This article for Interni design magazine explores the work and thinking of Elio Caccavale, Professor of Transdisciplinary Design Innovation at The Glasgow School of Art, focusing on design’s capacity to make visible the hidden ethical, social, and environmental consequences of emerging scientific knowledge and technologies.

Through discussion of projects such as Utility Pets, Neuroscope, and the Bloomsbury volumes Design Beyond the Human: Transdisciplinary Conversations about the Planet (2026) and Digital Design for Planetary Care: The Hidden Environmental Cost of the Digital World (forthcoming), the article examines how design can address what is often unseen or immaterial: ecological damage, digital extraction, unequal access to resources, human and non-human relationships, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence.

Caccavale argues that design must move beyond anthropocentrism and instead take responsibility for limits, maintenance, repair, and more careful forms of scientific and technological use. The article positions design as a critical and practical tool for questioning growth, extraction, and digital overconsumption, while proposing more equitable, ecological, and more-than-human ways of living.

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