1960 to 1990

Systems thinking in design has a long history with origins in the design methods movement during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the idea of wicked problems developed by Horst Rittel.^[9]

The theories about complexity help the management of an entire system, and the suggested design approaches help the planning of different divergent elements. The complexity theories evolved on the basis that living systems continually draw upon external sources of energy and maintain a stable state of low entropy, on the basis of the General Systems Theory by Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968).^[10] Some of the next rationales applied those theories also on artificial systems: complexity models of living systems address also productive models with their organizations and management, where the relationships between parts are more important than the parts themselves.

1990 to 2010

Treating productive organizations as complex adaptive systems allows for new management models that address economical, social and environmental benefits (Pisek and Wilson, 2001.)^[11] In that field, cluster theory (Porter, 1990)^[12] evolved in more environmentally sensitive theories, like industrial ecology (Frosh and Gallopoulos, 1989)^[13] and industrial symbiosis (Chertow, 2000).^[14] Design thinking offers a way to creatively and strategically reconfigure a design concept in a situation with systemic integration (Buchanan, 1992).^[15]

In 1994, Gunter Pauli and Heitor Gurgulino de Souza founded the research institute Zero Emission Research and Initiatives (ZERI),^[16] starting from the idea that progress should embed respect for the environment and natural techniques that will allow production processes to be part of the ecosystem.

Strong interdisciplinary and transdisciplinarity approaches are critical during the design phase (Fuller, 1981)^[17] with the increasing involvement of different disciplines, including urban planning, public policy, business management and environmental sciences (Chertow et al., 2004).^[18] As an interdiscipline, systemic design joins systems thinking and design methodology to support humanity centred^[19] and systems oriented design^[20] academe and practice (Bistagnino, 2011;^[21] Sevaldson, 2011;^[22] Nelson and Stolterman, 2012;^[23] Jones, 2014;^[24] Toso at al., 2012^[25]).

2010 to present

Numerous design projects demonstrate systemic design in their approach, including diverse topics involving food networks,^[26] industrial processes and water purification, revitalization of internal areas through art and tourism,^[27] circular economy,^[28][29] exhibition and fairs, social inclusion, and marginalization.

Since 2014 several scholarly journals have acknowledged systemic design with special publications, and in 2022, the Systemic Design Association launched “Contexts—The Journal of Systemic Design.” The proceedings repository, Relating Systems Thinking and Design, exceeded 1000 articles in 2023.