Parsons DESIS Lab
CREATING A FUTURE OF CARE: COLLABORATING TO RESPOND TO THE CRISES OF CARE
Founded in 2009 by Lara Penin and Eduardo Staszowski, Parsons DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) Lab is an action research laboratory at The New School in New York City. DESIS Lab works at the intersection of strategic and service design, management, and social theory, applying interdisciplinary expertise to sustainable practices and social innovation. It is dedicated to exploring how design can serve as a form of critical praxis to challenge dominant systems and foster more sustainable and equitable ways of living.
Designing with, not for
The Parsons DESIS Lab engages in long-term, place-based collaborations that bring together communities, public institutions, and academic partners to co-develop tools, services, and strategies for systemic change. Through participatory design processes and grounded fieldwork, the lab works to surface everyday forms of agency and care, aiming to prototype new modes of governance, public service, and community resilience.
DESIS Lab’s projects span topics like housing justice, aging, food systems, and urban equity, interrogating how design can support collective agency and alternative futures. Rather than offering fixed solutions, the lab embraces iterative, relational processes that prioritize local knowledge and contextual understanding. This work challenges dominant narratives of innovation, reframing design as a political and ethical practice in the service of sustainability and social transformation..
Projects
-
![Labor Precarity in Service Economies]()
Labor Precarity in Service Economies
Investigating invisible labor systems, this project uses participatory design to center service workers’ voices. It includes the Workers Tarot Deck, a tool fostering reflection, solidarity, and worker-centered futures.
-
![Affordable Housing in São Paulo, Brazil]()
Affordable Housing in São Paulo, Brazil
In partnership with Fundo FICA, this project reimagines housing as a care-centered service ecosystem. It explores governance, rights, and community to resist commodification and promote urban equity.
-
![Pedagogy as Praxis]()
Pedagogy as Praxis
Through courses and curriculum development, this initiative treats education as participatory world-making. It links civic imagination with justice-oriented design and experimental teaching frameworks.
-
![Life in the Fault Line]()
Life in the Fault Line
A collaborative initiative in the Brazilian Amazon examining conflict zones shaped by ecological and infrastructural crises. Centered on the BR-319 highway, it exposes tensions between development and cultural-environmental survival.
-
![Critical Publishing in Design and Politics]()
Critical Publishing in Design and Politics
This three-part book series explores design’s role in confronting contemporary crises through theory and action. It reflects the Lab’s commitment to expanding the intellectual and political reach of critical design.
