Design legacy and continuity in rural social innovation: Reflections from an experiment in China

Short-term design interventions are increasingly used within rural social innovation, yet limited attention has been paid to how legacies generated through these interventions might contribute to continuity over time. This paper explores continuity through a social innovation experiment informed by Participatory Action Research (PAR) conducted in a village in eastern China. The experiment explored design legacy as a potential mechanism for continuity across fragmented and time-limited participation. While the planned continuity mechanisms did not operate as intended, the findings reveal that continuity emerged through relationships, contextual knowledge, intermediary support, and ongoing negotiations among different stakeholders rather than documentation and planned handovers. The paper contributes to discussions on design for social innovation by examining how different forms of design legacy support continuity across fragmented participation. It further highlights the diverse actors who inherit these legacies and the challenges involved in accumulating, reusing, and maintaining them over time.