Design, When Everybody Designs Ezio Manzini (English)

In the ongoing wave of social innovation toward sustainability, we are witnessing a changing world where everyone designs. Each individual and each collective subject—from enterprises to institutions, from communities to cities and regions—must define and enhance a life project. Sometimes these projects generate unprecedented solutions; other times they converge on common goals and lead to broader transformations.
As Ezio Manzini describes in this book, this moment represents a wave of social innovation—an expansive, open co-design process in which new solutions are proposed and new meanings are created. Manzini distinguishes between diffuse design (performed by everyone) and expert design (performed by trained designers), and he explores how these two forms interact.
He maps out the role of expert designers in triggering and supporting meaningful social change, focusing on emerging forms of collaboration. These range from community-supported agriculture in China to digital healthcare platforms in Canada; from interactive storytelling in India to collaborative housing initiatives in Milan.
These examples illustrate how expert designers can strengthen such collaborations—making their emergence more likely, their practice more accessible, and their expansion into larger projects more effective.
With this work, Manzini presents the first comprehensive overview of design for social innovation—arguably the most dynamic and impactful design field for both expert and non-expert designers in the coming decades.