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Daniella Zlotogoura, founder

I have been designing since I was very young. For more than twenty years I have moved between design, teaching and research. Frónesis Futures Lab is where it all comes together.

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  1. The early years: designing before I knew I was a designer

    I studied product and furniture design in the UK, then worked as a graphic designer in London. In 2004, an exhibition on biodegradable design sparked my interest in impact and life cycles: the seed of Tierra Sustina.

  2. Spain: two paths at once

    In Alicante I set up my own design studio and co-founded Stadio English Academy, creating hands-on, place-based programmes where children learned by doing, not memorising.

  3. The click

    To teach well, I started designing my own tools, materials and learning spaces. That is when I realised I had always been a designer, and that education could be designed too.

  4. The master's and ontological design

    An MA in Design Education at Goldsmiths, University of London introduced me to the idea that frames the whole field:

    "We design the world, and the world designs us back."

    There I reached my own synthesis: objects teach, and the people who use them learn, often without realising it. With a fellow researcher at Goldsmiths, I gave it a name: object-led learning.

  5. Bringing the theory to SPARQ

    As co-founder of SPARQ, an interior design studio in Alicante, I used service design tools such as customer journey maps to shape each client's experience. In 2019 I organised and facilitated the Service Design Jam in Alicante.

  6. Back to teaching

    I returned to Goldsmiths to teach ontological design and critical pedagogy to postgraduate students. Design had become, for me, something literal, then a tool, and now a philosophy.

  7. European research and projects

    I moved into applied research and European funding proposals, using design thinking and systems thinking to build participatory learning frameworks. There I learned to translate a design philosophy into the language that institutions and funders understand.

  8. Today: Frónesis Futures Lab

    In March 2026 I founded Frónesis Futures Lab, to bring design, pedagogy and sustainability together in one practice. My aim is to make the hidden curriculum in our spaces and objects visible, so that the people who design them can choose more consciously.

Object-led learning

Design does not end when something is made.

What we design goes on shaping behaviour, perception and understanding long after. In that sense, design is not only functional. It is pedagogical.

This is the idea behind object-led learning, a theory developed by Daniella Zlotogoura through her postgraduate research at Goldsmiths, University of London, with a fellow researcher. It builds on ontological design, the study of how the things we make go on making us.

Why "Frónesis"?

Frónesis

φρόνησις

from phronesis · Aristotle

practical wisdom

knowing how to act well in real situations, not only knowing in theory.

"What are we teaching through the things we design, and how can we design more consciously to live better?"