Date and Time
Wednesday, Mar 19, 2025
10:00 — 6:30 pm
Location
Admission
Free
Schedule of Programs:
Design in the Public Sector: Global Approaches
Center for Design
10 AM – 12 PM
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Presentations by Sofia Bosch Gomez, Catherine Gore, Francesco Leoni, Stefano Maffei, Tina Rosado, Lara Salinas, Federico Vaz and Diana Pamela Villa Álvarez.
In this presentation, we bring together researchers and practitioners from different parts of the world to discuss practices and approaches to designing for the public sector. Join us to learn more about how the speakers embrace challenges through interdisciplinary research methods. The 2024-2025 Center for Design Bridges Fellow, Sofia Bosch Gomez, will present her civic design project, Co-Designing a Network of Public Sector Design Scholars and Practitioners in Latin America. Lara Salinas will present projects from her lab, the Service Futures Lab at the University of the Arts London. Stefano Maffei will discuss his work in food donation with The Collective Kitchen and the water resilience experiment with the Design Policy Lab.
Design, Music and Education Panel
Center for Design
1:45 – 2:45 PM
Presentation by Sara Lenzi and Nikita Saner.
Sara Lenzi and Nikita Saner will present work in the fields of music and education.
Impacting the System from Within: Collaborative Approaches to Participatory Budgeting in Boston
Center for Design
3 – 4 PM
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In collaboration with the City of Boston’s Office of Participatory Budgeting.
Presentation by Renato Castelo, Estefania Ciliotta, Maria Fernanda and Michael Arnold Mages.
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.
Community Data Book Launch with Rahul Bhargava
Center for Design
5 – 6:30 PM
Presentation by Rahul Bhargava with Lisa Brukilacchio, Marcus Santos and Josie Ross.
Join the Center for Design and The School of Journalism for a book talk and signing with Professor Rahul Bhargava. His just-published 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.
Click on each day to view more details:
Design Research Week 2025 Overview
Monday, March 17 – Health + Wellness
Tuesday, March 18 – Creativity + Play
This is Wednesday, March 19 – Community + Civic Futures
Thursday, March 20 – Data + AI
Friday, March 21 – Form + Materials
Saturday, March 22 – Graphic Voices of Latin America Exhibition