ABOUT




Giorgia Pisano (she/her)
A Melbourne-based lecturer and creative practice researcher specialising in social and ecological sustainability. Her teaching and research focus on interdisciplinary design praxis — open, emergent, and inclusive processes that integrate collaboration across design disciplines and with community partners, particularly in the areas of disability and social innovation.





I acknowledge the Wurundjery Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waterways where I live and work. I also acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.

CV





Education
PhD of Design, RMIT University
2023

Diploma of Furniture design and making, Holmesglen 
2018

MS, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
2015

BS, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
2012



Employment Lecturer and Program Coordinator of Industrial Design at Monash Art, Design and Architecture.
2024 - ongoing

Lecturer, RMIT
2020 - 2023



PhD focusHer research investigated waste, environmentalism, and the role of design in both contributing to and addressing ecologies of exclusion. Her work challenged the default reliance on technical solutionism in response to complex socio-environmental issues. 

As a design thinker and maker, Giorgia has developed a praxis of theorising through craft —via ‘thinking artefacts’, metaphorical stratagems, and conceptual intuition pumps. Her approach embodies a mode of conducting inquiry that bridges experiential making with critical reflection to generate new methods for socially engaged design practice.



Education focus
In design education, she uses the studio as a site of experimentation—exploring how heutagogical approaches, positionality, and intersectionality can cultivate creative capacities for addressing wicked problems. 



Current researchRole of AI in design education.

Pedagogies of repair through interdisciplinary and community collaboration.

Material thinking as a methodological tool.

Giorgia is a member of WonderLab at MADA and welcomes HDR supervision in collaborative design, complex social research, and inclusive methodologies — particularly those engaging with neurodiversity, gender, and cultural diversity.



Press ‘Building Empathy Through Experience: MediStays Shares Accommodation Knowledge with Monash University Students’, Article by MediStays.
2025

‘Si disegna con gli altri, non per gli altri’. Il Globo newspaper, Article by Lisa Cardelli.
2025

‘Monash graduate’s design helping everyday heroes’, Article by Monash.
2024

Winner - Monash Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion – WonderLab.
2024

Featured in ‘Conversations in Design’. Australian Wood Review, Issue 105.
2019



Last Updated 24.10.31

CREATIVE WORK







Accessible Futures: Disability, Environment, and Inclusion. Melbourne Design Week, Victorian Pride Centre, St Kilda
2025

Coordination of interdisciplinary student exhibition as outcome of a studio collaboration with MPAC (Monash Performing Arts Centres) and theatre maker Jess Kapuscinski-Evans.

What kind of future do we want to create—and who is it for?

Mapping with Touch. MPavilion, Melbourne
2024




 A public workshop collaboration with Joy Zhou and Makushla Harper. 

Sensorial, three-dimensional map-making as a reflection on the politics of decision-making — how power, social construction, and ideology shape the production and use of spatial knowledge. 

more on the workshop by Joy Zhou






Gazodexing
2022-23
This research explores waste as a plural, contested terrain in design — beyond solutionism and tidy “sustainable” toolkits. Through playful, metamorphic practice, it builds a capacity for response-ability, rethinking how design can engage with complexity.

Gazodexing: Methods for Design Practice in the Territory of Waste. Doctoral dissertation, RMIT University

Examination abstract, Practice Research Symposium, RMIT



Legs
2020-21 The unruly
The ephemeral
The orderly
The bloody






BioThings
2019

 Bacterial skins
Starchy inconsistencies
Gelatinous liminalities







Clay play
2022




Furniture
2017-18 Lumiere sculpture
Puzzle chair
Montevergine side table
Bruco chair
Binario coffee table — Work commissioned by Minister for Creative Industries Steve Dimopoulos
Gesso children’s chair
Kerfamp lamp
Elettra coffee table





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