DESIS Network has been founded in 2009. Since then, in the world, many things have changed.
Now, in this new context, it is time to open a discussion on the present and the future of social innovation, design and DESIS itself.
The common background is, of course, the initial DESIS presentation and the experience made over the last decade. Its triggering factors should be the contemporary context. First of all the climatic emergency. But also the growing inequalities in living standards and in the political and democratic crisis. And finally, the difficulties for more and more people to imagine a future. All this considering both the North and the Global South.
Like 10 years ago, we still think that social innovation, experimenting with local solutions and sustainable ways of being and doing, are giving us useful indications. And that design can help in many ways. But, when we wrote the initial presentation of DESIS, we were able to discuss social innovation and design with only very general references to the need to move towards social and environmental sustainability. In proposing the discussion, we think that now this is impossible.
In this spirit we warmly invite all the DESIS friends and colleagues to share their opinions (with a 500-1000 words text). The aim is set the basis for an up-dated DESIS presentation. That is, a DESIS 2020 Manifesto.
We are looking forward to hear from you, and also very excited about all the new discussions this initiative will bring to light.
Ezio Manzini (DESIS Founder)
Carla Cipolla (DESIS International Coordinator)
Discussing the future of humankind in the pandemic/post-pandemic scenario has become a common practice around the world. DESIS Network brought this discussion to the Design table during an international webinar with professors, students and researches fro... read more
The Conversations 2020 initiative started last year and brought up a discussion on the present and the future of social innovation, design and sustainability. Now it’s time to return to it, in order to build a DESIS Manifesto. The Conversations 2020... read more
Motivated by all the changes the Coronavirus pandemic has provoked in the world, DESIS Network members, colleagues and partners got together to discuss the impacts, ideas and what designers, as active citizens, could do to help the world face the pandemic... read more
Written by Carla Cipolla, DESIS Coordinator and UFRJ/Coppe Rio DESIS Lab, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil DESIS Conversations 2020 has been a discussion about the present and the future of social innovation, design and sustainability. The ope... read more
Written by Joon Sang Baek, Yonsei University DESIS Lab, Yonsei University, South Korea In this year’s Social Design Forum organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Municipality, people from the public, private, and civil sectors as well as academics gathered ... read more
Written by Anna Meroni, PoliMi DESIS Lab, Politecnico di Milano, Italy It is an instructive experiment to look at humankind’s actions as slow, yet progressive, efforts toward civilisation, in a trial and error journey. Not all actions of course, but t... read more
Written by Virginia Tassinari, PoliMi DESIS Lab, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Clearly the exceptionality of the environmental emergency we are witnessing today requires specific efforts in terms of thinking/acting in designing. The consequences of anthrop... read more
Written by Nicola Morelli, AAU DESIS Lab, Aalborg University, Denmark One day, about 25 years ago, in an office of the Submarine (a section of Politecnico di Milano, so called because its office were below the street level), professor Manzini started a ... read more
Written by Miaosen Gong, Jiangnan DESIS Lab, Jiangnan University, China In the DESIS newsletter in this July, Prof. Ezio Manzini opened a discussion on environmental concern of DESIS initiatives, which I think would be very helpful to review our trajector... read more
Written by Davide Fassi, PoliMi DESIS Lab, Politecnico di Milano, Italy In the development of design for social innovation projects, we got the habit to take sustainability for granted because it is part of our DNA as researchers. After an initial phase w... read more