RESEARCH REPORT

External Engagement Studio X Public Policy Lab

The Public Policy Lab (PPL), a nonprofit innovation lab focused on designing policies and programs for low-income and marginalized Americans, Partnered with Parsons’ MS in Strategic
Design & Management students (2024-25) to help evolve its design approach. Students in the External Engagement Studio (EES) were challenged to integrate future-oriented thinking into
PPL’s standard, human-centered design process (the PPL Release Model). The goal was to reimagine civic design so that it accounts for the needs of future generations without compromising the immediate goals of clients or overburdening design teams.

Project Challenge
How might we reimagine the civic design process to include considering the needs of future generations while continuing to meet the central needs of current-state users and project clients?

Project Constraints
Two important constraints that PPL wanted the studio to consider:

1.The project partners and funders of PPL have narrow goals and objectives

2. Every additional ask of the project teams increases the workload and, as an organization, PPL values work-life balance

The Studio Structure

Over the course of 15 weeks, 16 EES students worked directly with PPL teams to explore how civic design processes might incorporate future-thinking while meeting current client needs. Students became familiar with PPL’s methodology, beginning with problem definition and research, then moving through ideation and prototyping phases to develop human-centered solutions. The studio culminated in final presentations where students showcased their process and design responses to the original challenge brief.

Partner:

Public Policy Lab

Students:

Hale Celikkin,
Srishti Duragkar
Meenu Jitendrakumar Runiwal
Jasnoor Kaur
BonKyu Ku
Avantika Kulkarni
David Marquez
Aishwarya Mathur
Laia Monells Tellez
Shradha Pandey
Vidhi Shah
Neha Tangirala
Harsh Vatsa
Jagriti Yadav

Professor:

Sareeta Amrute