Social innovation embracing participatory design

The chapter discusses, through a series of applied research projects developed by the Polimi DESIS Lab (the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab of the Politecnico di Milano), the concept and practice of participatory design with regard to design for social innovation. It aims to draft a high-level reflection on this subject, assuming the notion of ‘participatory design’ as generative of the one of ‘co-design’, which is today an approach to designing largely adopted in social innovation projects, where design has social purpose and when the designer deals with collaboration rather than controlling. The essay, thus, discusses how design for social innovation embraces participatory practices to enable collaborative creativity. It claims that operating ethics, promoting democracy and empowering people are distinctive factors of a way of thinking and doing that aims at the creation of social impact and public good.