To ‘flourish’ in a rapidly urbanising world with limited resources we need to imagine different ways of living: increasing density, using passive energy, turning objects into services, and perhaps most importantly imagining new systems of living our everyday urban lives. There is so much we do not know and have not yet imagined both about what is at stake and the extent of future possibilities. Have we given ourselves the time and space to imagine? The value of public imagining provides a path for designing sustainable urban futures. ‘Design is important’, as attested by a ten-year-old’s comment published by the British Design Council, because ‘if it were not designed it would not be made’ (Fletcher, 1994, p.413). If we can change the way we live in cities by design, then this is not about a profession which designs products it is about collaborative designs for our culture of living. The idea of sharing, which extends to collaboration, is a reoccurring concept across sustainability disciplines. Sustainable design theory talks about sharing objects by turning them into services in design oriented product service systems (see Morelli, 2002). The interdisciplinary nature of sustainability research promotes sharing ideas and collaborating on projects (see Sherren, et.al., 2009). This sharing concept is about a network of involvement: of making ideas, theories and skills accessible, actively passing them on, encouraging others to engage and collaborate on generating new outcomes. Each of us, from the ‘house wife/husband’, ‘blue/white collar worker’ to the ‘professor’ or ‘artist’ have something to share, an ability to contribute and an important part to play in a co-design for urban sustainability. In this way, co-design can subvert the ‘expert’ paradigm by capturing public imagination, build creative capacity and facilitate a design process to change the way we live in cities, ‘not merely survive but also express and expand [our] cultural and spiritual possibilities’ (Manzini,1992, p.6). Growing global acceptance of the need to change towards a more sustainable manner of human development means a fundamental change in how we design our future. This requires an open conversation on what to do; a conversation which requires approaches to very messy and uncertain issues. If we as a society require the creative capacity to dream of, and subsequently create, a better future, then design-led approaches are of significant value. The word ‘design’ has many meanings. When I talk about design I am talking about a creative discipline and a process we all engage in. That is, although there are ‘professional designers’ and a field of practice, everyone engages in the act of designing to some extent. As a consequence, the ubiquity of design gives the design discipline an opportunity to share. In particular, in the area of research, sharing a designerly approach opens up opportunities both for socially oriented research, knowledge construction and the discipline of design. A design approach is playful. It places the designer’s personality as central to the process. It is iterative. It moves from the general to the specific. It works within ambiguity and fluidity of meaning. It is open to unforeseen circumstances. It engages with the messiness of everyday life. Design outcomes aim to facilitate our everyday practices, helping to create and recreate our culture of living. In this paper a designled methodology, Bigamatics, is used to prompt further discussions into the potential of designerly approaches to research. Often creative practices are dismissed because they do not articulate their research practices in terms comparable with more traditional forms of research. This explanation attempts to go some way in bridging this ‘disciplinary divide’. The paper concludes by suggesting future directions to continue the conversation about the value of sharing designerly approaches across a socially oriented research context.

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research.
This paper was presented at SOAC 5held in Melbourne from 29 November – 2 December 2011.

SOAC 5 was hosted by the University of Melbourne, RMIT University, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology and Latrobe University as well as the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and the Grattan Institute, the Victorian State Government and the City of Melbourne.
Three plenary panels brought researchers from across the country to address ‘big issues’: place-based disadvantage, the design and form of Australian cities, and metropolitan governance. Over 175 papers, in 46 themed sessions, cover topics ranging from planning and governance for environmental sustainability, to housing affordability and adequacy in the context of an aging population. Healthy communities, better public transport, high quality open space, participatory planning, and issues affecting the peri-urban fringe are also strong sub-themes within this conference.
All published papers have been subject to a peer reviewing process.