Relational Play as a Design Tool: How a Small-Scale, Flexible Framework Can Support Agency For Those at Risk of Losing It

This thesis explores how relational and participatory design, combined with care ethics and design for play, can nurture feelings of agency and self-efficacy in a small-scale, informal care setting. It focuses on an elderly day center in Lisbon, Portugal, where its visitors have these feelings undermined over time by cognitive decline, social isolation, and physical limitations. The project aims to focus on empathy, soften hierarchies, and create space for self-expression — pushing against the dominant narratives of design as having to be scalable and efficient.

To support this, I developed a set of relational and playful prompt cards that invite the elderly and the center’s facilitators to become active co-designers, shifting the dynamic from passive to active participation. Building on this, the final design component is a tactile “living document”: a cork board with changeable manifesto principles, an ideation area with prompt cards, and a “memory bank” for archiving past interactions. This structure allows the center’s community to shape and mold it over time, supporting their sense of agency and self-efficacy.