Meet LARA de SOUSA PENIN // Designing Services as Designing Work and Workers
Lara is an Associate Professor of Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons School of Design, The New School, in NYC, where she currently co-leads the Graduate Minor in Civic Service Design.
A former director of the Transdisciplinary Design graduate program, she is a
co-founder of the Parsons DESIS Lab. Laras work centers on service and strategic design, participatory design, and social justice, seeking to explore the agency of design to effect positive social change. Recent work includes the development of a design-led research tool for service designer-service worker solidarity and the development of a feminist framework to designing services. Lara is the author of An Introduction to Service Design. Designing the Invisible (Bloomsbury, 2018) and the editor of The Disobedience of Design, a Gui Bonsiepe Reader (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2021). Originally from São Paulo, Brazil where she graduated in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo, she has a PhD in Design from the Politecnico di Milano.
From October 14 to 25, we present “itAliens – Italian Design Beyond the Myth,” an exhibition created with Samsung for Seoul Design Week 2026.
masterclass
Dear Designer, | Mauro Porcini
Join the very first event of the Open Conversation Series by POLI.design. Meet Mauro Porcini on October 2 at 11:00 AM.
Event
Porada International Design Award 2026
Tables take center stage in the 2026 edition of the competition organized by POLI.design and Porada Arredi Srl. The competition will be presented online (in English) on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, at 2:30 PM.