Our Labs
Who gets to design the systems we live inside?
What is Social Systems Design?
Every system we live inside, from how we are governed to how we work, trade and connect, was designed. Usually by a few for a few, and without the people who live with the consequences. Social Systems Design as we practice it involves redesigning those systems with the people inside them: studying how power actually operates, then building and testing alternatives together.
We call our units labs because this is experimental work. We prototype methods, frameworks and tools, test them in the real world, and share what we learn, including what fails.
What is the terrain?
We work across three arenas, the state, society and markets, and along two frontiers. The digital frontier is visible: algorithms, platforms and data now govern how we work, speak and access resources. The ecological frontier sits beneath the surface: climate breakdown, e-waste and extraction are reshaping every arena at once, often out of sight.
Our three labs are different ways into this terrain; each with a home base, and all three travelling across it.
Three labs. Three questions.
Who holds algorithmic power?
We study how algorithms and platforms govern work, speech and access, and what accountable, democratically governed alternatives could look like.
Civic Power Lab
How can communities excluded from formal power actually shape policy?
We develop and test methods that move beyond consultation to governance, redistributing whose knowledge counts and who sets the agenda.
To whom, and for what, are markets responsible?
We study how markets distribute power, risk and reward, and bring businesses into the room with the people their decisions affect.