Our Approach to Teaching
We believe design is more than a method; it’s a mindset, a stance, and a responsibility — one rooted in the realities of our region and oriented toward the complex futures we will shape together.
Our Design Principles
Everyone is a designer
Design isn’t a profession; it’s a practice.
Creativity isn’t reserved for artists and poets, architecture studios, or Silicon Valley startups. The most impactful breakthroughs – from far-reaching innovations to the scrappiest DIY hacks – are often born out of need and under severe constraint. In Lebanon, design isn’t a luxury; it’s a way of life. CIRCL helps students recognize that the resourcefulness, adaptability, and grit they already have are design skills – and shows them how to sharpen those instincts into tools for transformation.
Start from the margins
Creativity thrives under constraint.
We design from the edges – of disciplines, systems, and societies. We learn the most when we collaborate across lines of difference and let lived realities guide the way. In a region shaped by volatility, often turbulent change, and resilience, designing from the margins isn’t a detour – it’s the point of origin.
Design is always local
Context is not backdrop; it’s the material we work with.
We don’t import solutions. We listen, observe, and adapt. Design rooted in a specific place – in its multiple histories, its echoing reverberations and continuing constraints – has the power to resonate far beyond it.
Design is a responsibility
Our work has consequences – seen and unseen, foreseen and unintentional – and we do not forget that when we work.
We approach design as a civic act. Every choice shapes who benefits, who’s left out, and what futures we make possible. We name tradeoffs, center ethics, and stay accountable to the communities and environments most affected by our work.
Move before you’re ready
Clarity comes through action.
We don’t wait for certainty to begin. Prototypes are our way of thinking out loud. We believe feedback is a gift and we welcome critique. We test early (even before we’re ready) and treat iteration as a form of care – both for the people we’re designing with and for the ideas we’re shaping together.
Hold complexity with care
Not all problems are puzzles to be solved.
We resist oversimplification. We pause instead of rushing to solutions. We learn to sit with discomfort, hold competing truths, and honor ambiguity. Sometimes design is about reframing, not resolving. Sometimes progress is about making the system more visible.
Make it together
Collaboration is not just a value – it’s a core method.
We believe good ideas emerge through dialogue, dissent, and collaborative making. CIRCL is a studio, not a silo. We invite co-creation across disciplines, identities, and power dynamics – because no one designs alone.
Hope is a design tool
We design because we (still!) believe a better world is possible
In the face of collapse, uncertainty, failed infrastructure and arcane bureaucracy, we choose to keep imagining alternatives. Design helps us practice hope – not as naive optimism, but as a disciplined act of envisioning and building better futures.