Designing for Many Worlds: Toward a Pluriversal Framework for AI Assisted Design Pedagogy

The integration of generative artificial intelligence into design education — across communication, fashion, and product design — has opened new possibilities for creativity and collaborative learning. Yet these systems operate through epistemic frameworks that privilege dominant aesthetic traditions, reproducing culturally homogenised forms of representation. Scholarship has begun to interrogate the ethical implications of AI in creative contexts, but comparatively little attention has been given to the ways generative systems reproduce colonial structures of knowledge within design pedagogy (Costanza-Chock, 2020). This paper proposes a pluriversal framework for AI-assisted design pedagogy, developing the concept of multilocal epistemology as an alternative to universalist design paradigms. The theoretical foundations draw on decolonial theory — including Escobar's concept of the pluriverse (2018), Quijano's coloniality of power (2000), and Mignolo and Walsh's decolonial analytics (2018) — alongside design studies scholarship (Mareis & Paim, 2021; Tlostanova, 2017). This review maps the tensions between AI-driven standardisation and the epistemically plural foundations that culturally responsive design education requires. Rather than positioning AI as inherently emancipatory or inherently colonial, the paper argues that generative technologies function as contested epistemic spaces where multiple cultural imaginaries and design ontologies interact. Methodologically, the study adopts a practice-based qualitative approach centred on two participatory workshops, combining observation, participant reflection, prompt analysis, and comparative visual analysis of AIgenerated outputs. The central research question is: How can participatory AI workshops support pluriversal and culturally situated approaches to design education? 361 The paper contributes a pedagogical framework emphasising situated knowledge, collaborative authorship, and cultural sequencing — offering actionable guidance for educators and institutions working to decolonise AI-assisted design practice.