Ezio Manzini, a leading expert on sustainable design, recently gave a lecture at the NewSchool campus, followed by a book presentation and signing. Special guests also joined the lecture, including Don Norman, Director of Design Lab at University of California, San Diego, and NewSchool faculty, Joseph Kennedy and Michael Stepner.

In his lecture, Manzini introduced the notions of distributed systems and cosmopolitan localism and discussed the possibility to use design tools to connect and reinforce them. Copies of his new book, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, MIT Press 2015,were also available for sale at the event.

In addition to his most recent publication, Manzini has written several other design books throughout his career, including The Material of Invention, Artifacts: Towards a New Ecology of the Artificial Environment; Solid Side: The Search for Consistency in a Changing World; Sustainable Everyday; and Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation.

He is Chair Professor of Design for Social Innovation at the University of the Arts London, Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Guest Professor at Tongji University, Shanghai and Jiangnan University, Wuxi.