin

    And others that opted to remain anonymous.

    Transition Living Lab (2024–2025) is an international KE programme via Teaching & Learning that equipped early-career-researchers and community changemakers with the Utopian Imagination methodology to explore the concept of Sanctuary and drive transition actions through co-creation.

    TLL co-created everyday utopias to catalyse concepts of more caring futures for displaced people. At the intersection of Transition Design and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Systems (TEK).

    TLL co-designed workshops exploring spiritual, political, embodied, and joyful dimensions of co-creation to guide participants in utopian imagination.

    TLL goes beyond solution-making approaches, using collective imagination to transform participants’ present realities and foster belonging, agency, and creativity. It challenges deficit-based narratives by shifting the focus from “what refugees lack” to “what refugees bring.”

    The program has 2 strands: (1) a train-the-trainers programme for early-career-researchers (ECRs), and (2) a social design sprint model to support displaced participants as emerging changemakers.

    Transition Living Lab took place in 3 sites in simultaneously:

    • Ealing Council, London, UK
    • Deptford Lounge, Lewisham Borough of Sanctuary, London, UK.
    • Cisarua Residence with Emplace Initiative

    And ended with an exhibition and public showcase at the Deptford Lounge in the frame of Refugee Week 2025.

  • Ethics through Design

    Ethics through Design create and sustain spaces for creative collaboration. It supports responsible research and social innovation.

    We design tools, actions and interventions for to facilitate circumspect conversations that may not otherwise happen, between stakeholders, practitioners, and publics both human and more-than-human.

    Ethics through Design follows 3 principles:

    Art Thinking
    Using creativity to open spaces for critical reflection – Sharing Structures
    Engagement Supporting capacities for meaningful participation – Power Relations
    Anticipatory Ethics
    Noticing tensions, addressing opportunities and imagining flourishing futures for all. Utopian Imagination

    Who We Are:

    Malé Luján Escalante: Director Co-founder. Utopian Imagination
    Chris Mortimer: Teaching & Learning
    Keir Williams: Inclusion and Strategic Playfulness
    Monika Büscher Non-executive Director  Co-founder
    Lizzie Harrison Prefigurative Futures
    Viv Kuh Utopia as Method
    Luke Moffat STS Ethics

    We work with:

    David Lund
    Public Safety Communications Europe
    Merino Triharini Institute of Technology of Bandung : Design Ethnography Lab
    Akino Tahir Just Transition
    Gerarda Tolino Service Designer

    Contact us

    If you have ideas for collaboration, reach out to Dr Malé Luján Escalante

    Partners and Stakeholders

    Lewisham Libraries, Deptford Lounge, London, UK
    Resilience Development Initiative, Indonesia
    Lewisham Borough of Sanctuary, London, UK
    University of Tubingen, Germany
    Institute of Technology Bandung, Design Ethnography Lab, Indonesia
    Ealing Council, London, UK
    Public Safety Communications Europe
    University of Bristol, UK
    London College of Communication: Design School, London, UK
    University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
    Leonardo, Italy
    Vodafone, Spain
    National Highways, UK
    The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network, TERN, London, UK
    ACH:Refugee and Migrant Support Services UK, Bristol, UK
    Revoke, London, UK
    Care Pavilion – London Design Biennale, UK
    Mozilla, Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence
    Response-ability Submit, Bristol, UK
    Regenerative Economics, Schumacher Institute, UK
    King’s College London Science Gallery, UK
    Inner Development Goals, Hub London, UK
    Kinranjot: Kundalini Practice, London, UK
    Universitas Gadjah Mada: School of Anthropology, Indonesia
    UAL Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London,UK
    Barbican Library, Barbican Centre, London, UK
    SupraSystemStudio, London, UK
    School of Design, University of the Andes, Venezuela
    Lancaster University College at Beijing Jiaotong University, China