Irene Lønne is an assistant research professor in the Institute of Design and Communication at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

As a researcher Irene Lønne is working on the project Kreativitet og innovation i den danske møbelbranche (Creativity and innovation in the Danish furniture industry). The project aims to establish the basis for a furniture consortium – a strategic network for manufacturers, designers, researchers and educational institutions. As a first step, the researchers are gathering knowledge about design-based furniture companies’ approach to innovation and product development.

The project is based on qualitative interviews with seven Danish companies and one company outside Denmark. The interview data are combined with information that the researchers derive by having the companies’ decision-makers play design games. These board games were developed for the research project and require the participants to make choices and set priorities, for example in weighing different design strategies. One of the instruments used by the researchers to process the data is the analytical model the Design Landscape.

The Design Landscape is a model that Irene Lønne developed as part of her Ph.D. project Designs strategiske potentiale – Design i virksomheders værdiskabelse (The Strategic Potential of Design – Design in Companies’ Value Creation). In her Ph.D. dissertation she explores ways for companies to work strategically with design in order to advance their value creation. The Design Landscape is a model that can be used to map the function of design in a given company – the company’s design landscape. This analysis makes it possible to identify areas where the company might benefit from a strategic design effort.

Design is important in any company, whether or not the company’s products or services are design-based. Irene Lønne divides the company’s design landscape into three fields: products, communication and room. Any company has design objects and/or design processes in one or more of these fields.

Through her work, Irene Lønne has documented that many companies have a potential for a better strategic use of design. She has also indicated possible avenues for developing the necessary awareness of this potential. She is not saying that all companies would benefit from a tight control over every aspect of the company’s design landscape. The extent to which a given company can use their design landscape strategically depends on the company’s culture, history and other strategies and goals. See also the article Strategic Design Tools in Mind Design #18.

In her research Irene Lønne draws on her practical experiences from her work as an architect and designer and as head of design in a large government enterprise.

Irene Lønne graduated as an architect from Aarhus School of Architecture in 1990 and earned a Ph.D. from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in 2009.