Design, When Everybody Designs

Manzini's landmark on social innovation and 'diffuse design' — how expert designers can support the everyday design communities already do, toward a sustainable, resilient society. A near-perfect statement of the SDF's Partners component under the Sustainability and Social-Responsibility mottos. Published by MIT Press, Design, When Everybody Designs starts from the premise that in a changing world everyone designs: each person and collective, from enterprises to institutions to communities, must define and pursue a life project, and these projects sometimes converge into larger transformations. Manzini describes a wave of social innovation built on an open co-design process in which new solutions and meanings emerge, distinguishing diffuse design, performed by everybody, from expert design, performed by trained designers, and examining how the two interact. He maps what design experts can do to support such collaboration, drawing on cases including community-supported agriculture in China, digital platforms for medical care in Canada, interactive storytelling in India and collaborative housing in Milan.