Betsy Ramaccia

Design Research Lead, Greater Good Studio
 https://greatergoodstudio.com/

Betsy brings 15 years of experience as a design researcher, asset-based community development practitioner, educator, and campaign strategist to her work as Design Research Lead at Greater Good Studio. Through her work there, as well as through her writing, she explores how democratized design processes can be a force for nurturing more equitable systems, inclusive communities, and local leaders. Prior to joining GGS, she co-founded Why We Work Here, which works with rural school districts to prepare young people to shape new futures for their hometowns using design thinking and adaptive leadership. Betsy holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.

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All Sessions by Betsy Ramaccia

  • Day 3

    August 7, 2021

  • 9:10 am  - 9:55 am
    When designing with and in communities, the design process can easily fall into the trap of reinforcing the power imbalances, oppressive structures, and destructive savior-saved relationships that underpin many of the issues social sector designers seek to respond to. That’s in part because the predominant modes of design taught and practiced today place the designer at the center of the design process, where the designer claims the expertise, authority, and power to envision and execute design. Beyond what we reinforce by staying at the center is what we lose: the opportunity for design to be an experience that builds power, elevates local leadership, and creates new social capital and solidarity. In this talk, I will share a framework and tangible methods for how designers can make structural changes to the design process to decenter themselves and, in doing so, move towards a more transformative definition of design.
    Design




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Betsy Ramaccia