Civic Design.
Designing the conditions for a community to think, decide and act together.
A professional, ethical and political practice for activating situated collective intelligence in territories, communities and institutions. By Domenico Di Siena.
Domenico Di Siena
Civic designer, architect and urban planner. For more than twenty years I have helped institutions, cities and European consortia design the infrastructures where encounter turns into public and social innovation.
- 20+
- years of practice
- 20+
- countries
- 1,000+
- people trained since 2015, across Europe and Latin America
- Democratic Society. Community & Membership Lead, part of the group that sets the organisation’s strategy.
- European projects. NetZeroCities, 360 Democracy, Nets4Dem and NEB Junction, among others.
- CivicWise. Co-founder of the international civic innovation network.
- Dreamhamar. The civic design of a public square in Hamar, Norway: the book’s case study.
“Just when you think you know a fair bit about a subject, along comes Di Siena and shows you what happens if you turn it upside down.”
“Your ability to “provoke” and nudge people out of their comfort zone. To ask, now and then, uncomfortable questions about a subject.”
What civic design is
The civic designer does not design the solution. They design the conditions for a community to discover it, formulate it, prototype it and sustain it.
They design the environment: who meets, where, with what dynamics and how often. And they do it from within the territory, as part of it, not on top of it.
It is not citizen participation under another name. Classic participation seeks legitimacy by representing everyone, and almost never manages it. Civic design activates situated collective intelligence: an open, documented and porous process whose legitimacy comes from how it is cared for.
Four actions, in this order. A process does not start with the workshop.
- Situate
Explore the territory, involve those already there and define the shared challenge.
- Socialize
Spread, dialogue and connect actors before inviting anyone to co-design.
- Co-design
Catalyze, deploy and synthesize proposals no one would have made alone.
- Implement
Test, execute and evaluate. Without this action, participation is theatre.
“They interest me because they strip the designer of the belief that their solution is the right one…”
“Civic design means more than designing public space: it takes in the community as part of the design, not just in the limited role of people giving their opinion.”
“Forming a social territory while a habitable physical territory is being built (not merely an occupiable one).”
“Civic design is useful for creating — designing — real, appropriate solutions to the problems of citizen participation… empowering communities and building better spaces for accountability.”
The book
Civic Design. Collective Intelligence for Public and Social Innovation.
Vision, craft and field instruments for designing democratic infrastructures. Funded by crowdfunding, it is in its final production phase and will be published by Public Mesh.
“Democracy is not dying: it is changing its place.”
- The Collective Intelligence Canvas: twelve dimensions for designing a process.
- The four actions of the Civic Design Toolbox and their twelve verbs.
- The Toolbox instruments, ready to use in the field.
- Dreamhamar, an in-depth case study.
- The NoManifesto and the Manifesto of the Civic Designer.
The online course
Civic Design: Tools for Participation. Three focused hours of video to apply the method in your own processes.
Twenty-nine short lessons on the four actions, the Collective Intelligence Canvas, the Co-Design Canvas and the Civic Realm Matrix, with a final test. First English edition, produced in 2026 with AI assistance, and two open lessons to try before you buy.
- 3 h 8
- of video, in 30 items and 9 sections
- €149
- VAT included, one-off payment and lifetime access
- 11 / 15
- right answers to pass the final test and get a verifiable certificate
- 2026
- first English edition
“The course gave me a framework to name what I was already doing intuitively in neighbourhood projects.”
“The distinction between Spaces for Encounter and events changed the way I plan processes.”
“This is not theory: I now use the Collective Intelligence Canvas in every new project, from day one.”
“It really opened my mind to phenomena I work with and live through but had no names for. I use “extitution” a lot. I always recommend your course.”
Civic Design AI
An experimental methodology: the Toolbox turned into ten tools that work with the AI you already use.
With ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, the AI stops improvising: it runs a working session with you and returns an object you can bring to a meeting. The decision, the judgement and the responsibility for the process are not delegated.
“Not an AI to automate democracy, but an AI to strengthen collective intelligence.”
- Diagnosis: the maturity of the process, on the Collective Intelligence Canvas.
- Actors: a prioritised map with its activation sequence.
- Journey: a phased timeline following the four actions.
- Workshops: complete session sheets.
- Tempo: the temporal architecture of the process.
- Memory: minutes that always cite their source.
- Translation: a bridge between citizens and institutions.
- Rehearsal: a rehearsal room for a hard meeting.
- Practice: a field notebook that gives you back your patterns.
- Economy: a budget with the line items the sector forgets.
CIVIBA, the atlas
An atlas of civic places and practices that I curate personally: places where a community makes city or territory through collaboration.
Neighbourhood bathhouses, recovered factories, village shops reopened, community kitchens, civic labs. Each place states who leads it, its real degree of participation, whether it is still standing and whether it can be visited, and every fact carries its source.
- 122
- projects
- 182
- spaces
- 4
- languages
- CC BY-SA
- open data, no trackers
“There are as many forms of the commons as there are places where people decide to look after something together.”
Common questions
Where do I buy the course and the book?
Directly on Public Mesh, the publisher and school for work on democracy, civic practice and life in common. The course is on sale now; the book is in production and will go on sale there too. Payment is handled by Stripe.
How long do I have access to the course?
For life, and at your own pace. You pay once, with no subscription: the course stays in your Public Mesh account and you get back in whenever you like with your email.
What format is the course in?
Three hours of on-demand video across 29 lessons in 8 sections, with 26 downloadable resources — canvases, matrices and templates ready to use — and a ninth section with the final test: fifteen situations from practice, eleven right to pass, as many attempts as you need.
Is this the same course as the Spanish one?
No, and it is worth being clear about it. They are four different courses that share a method. The English edition is 3 h 8 across 29 short lessons, built as a field manual. The Spanish edition is 13 h 35 across 17 items, with extended case work; the Italian one 13 h 53 recorded in 2017, and the French one 8 h 53 recorded in 2016. Same frameworks, different material and different pace.
Do I need prior experience in participation or facilitation?
No. The course is built for architects, public servants, designers, researchers and social innovators who work with communities, whatever their starting point.
Do I get a certificate?
Yes. Once you have watched every lesson and passed the final test — fifteen situations from practice, eleven right to pass, as many attempts as you need — the classroom issues a certificate of completion as a PDF, with a code anyone can check online. It is not an official qualification: if your professional development records need more, write to hola@publicmesh.org before buying.
Was this course made with AI?
Partly, and I would rather say so here than have you find out later. The English edition was produced with AI assistance from my original Spanish material. Every method, framework and idea in it is mine; the AI helped me put it into English at a pace I could not have managed otherwise.
Can my organisation pay for it?
Yes. Stripe emails the receipt, and if you need a full invoice in an institution’s name, just add the tax or VAT number when you pay. For institutional training or in-house sessions, write to me directly.
What if it is not for me?
Watch the open lessons in the syllabus first. On Public Mesh, as with any digital content, the right of withdrawal is lost once access begins. I would rather lose a sale than keep a frustrated student.