Public Design Collective

Co-Designing a Network of Public Sector Design Scholars and Practitioners in Latin America

In today’s tumultuous Latin American governmental ecosystem, it becomes crucial to understand the sort of challenges that designers working in the public sector face and how to bridge the theoretical work developed by scholars with those everyday realities. In that line, this project establishes an open and living network of scholars and practitioners in the field of design for policymaking across Latin America while generating data to map the current landscape.

The Public Design Collective strengthens the role of design in Latin America’s public sector by mapping innovation units, documenting design practices, and connecting practitioners and researchers working at the intersection of design and government. Through participatory research, network analysis, and open documentation, they aim to preserve institutional memory, support evidence-based practice, and build a resilient community of public sector design professionals across the region. They believe public design plays a critical role in democratic governance as a way to generate solutions, and as a public practice for collective sense-making, alignment, and accountability.

View the project website. | View the project team’s publications.

Explore the literature review. | Explore the Public Design Map.