Ezio Manzini 
Plug-Ins 
Design for City Making in Barcelona

This book’s central argument is that plug-ins, situated design outcomes that aim to enrich the complex system of the city and expand its potentialities, are a solid yet supple conceptual framework for rethinking how design can be a key agent in city making.


This book showcases some of the projects developed by Elisava’s Design for City Making Research Lab, a research institute that investigates the role of design in the material and social construction of our habitats, focusing on spatiality, temporality, interactions, meaning, citizen engagement and social impact. Projects by students, professors and researchers, in collaboration with multiple partners including the public administration, NGOs, industry and academy, articulate the concept of design as plug-ins as the core idea of this book. This notion of plug-ins results from a renewed approach to how design can be a key agent in city making. Given that the city is a system of relationships, design for city making means understanding, reinforcing and articulating this network. We posit plug-ins as situated design outcomes that aim to enrich the complex system of the city and expand its potentialities. This book’s central argument is that plug-ins are a solid yet supple conceptual framework for rethinking design’s agency in the city – the main aim of Elisava’s Design for City Making Research Lab.


With Contributions of Ruedi Baur, Julia Benini, Josep Bohigas, David Bravo, Adrià Carbonell, Tomás Díez, Danae Esparza, Ramon Faura, Tona Monjo, Salvador Rueda, Oscar Tomico, Lluís Torrens, Manuela Valtchanova

About the author

For over three decades he has been working in the field of design for sustainability. Most recently, his interests have focused on social innovation, considered as a major driver of sustainable changes. In this perspective he started DESIS: an international network of schools of design, active in the field of design for social innovation and sustainability.
Presently, he is President of DESIS Network and Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. He has been guest professor in several design schools world-wide, as (in the past decade): Elisava-Design School and Engineering (Barcelona), Tongji University (Shanghai), Jiangnan University (Wuxi), University of the Arts (London), CPUT (Cape town), Parsons -The new School for Design (NYC)
In addition to his continuous involvement in the design for sustainability arena, he has explored and promoted design potentialities in different fields, such as: Design of Materials, in the 80s; Strategic Design, in the 90s (starting a Master in Strategic Design); Service Design, in the last ten years (starting the specific courses in Service Design).
Most recent books: “Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation”, MIT Press 2015 (translated until now in 7 languages); and Politics of the Everyday. Bloomsbury (February 2019)