A co-authored introduction to the 'Nurturing' strand of 'The Virtuous Circle: Design Culture and Experimentation, the 2015 Cumulus conference held in Milan. Cumulus is the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media. The introduction, delivered at the conference and printed in the conference proceedings, articulates a vision of the relationship between design and culture, drawing on the papers presented in the strand to make its points. Both the strand and this introduction are purposefully interdisciplinary, and present arguments for the importance of culture to design, and vice versa, from design research, social science and the humanities (particuarly history, Teasley's home discipline).