Design creativity for transitions: C-K/Topos, an advanced design theory for creative preservation

Abstract In recent decades, design creativity and design theory have made great progress in terms of understanding and supporting the logic of engineering design for breakthrough and disruptive innovation. Design for transition relies on these new methods, but it also requires the capacity to be creative to facilitate more effective preservation – whether in terms of natural resources, biodiversity, energy, ways of life or other factors. Design for transition calls for a type of engineering design that is not Schumpeterian, not a ‘creative destruction’, but rather a design that manages creative preservation, creativity for better preservation and preservation for improved creativity. In the first section, we clarify the notion of creative preservation for transition; in the second section, we show how creative preservation can be addressed by recent advances in design theory, namely, C-K/Topos. Finally, in the conclusion, we demonstrate the implications of C-K/Topos for the management of the unknowns of transitions and the underlying logic of creative preservation.