The need to radically re-think public services can be challenged by the question of what public services could become if they were conceived as platforms to trigger, enable, and support citizens’ active and collaborative behaviors.
From this framework, Manzini introduces European experiences of participatory and community-centered design. Manzini is a professor at the Politecnico di Milano, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Parsons The New School for Design. For more than two decades he has been working in the field of design for sustainability and social innovation, considered as a major driver of sustainable changes. From this perspective he founded DESIS, an international network of design labs active in the field of design for social innovation and sustainability (http://www.desis-network.org). Manzini was recently awarded 2012 Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services to Design Education.
