Designing for Meaningful Interventions: Fostering social innovation for international homeless in Copenhagen

Daverio, Tommaso ; Dzierzak, Kamila Anna

4. term

Service Systems Design, Master

2021

2021-05-28

153 pages

This thesis examines the case of designing for meaningful interventions for international homeless in the context of Copenhagen, wherein complex system barriers influence the practice. The case has been developed with the support of multiple organizations actively engaged in the system through a co-creative approach. The complexity of addressing the homelessness and vulnerability at large in the design process calls for multiple and multilayered roles and approaches for the designer. Those focus on building trust, and importance of involving local actors, such as organization within the field or/and social workers in the process, making sure that reflexivity of the process is present at every stage. Additional layer of designer as activist is pointed, as to influence the system, one has to take a stand in making and contributing to a change. Lastly, together with actors from the system, guidelines for designing meaningful interventions have been co-designed with the aim of improving social inclusion, by establishing a better relationship among international homeless and society. The guidelines can be treated as a setting stone for a further development, in order to serve the organizations engaged in the cause, as well as designers and activists having a stake in the system.

co-design ; homelessness ; vulnerability ; meaningful intervention ; social innovation ; social inclusion

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