From Social Design to Design for Social Innovation

Design has a long tradition of relation with the social. Back in the sixties “social design” emerged as a critical perspective on the role of design in building a more equitable and sustainable society, with strong political accents but limited capacity to achieve a real impact. In more recent years, the change of the economic paradigm and the growing demand for participation set the conditions for the introduction of design knowledge and practices in new domains, including social innovation. This new scenario led to an interesting evolution and to many new opportunities, but is at the same time posing relevant questions that in the following we try to face on the interactions between SI and design thinking.