Ezio Manzini is an Italian design academic and author known for his work on design for social innovation and sustainability. He is Honorary Professor at

Politecnico di Milano The Polytechnic University of Milan () is the largest technical university in Italy, with about 42,000 students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design. Founded in 18 ...

, Chair Professor at University of the Arts London, and presently Distinguished Professor on Design for Social Innovation at ELISAVA, and guest professor at

Tongji University Tongji University () is a comprehensive public research university located in Shanghai. Established in 1907 by the German government together with German physicians in Shanghai, Tongji is one of the longest-standing, most selective, and most pr ...

and

Jiangnan University Jiangnan University (JiangnanU or JU; ) is a public research university located in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China. It is a National Key University funded by the Double First Class University Plan and former Project 211, and is directly administered by the ...

. Manzini is the founder o
DESIS
an international network on design for social innovation and sustainability.

Career

Ezio Manzini studied at the Politecnico di Milano where he later joined the faculty. During his time at the school, Manzini worked on several international research projects including co-ordinating the Unit of Research DIS (Design and Innovation for Sustainability), the Doctorate in Design, and DES (Design dei Servizi) in the Centre for Service Design. Manzini is an author on sustainable design. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s his research focussed on the design of materials and strategic design. He wrote on topics such as scenario building toward solutions that encompass environmental and social quality; innovative processes in the system of production and consumption; and the relationship between product strategies and

environmental policies Environmental policy is the commitment of an organization or government to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues. These issues generally include air and water pollution, waste management, ecosystem mana ...

from the perspective of sustainable development. Though he is perhaps most well known for his work on design for social innovation. In the 2015 book, ''Design, When Everybody Designs,'' Manzini provides an overview of the way design has been deployed in the social innovation space to guide transition to more sustainable practices. The book explores the role of

diffuse Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...

and expert design, it describes the concept of cosmopolitan localism, and Manzini's Small, Open, Local, and Connected (SLOC) scenario. In 2009 Manzini founded DESIS, an international network of design schools and related organisations working on initiatives and projects in the design for social innovation and sustainability fields. In addition to his time at Politecnico, Manzini was the Director of Design and Vice-president of the

Domus Academy Domus Academy is a private school of design in Milan, Italy. It offers post-graduate and professional courses in fashion, industrial design, and design management. It is not listed by the Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Rice ...

in the 1990s, and Chair Professor of Design under the Distinguished Scholars Scheme at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2000. He has received honorary titles at several universities including Honorary Doctoral of Arts at

Aalto University Aalto University ( fi, Aalto-yliopisto; sv, Aalto-universitetet) is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the ...

, Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

and

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...

; Honorary Professor at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

; and Fellow at the Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

Awards

* Compasso d’Oro, 1987, 2016 * Premio per l’innovazione (Ministero dell'Innovazione Italiano), 2010 * Sir Misha Black Award, 2012

Books

* ''The Material of Invention,'' The MIT Press, 1986 * ''Artifacts: Towards a New Ecology of the Artificial Environment,'' Domus Academy, 1990 * ''Solid Side: The Search for Consistency in a Changing World'' (with Marco Susani), V+K Publishing, 1995 * ''Sustainable Everyday: Scenarios of Urban Life'' (with François Jégou), Edizioni Ambiente, 2003 * ''Spark! Design and Locality'' (with Jan Verwijnen, Hanna Karkku, and John Thackara), University of Art and Design Helsinki, 2004 * ''Collaborative Services: Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability'' (with François Jégou), POLI.design, 2008 * ''Design for Environmental Sustainability'' (with Carlo Vezzoli), Springer, 2008 * ''Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation,'' The MIT Press, 2015 * ''Politics of the Everyday,'' Bloomsbury, 2019

References

External links

DESIS Network
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manzini, Ezio Italian designers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people