Design education for social impact. The case of the Master in Social and Collaborative Housing

Building on the inter-connection between adaptive problems, social innovation and design, the paper aims to investigate how design education could play a role in framing a systemic approach to social impact. The author will present the innovative teaching programme of the Master in Social and Collaborative Housing of POLI.design. While describing the overall educational structure, the discussion will focus on the workshops’ modules that combine service design with financial, architectural and sociological disciplines in one unique design project. By applying a community centred design approach, the workshops are organized around “intensive sessions” and “diffused sessions”, in which students co-design new service solutions with citizens and organizations and prototype collective actions, thus acquiring the skills needed to bring about the necessary change.