Designing for a new culture

In recent years, the fields of social innovation and design have grown ever closer, and indeed have been seen as merging into one another (Manzini and Rizzo 2011, 201). They have been enthusiastically promoted by government as... [ view full abstract ]

In recent years, the fields of social innovation and design have grown ever closer, and indeed have been seen as merging into one another (Manzini and Rizzo 2011, 201). They have been enthusiastically promoted by government as providing a way to address intractable social problems (and at times accused of acting as cover for government austerity), and widely applied in international development aid. Increasingly, there has been a movement to apply these approaches to building sustainable ways of living, based on localized community action that connects into global wholes. The task has recently been described as a need to “design for a new culture” (Manzini 2015).

This paper explores some of the implications this proposal might have, particularly in terms of blurring the distinction between practitioner and researcher, and in challenging traditional and contemporary notions of governance.

Manzini, Ezio. 2015. Design, When Everybody Designs An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. Translated by Rachel Coad: MIT Press.
Manzini, Ezio, and Francesca Rizzo. 2011. "Small projects/large changes: Participatory design as an open participated process." CoDesign 7 (3):199-215. doi: 10.1080/15710882.2011.630472.