The Trampoline Effect: Redesigning our Social Safety Nets

"Needy," "high-risk," "vulnerable," "slow." When the words people use to describe themselves are the same as the labels in their case files, what does that say about how our social welfare systems shape the identity and possibilities of those who use them?

In 2014, three disability organizations asked an international team of designers and social scientists to help them understand and address lived experiences of social isolation. The team moved into a social housing complex in the "lonelies...