Holding paradoxes together: Navigating institutional complexity in public design

This paper explores the evolving practice of design in the public sector. To do so, we initiated a reading group that brought together academics and practitioners from around the globe to discuss how public design is understood and practiced in different contexts. The common thread across the six reading groups held so far was that public design is inherently paradoxical. Three core paradoxes appear to characterize its practice: the identity paradox (blending in to stand out), the enablement paradox (constraining design by enabling it), and the political paradox (designing apolitically while designing politically). These paradoxes highlight the need for strategic agility in public design—the ability to hold contradictions in creative tension. Methodologically, the paper positions the reading group as a generative approach for transnational, dialogic research that bridges scholarship and practice. Taken together, the study contributes to ongoing debates on the pitfalls and possibilities of advancing public design.