Community + Civic Futures
Events of the Day
Design in the Public Sector: Global Approaches
Researchers and practitioners from different parts of the world come together to discuss practices and approaches to designing for the public sector. Learn more about how the speakers embrace challenges through interdisciplinary research methods. The 2024-2025 Center for Design Bridges Fellow, Sofia Bosch Gomez, presents her civic design project, Co-Designing a Network of Public Sector Design Scholars and Practitioners in Latin America. Lara Salinas presents projects from her lab, the Service Futures Lab at the University of the Arts London. Stefano Maffei discusses his work in food donation with The Collective Kitchen and the water resilience experiment with the Design Policy Lab.
Assistant Professor, Art + Design, CAMD; Fellow, The Burnes Center for Social Change
Student, BFA in Design, CAMD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Politecnico di Milano
Professor, School of Design, Politecnico di Milano; Director, Polifactory
Fellowship Research Assistant, Center for Design
Co-Director, Service Futures Lab, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London
Tutor (Research), Service Design MA, Royal College of Art; Public Sector Innovation Consultant, ANII
Design, Music and Education Panel
Rébecca Kleinberger, Sara Lenzi and Nikita Saner present work in the fields of music and education.
Assistant Professor, Humanics and Voice Technology, CAMD and Khoury College of Computer Sciences; Director, INTERACT Animal Lab
Research Assistant, Urban Griots Playground
Impacting the System from Within: Collaborative Approaches to Participatory Budgeting in Boston
In this conversation, the research team will share a project that they worked on with the City of Boston’s Participatory Budgeting Office. The project involved systemic approaches and frameworks to co-create a deliberative community conversation toolkit for use by community partner organizations within the city of Boston to host idea generation workshops to prioritize needs from community members. This aimed to empower community members to distill priorities relevant to their neighborhoods so that the City could translate into project proposals to better serve its communities.
Director, Office of Participatory Budgeting,
City of Boston
Associate Director, Center for Design
Assistant Professor, Art + Design, CAMD
Interdisciplinary Design and Media PhD Student, CAMD
Photos by Marian Siljeholm.
Community Data Book Launch with Rahul Bhargava
Professor Rahul Bhargava launches his new book with special features from some of his community partners, Lisa Brukilacchio, Marcus Santos and Josie Ross. Bhargava's book, Community Data (Oxford University Press), pushes data storytellers to think beyond the visual when working with information in community settings. Community Data introduces a broader toolbox of arts-based methods that are designed to engage publics in civic data-centered dialogue, overcoming growing challenges of polarization and mistrust.​ Bhargava argues that traditional data visualization techniques—charts, graphs, and dashboards—were not designed to foster participation or empowerment. Community Data introduces a broader framework through case studies and original research. He introduces how creative arts-based approaches such as data sculptures, data murals and data theatre are creating more inclusive, engaging and action-oriented interactions with data.​ Bridging global examples, academic insights and hands-on projects, Community Data offers a playful yet rigorous set of strategies that reframe the role of data in community settings. Designers, journalists, educators and community organizers will leave with inspiration and practical tools to rethink how data can be used to support participatory meaning-making and collective social change.
Assistant Professor, Journalism and Art + Design, CAMD
Photos by Rongrong (Juno) Zhu.