Social System Design Methodology for Transitioning toa New Social Structure
Authors
Atsunobu Kimura*1, Hisashi Haraguchi*2, Yutaka Yamauchi*2, Katsuta Matsuura*1*1: Co-Designing Institute for Polyphonic Society, 1-3 Ofuka-cho, North-ward Osakacity, Osaka Pref., Japan.
*2: Centre for person-centred ningen,Omuta, 1-4-2 Shiranuhi-machi, Omuta-city,
Fukuoka Pref., Japan.
E-mail: kimura.atsunobu01@is.naist.jp

Abstract
Social system design in this paper is intended to achieve a comprehensive
transition to a new social system, rather than overcoming partial social problems. In
Japan, approaches to transforming society, such as elections and social activism, are
not fully functional. Transition to a new social structure requires critiques from insidewith the presentation of concrete activities. We propose a systematized social systemdesign methodology that aims at a principled transition, based on analysis of recent
practices developed in Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture.

Keywords
Social System Design Methodology, Sustainability Transition, Urban Living Labs

1. INTRODUCTION
The concept of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to integrate the three
aspects of society, economy and environment, and to encourage diverse stakeholders,
including citizens, governments, and businesses, to transcend sectionalism and work
together in a cross-sectional manner toward the meaningful society. As social issues

are worsening and becoming more complex, a holistic approach to resolving the social
issues is urgently required.
“Social system design" in this paper is also oriented toward the fundamental
elimination of problems through a holistic transformation of the social system itself,
rather than the piecewise resolution of local problems. Many of today's social issues
are caused by the discrepancy between the existing social system and the reality of ourlife. Post-event and reactive responses will not lead to a fundamental resolution of theissues or the realization of the future desired. What is important is an approach thatperceives society as a system that creates the problems and aims for its transformation.

2. CONTEXT
To begin this paper, we first review the weaknesses of conventional approaches intransforming social systems. The social system design discussed in this paper aims to
overcome situations that fatally challenge conventional approaches.

In general, political activities are the most common approach to transforming any
existing social system. The goal is to translate social ideals into legislation through civil
debate in which representatives of citizens discuss and attempt concordance. However,
the representative democracy adopted by many democracies might appear to bestable because the class structure of industrial capitalism is balanced against thecorresponding mass parties representing social groups, but in post-industrial
capitalism, this balance is being lost (Manin, 1997). It has also been said that the
unwritten norms of "mutual tolerance" and "organizational self-control," necessary fordemocracy to function, are collapsing (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). Thus, the dysfunctionof representative democracy is being discussed mainly in developed countries; thesame issue has been raised in Japan (Fujii, 2021).
The main alternative to democratic elections is rooted in the diverse needs ofcitizens. There is a history of citizen movements led by issue groups modifying an
existing social system in piecemeal fashion. This alternative raises the possibility ofposition-oriented politics driven by citizen movements; it lies outside traditional
parliamentary politics. Civic movements that pursue ownership with minorities asagents emphasize power relations of dominator / dominated and adopt
confrontational actions in order to acquire political resources (Melucci, 1989). The
assumption is that they can usefully objectify "enemies" external to themselves.
However, in the 2000s, in the face of neoliberalism which neutralized politicalantagonisms (Mouffe, 2005) and left-avoiding populism as a situation unique to Japan,
it became impossible to find an easily identifiable enemy, and civic activism is said tohave transformed into something that provides a reason for living and a place forpeople who have difficulty adapting to society (Inaba, 2016)1 .
Both approaches, democratic policy formation and civic activities driven by issue
groups, face a situation in which they can no longer establish effective points ofcontention and clarify the issues in the traditional way, both of which assume a clearcut adversarial structure, and changes are required given reasonable extrapolation of
the current situation.

3. RELATED STUDIES AND RESEARCH ISSUESIn response to this situation, the search is on for a methodology that overcomesthe limitations of the conventional approaches and triggers social systemtransformation; this paper is positioned within this context. Various related studies haveattempted to correct the current situation, which has become increasingly pluralistic
and complex, and yield an architecture that is appropriate for creating rational social
structures, rather than tackling the problems with simple oppositional remedies.
Regarding representation, discussions on the various forms of political participationthat make democracy function effectively are calling into question the traditional

electoral system (Reybrouck, 2016). Some have long advocated "citizen assemblies"that utilize mini-public forums for citizen participation and deliberation (Smith 2009).
1

According to Inaba, while social movements such as the Democracy Movement and Occupy
Movement were revitalized worldwide in the 2000s, such movements were not so vibrant in Japanand non-protest-oriented movements attracted attention. Inaba acknowledges that social
movements have became a place for minorities as described in the body of this paper; she also
pointed out the need to find a new political possibilities.

Arguments have been made for evaluating the Irish Constitutional Assembly, which
experimented with the idea, from the perspective of democratic control over policy
making (della Porta, 2020). However, while these arguments for a more fully
democratic system through diversification of the electoral system, assume arepresentative system and rational debates, and there is no inherent guarantee thatthese assumptions will effectively contribute to positive change of the social system.
Indeed they need to be validated empirically. In this respect, this is an argument thatawaits further development, and is beyond the scope of this paper, which is concernedwith design methodology.
The following study of civic activities centered on group activities is noteworthy
from the viewpoint of the issues raised by this paper. This was not a reduction to theold oppositional structure of "damage / perpetration" or "individual / government or
corporation," but rather reexamined the civic movements accompanying MINAMATA
disease based on the premise that individuals are also embedded in society (Sung,
2003). Based on the interdependency of the individual and society, the perspective ofobjectifying the cyclically reconstituted social system itself is also emphasized in thispaper2. However, the subject of this paper is a practical methodology that takes thiscyclicality into account and approaches it in a concrete manner. In this regard, there isresearch on Japanese social education theory that discusses the process by which
parties to a social issue structurally perceive the issue and transform the community ina learning process called Community Development (Miyazaki, 2019). This is highlysuggestive in terms of the internal change of the people involved and the formation ofa collective, but it remains within the framework of civil society theory, and so does notinclude discussions of policy or economics, and does not have the scope needed forholistic social system transformation.
2"Mutuality and circularity between the individual and society" refers to the way in which ourdecisions and behaviors constitute the social system, and at the same time, the constituted social
system also defines our decisions and behaviors. Such understandings are based on M. Foucault's
theory of power (especially the discipline model (Foucault, 1975)). This paper, however, is basedon this Foucauldian understanding and explores a design methodology that differs from Foucault's"archaeology" and "genealogy" approaches.

Given this situation, social design3 methodologies such as Sustainability Transition(Kohler et al.,2019) and Urban Living Labs (Cuomo,2022) have attracted attention as
concrete practices to ensure the diversity of participation in support of various parties
through collaboration. One of the research domain inf Sustainability Transition;
Transition Management is a methodology in which citizens, governments, andbusinesses co-create a holistic agenda for social system transformation, and operate it
in a way that connects it to the specific practices of the agents. However, it lacks amethodology to concretely implement the integrated transformation indicated by theagenda (Roorda et al., 2014), and has yet to fully realize a movement toward thistransformation (Kohler et al.,2019). On the other hand, Urban Living Labs is amethodology in which citizens themselves take the initiative and co-create with urban
stakeholders to solve problems through a design process toward sustainable urban
transformation (Baccarne, 2014). However, a methodology to comprehensively andintegrally grasp the complex intertwined elements of the entire city, called Urban
Dimensions (Steen & van Bueren, 2017) has yet to be elucidated.

Two points are noteworthy in related research: the first is to take into account thecircularity nature of indivisuals and the social systems, in which the individual is definedby society as well as the society is defined by the individual. The second is to ensure
the diversity of participation through collaboration. On the other hand, the nature of
the entities and methodologies to implement social system transformation in an
integrated manner is a research issue that has yet to be adequately addressed. To
contribute to social system transformation, this paper focuses on design
methodologies that question the nature of subjects and practices in an integrated
manner while overcoming social conflict structures inherent in the social systemthrough diverse collaborations based on the circular dependencies of individuals andsociety (rather than external criticism). As the basis for social system design, this paper

3

Manzini, an expert on social innovation, points out that modern society requires deep andsignificant systemic change (on the same level as the prior transition from feudal to modern
society), and that what does not touch the roots of the system will not help in systemictransformation (Manzini, 2019).

refers to specific practices created in OMUTA City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in Chapter 4,
and attempts to systematize a general-purpose methodology in Chapter 5 from theadvances made.

4. SOCIAL SYSTEM DESIGN PRACTICE IN OMUTA CITY,FUKUOKA PREFECTURE
a. Emerging Social System Design Practices
OMUTA City contributed greatly to the industrial and economic development ofJapan through the mining operations of the MIIKE Coal Mine (1873-1997) by MEIJI
Government and a flourishing coal-chemical complex. However, the population of thecity has almost halved from 210,000 in 1959 (the peak of the coal mining era), and thecurrent aging rate is 37.3% (as of October 1, 2022) which is one of the highest in Japanamong cities with more than 100,000 people. It is also widely known as an advanced
region in terms of dementia care, because the number of people with dementia isincreasing in the community, creating a situation in which many people are involved. In
2005, OMUTA City, together with its citizens, issued the "Declaration for Creating a City
to Live with People with Dementia"4. The concept of "a town where people can wanderaround with peace of mind," which was proposed at that time, was a groundbreaking
one. This concept aims to create a town where people with dementia can live likeeveryone else in the community, rather than in nursing homes or in communities
isolated by gates. Traditionally the act of wandering and its positioning as aproblematic behavior indicated deviation from social customs and triggered treatment
and constraint. Overcoming similar situations in Japan, OMUTA’s concept is an

4

In January 2005, Omuta City issued the "Declaration for Creating a City to Live with People with
Dementia" in order to make it known throughout Japan that the entire city will support people
with dementia and their families through cooperation among welfare, medical care, nursing
agencies, the community, and government.
https://www.city.omuta.lg.jp/hpKiji/pub/detail.aspx?c_id=5&id=6652&class_set_id=1&class_id=1
36 (accessed Aug. 6, 2022)

innovative one that aims to create a town where people with dementia, children,
adults, or any other kind of person, are accepted into society.
From the perspective of this paper, this concept and the many practices in
OMUTA City that have accompanied it, are the seeds of a social system design practicethat finds new meaning for and leads the way to a shift in social systems.

b. Establishment of an organization for citizens to think andact for the entire city (2019)
It is clear that the activities traditionally proscribed by the issues of "dementia"
and "the elderly" make it difficult to redesign the entire social system. This is because it
is impossible to take account of the social issues that arise in various parts of thecommunity. This is due to the fact that the silo structure of local government limited
the areas that could be covered by individual policies. Therefore, the OMUTA Center
for Future Co-Creation (hereinafter referred to as "PONI PONI") was established incollaboration with the public and private sectors as an "organization that is both
independent and embedded" in the existing social system; it crosses vertical divisions
in sectors and domains, with a core based on a new deeper concept related todementia care (Kimura et al. 2019). PONI PONI was established as a public-private
partnership. The founding members included those developing businesses within thecommunity, those who had been involved in OMUTA's urban development fromoutside the community, those who shared the concept and had strengths in policy
formation outside the community, and design researchers from companies. It is a teamstructure that is conscious of the fact that its remit is to design social systems.

c. National Model Project of Health Promotion for the Elderly
Health Care (2019)
In parallel with the establishment of our organization, PONI PONI first focusedon "care prevention" in response to the situation in OMUTA City, and developed inconjunction with OMUTA City, particularly the "Health Promotion Project for the Elderly
Health Care" by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. This was because webelieved that it was necessary to seek the effective integration of two different policy
areas: "community-based comprehensive care," which was being promoted in the
medical and long-term care fields, and "regional development," which aimed to correct
the concentration of people, money, and resources in Tokyo. The project involved
understanding the policy background of each area and engaging in dialogue withpractitioners within and outside the region. As a result, we discovered a new transition
concept: "from guaranteeing the right to exist (Article 25 of the Constitution) toguaranteeing the right to the pursuit of happiness (Article 13 of the Constitution)" .This
concept organically connects medical and nursing care with local development. The
project report also addressed the Living Labs, which create collaboration between local
players and outside companies to solve social issues, and envisions a specific approach
for involving companies outside the region.

d. WAKU WAKU Life Salon (2019)
Subsequently, as a specific Living Lab practice project, PONI PONI implemented
the "WAKU WAKU (This onomatopoeia means that “One’s heart pounded withexpectation.”) Life Salon. This project responded to both the needs of local residents
and the government to solve problems in OMUTA City and the need of companies todevelop new services. In addition, the project embodied the Omuta's new transition
concept which was detailed in the aforementioned "Health Promotion Project for
Elderly Health Care. Specifically, participants aged 65 or older living in OMUTA City
who voluntarily expressed interest in the "WAKU WAKU Life Salon" gathered for a totalof five sessions to reflect on their lives to date and their daily lives, and to think about
how they could become excited about the remainder of their lives.
For companies, this project was positioned as the search for concepts that would
contribute to the development of IoT-based early disease detection services, and toorganize UX/UI requirements. The knowledge this acquired would be used to launch
new business companies. At the same time, for residents, the project provided an
opportunity for elderly residents with limited places to go in the community to regain
their motivation. For the government, it was an opportunity to find new measures todeal with matters that could not be approached through the existing long-term careinsurance system. The project was designed and managed as a value-added activity inwhich the three parties involved in the Living Lab overcame their respective challenges.

Figure 1. Scene (left) and flyer (right) of Wakuwaku Life Salon
In this way, we have newly discovered the potential of "dialogue that stimulates

motivation" in the realization of a new concept through "dialogues" between theelderly and the staff of the WAKU WAKU Life Salon.

e. Questioning the views of humanity (2020)
After the "WAKU WAKU Life Salon," a dialogue was held with leading
practitioners and experts from within the region and beyond to identify a new view ofhuman nature that could comprehensively support corporate service implementation,
local practice, and policy development. It became clear that the humanistic view of the"modern subject," which is the premise for all institutions and businesses in themodern society and which citizens widely believe should be realized, is no longer
compatible with reality and is creating social challenges. The dialogue also suggested
that the identity of the foundational human itself is shared with others and theenvironment. Furthermore, the phase of identity shifts from role (self-identity) toexistence (ego-identity), not through discipline, but through release, and through"dialogue," motivation is stimulated from existence (ego-identity). In other words, a
new view of the human being, which is necessary for social system design, was found.

f. Co-creation of OMUTA City Health and Welfare
Comprehensive Plan (2021)
In order to redesign the entire social system, PONI PONI and OMUTA City
collaborated to develop the OMUTA City Health and Welfare Comprehensive Plan,

which is a comprehensive plan for daily life, with the aim of targeting activities in a
broader policy area than just long-term care prevention. This plan was developed
based on suggestions from projects in the area of long-term care prevention describedabove, as well as from various projects in other areas. Comprehensive plans of local
governments in Japan are generally prepared by combining the plans of various
departments as separate chapters into a single plan, but this does not lead to an
integrated reappraisal of the community and daily life. Therefore, in this project, we
attempted to create a single structure for the nine welfare-related administrative plans,
and integrated them holistically into a single comprehensive plan.

Figure 2. Official booklet (left) and booklet for citizens (center, right)
In addition, in order to replace Japan's typical approach to administrative plans,
which merely creates a list of "measures that can be implemented at the present time"
based on existing administrative resources and past achievements, PONIPONI andOMUTA city decided to include "measures that should be addressed even though nomeans of implementation have been found at the present time" to create the freespace expected to trigger novel co-creation activities.

g. Entrustment of community comprehensive support centers(2021)In order to design social systems in a more practical manner, we were entrustedwith two Community Comprehensive Support Centers, which are community-based,public interest entities. Community comprehensive support centers are institutions
stipulated in the Long-Term Care Insurance Law and established by local governments
for the purpose of comprehensively supporting the improvement of the healthcare andwelfare of the elderly by providing comprehensive consultation for the elderly in thecommunity, protecting their rights, creating a community support system, andproviding necessary assistance for long-term care. In addition, in response to therecent revision of the long-term care insurance system, OMUTA City has alsoestablished a system to actively engage in "community development. Specifically, thecenter is the first place to receive so-called "in-between problems (system errors)" that

occur in the community, and can be said to be the center of a regional network tosolve "in-between problems" and promote long-term care. Therefore, it has a great
advantage as a center of practice for designing social systems in that it can detectsocial system omissions, draw out collaboration through its network, and work beyond
its own domain.

h. Sign comprehensive cooperation agreement with OMUTA
city (2022)
Furthermore, PONI PONI signed a "Collaboration Agreement for the Realizationof a Community Coexistence Society" with the city of OMUTA. Its subject is thepromotion of the comprehensive plan formulated in 2021. This allows PONI PONI to
officially support policy formation in a wide range of areas in conjunction withgovernment departments and to collaborate with stakeholders within and outside thecommunity to realize the vision of the policy. This will help turn around the situationthat tends to occur in Japan, where "public matters are left to the government”. The
partnership between OMUTA City and PONI PONI, a community-based social systemdesign organization, has officially paved the way for the integrated implementation ofpolicies that have been stove-piped since PONI PONI's founding by a privateintermediary organization. From a different perspective, PONI PONI's assumption of theplanning promotion secretariat has made it possible to promote administrativeplanning through a collective impact approach.
.

i. National model project on housing (2022)
In addition to the Welfare departments’ collaboration, we started collaboratingwith the housing department of OMUTA City, on the "Model Project on Housing
through Cooperation between Welfare and Housing Departments in Local
Governments" by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Housing
policy is said to be a highly integrated area that is linked to not only welfare but alsourban planning and immigration. Naturally, this was one of the themes of theComprehensive Plan for Health and Welfare, but by focusing on housing, it waspossible to gain a detailed understanding of the policy background and conduct asurvey of the actual situation in the region. In the process, we further discovered theconcept of "substantiating social inclusion"5 (miyamoto, 2017), which expands the
Omuta's new transition concept.

j. Future Activities (2022)
In order to accelerate social system design, we are beginning to embark on thefollowing activities.
One is to utilize "Comprehensive Project C," a type of long-term care prevention
and daily life support service, as a "base for strategically restructuring and developing a
new concept" in long-term care prevention. PONI PONI will, in collaboration with the5Miyamoto cites the criticism of J. Young (Young, 1999), author of "Bulimic Society," that"repeatedly promoting social inclusion while society remains exclusionary will ultimately promote
exclusion. He then points out that while it is good to include all excluded people as members ofsociety, it is a logical contradiction to include people in an exclusionary or self-help society, andthat social inclusion cannot be practically realized unless society itself changes.

Regional Comprehensive Support Center and other players in and outside thecommunity, work on this project as an official initiative backed by a partnershipagreement. PONI PONI will then proceed with a model project to structurally rethink
and redesign the existing social system based on the principles it has discovered so far:moving "from guaranteeing the right to exist (Article 25 of the Constitution) toguaranteeing the right to the pursuit of happiness (Article 13 of the Constitution)" and"substantiating social inclusion.
Moreover, we are tackling the Future Prediction Project, the Incubation Project,
and the creation of opportunities for collaboration with a wide range of citizens. The
Future Project will work to design social systems based on objective forecast data andnarrative visions of the future, in addition to dialogue with practitioners and expertsthat we have been engaging with. The incubation project will work to create newproblem-solving and value-creating entities in the region, create workplaces, and showchildren and young people new technologies and ways of appreciating their own
existence. The creation of opportunities for collaboration with a wide range of citizens
will be undertaken with the aim of fostering a culture of "society can be changed" sothat each citizen can play a leading role in creating new social systems and continuing
to bring about change.

5. SOCIAL SYSTEM DESIGN METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, we attempt to systematize our proposal as a general-purpose
methodology, using the social system design practice in OMUTA City as a starting
point.

a. Grasping the views of social systems
Formal social systems such as laws and norms do not unilaterally influencepeople, but function as substantive social system only when people within the systembehave in conformity with them (internalization of the system related to footnote No.2),
see Figure. 3 (A). Design practitioners are strongly urged to first grasp social systems
from the perspective that social systems are cyclically structured.

Figure. 3. Views of Social System StructureThis makes it necessary to grasp the point that each area of the existing social
system has become vertically divided due to specialization to increase efficiency (Figure.
3 (B)). On the other hand, people exist as an integrated entity, and each element ofdaily life is inseparably linked as a network (interrelationship) like an organism (Figure.
3(C)). The discrepancy between the two is often exposed by social issues.
In order to specifically design a social system as a design object, it is necessary
to limit the object and make it tangible. Therefore, one option is to target a specific"region" with fixed scope as a microcosm of the social system (Figure. 3(D)).
It is also useful to use "policy" as a pathway to understand and work on thebasic framework of the social systems in that region. However, it is important to notethe two-layered structure (formal and substantive) of the social systems. For example,
the formal policies can be changed through official procedures, but this alone will notreach the concrete change of social systems. The approach at the "substantive" level,
which is the actual implementation of the plan's principles, requires building
relationships and working with government officials and local stakeholders tocollaborate in a substantive manner. In most cases, either a formal or substantive
approach is taken, but in order to approach both sides (formal and substantive) of amutually embedded structure for social system transformation, it is essential to obtainformal ostensible standing as well as to implement concrete practices for thesubstantive level (Figure. 3(E)).

b. Social system design practitioners
As mentioned in the previous section, the principles of a social system must
function both in the environment and people's internal aspects like thoughts andbehaviors, as both constitute the system in a circulatory manner. Therefore, any entitythat seeks to design a social system must internalize and incorporate a new concept
into the existing system in a way that functions while escaping from this circulatory
structure, by reconfiguring the entire system. As described before, this is the situation;"organization that is both independent and embedded". Herein lies the basic position
and approach of the social system design practitioner.
This is true whether the practitioner is an individual or an organization. In bothcases, it is first necessary to free oneself from the functional roles defined by theexisting social system. This means creating a situation in which one feels
uncomfortable in one's surroundings as an undefined and contradictory entity. Whenthe people around them try to understand the practitioner in an existing role, if thepractitioner behaves accordingly, they will become incorporated into the existing
system. It is necessary to continue to avoid this while retaining a certain influence on
the existing social system. Influence must be both formal and substantive. Formality
acts to create an environment conducive to broad-based movement, while substancecontributes to individual, concrete conceptual practices.
As regards concrete practices, the scope of involvement should be
unconstrained as much as possible in order to avoid stove-piping (specialization),
which is one of the weaknesses of existing social systems. Rather, it is necessary toreconfigure (rearrange) each element of the social system so that new principles canbe realized through interaction across a wide range of areas. This also coincides withthe breadth of collaboration partners. Social system design practitioners are expected
to have a common language and interest in a wide range of areas and sectors, and to
take the lead in design.
Financial independence is also important. Receiving compensation for "being ofvalue in the existing social system" can mean being captured by the existing system. In
addition, when obtaining funding from a subcontractor's standpoint, the direction of
the design may be strongly constrained by existing philosophies and ideas. In light ofthese considerations, it is important that funding be indirect, that fair relationships beestablished as much as possible when making contracts, and that the independent
organization should not become too dependent on funds from a specific entity.

c. Process Model of Social System Design
This section outlines the process as obtained through practice (Figure. 4). These
proceed in an iterated and expanding manner.

Figure. 4. Process of Social System Design
Figure. 5 shows the relationship between this process and the practices
described in the previous section.

Figure. 5. Relationship between process and practices

Process 1: Creation of Subjects with sense of discomfort and ownershipFirst, it is necessary to create a position in which the "subject (individual or team)can be embedded while remaining independent" from the interrelated social system. In
this case, the driver for design is the designer's own sense of discomfort with theexisting social system, as well as the individual's sense of ownership based on personal
experience. However, it is difficult to cover the wide range of areas involved indesigning a social system from just the direct experience of the individuals themselves.
Therefore, when working as a team, it is necessary to ensure the diversity ofexperiences of the members and to take the experiences and positions of others as
one's own. The position of being able to constantly perceive flaws in existing social
systems is also the foundation of good design practice.

Process 2: Background analysis
The social system in front of us exists as if it were self-evident and invisible.
However, in many cases, it was implemented at some point. As a clue to this, it isnecessary to grasp how the policies were formed, find the structures and principles
that created the problems beyond the events in front of us, and objectify them. It is
important to note that policy intentions can easily change from positive to negative
depending on changes in reality. Policy intentions cannot be judged on their content
alone. It is necessary to understand the current situation in relation to reality.
Process 3: Questioning and Dialogue about concept
In order to develop a new social concept for an existing social system, it isnecessary to ask questions about the concept and deepen the dialogue. In doing so,
we will actively collaborate with experts and practitioners who are challenging society
with advanced questions. It is important to open a forum for dialogue and questioning,as this will enhance the public nature of our practice and help us find collaborators
who are uncomfortable with the existing social system. Furthermore, it is essential tocreate a circuit that connects these questions to implementation approaches. It isnecessary to reflect the questions in the efforts of design practitioners themselves, aswell as to have mechanisms to create new players in the field.
Process 4: Practice based on new concept
It is necessary to create practices based on the new principles found, embedthem in the existing system, connect them to the existing network, and make themfully functional. Implementing and linking these practices can concretely infuse theexisting social system with the new concept and transform the system into a different
structure. It is also important to ensure a network that can permeate the existing social
system and expand its functions in a continuous, interrelated, and chain-like manner. It
is necessary to pursue not only local prototyping, but also practices that serve as apump to spread the concept, so to speak.

6. SUMMARY
This paper theoretically provided a view of the difficulties posed by social systemtransformation and a design logic to overcome these difficulties. It also presented
concrete examples and processes to elucidate the practice of the approach, from whicha general-purpose social system design methodology was derived.
First, this paper in-theory has shown that the conventional approaches to social
system transformation (representative democracy and civil movements) assume a clear
conflict structure, but this assumption makes it impossible to identify effective issues. In
order to overcome this difficulty, it is necessary to approach the multifaceted structureof the social system, rather than reducing the pluralistic and complex society to anantagonistic structure (Chapter 2).
From this perspective, the theories of party movements based on the cyclicalstructure of individuals and society and the theory of social education, which deals withthe process of local transformation by the parties involved, have attracted attention,
but both of these theories lack practicality and integration. Although social designs
such as Transition Management and Urban Living Labs have attracted attention aspractices that ensure a diversity of participation to support various parties, they have
not yet been established as methodologies for achieving integrated socialtransformation. Based on these theoretical considerations, this paper concludes thatthe design of social system transformation requires design practices andmethodologies that realize both of the following: 1) the design of social systemtransformation should be internal in the social system based on the cyclical nature ofindividuals and society, and 2) these should be realized in an integrated manner while
overcoming social conflict structures through diverse collaborations (Chapter 3).
The paper then presented a concrete case study and process from 2019 to 2022
in Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture (Chapter 4) to illuminate such practices andmethodologies, and at the same time derived a methodology for social system designfrom these practices (Chapter 5).
The following is a more concrete description of the practical aspects of the
project. Regarding the entities inherent in the social system based on the cyclicalnature of the individual and society, we presented concrete examples such as theestablishment of the Omuta Future Co-creation Center (Section 4.2) and thecommissioning of the Regional Comprehensive Support Center (Section 4.7). Regarding
the practice of driving an integrated social system transformation within the existingsocial system through diverse collaborations, specific examples were presented, such as
the Wakuwaku Life Salon (Section 4.4), the formulation of the Omuta City Health andWelfare Comprehensive Plan (Section 4.6). Of course, these individual cases do nothave meaning in isolation, but rather are instances of design practices that realize
integrated and comprehensive social system transformation through theirinterconnection in the series of processes described in Chapter 4.
The methodology derived from the characteristics and processes of thesepractices was described in detail in this paper, which presented five views to better
understand multifaceted social systems (Section 5.1). The nature of the subject ofdesign, which has tended to be overlooked by conventional design methodologies,
especially in terms of its relationship to the circulatory structure of society (Section 5.2)

was described. In addition, the process of social system design was modeled in fourstages, and the specific practices in Omuta City were depicted within the processmodel (Section 5.3).
In order to develop this methodology into becoming more versatile and useful,
it is necessary to further elaborate its contents and clarify the leadership required ofdesigners and the nature of actual environments. Furthermore, this methodology
should never be seen as ever complete. It is important that the methodology offer"continuous change" in order to respond to major shifts in new values such as theSDGs, based on the fact that modern social systems have characteristics that tend tomove away from an integrated way of being and living, as discussed in Section 4.1.

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