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Rasi Surana

MA 2024
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About

Rasi Surana’s design practice is developed on the foundation of humility, respect and adaptability.

  • Humility in her role as a facilitator of change where invited or valuable, not as a problem solver
  • Respect for all, not conforming to inherent power hierarchies but working across these
  • Adaptability in approach, process and output to enable collaboration with people with varied professional and lived experiences

Rasi’s prior work experience was at the intersection of design, behavioural science and public health. She has worked with communities, healthcare professionals, non-profits and governments to tackle challenges at individual, service and system levels. Some of the themes she has worked on include understanding health prevention behaviours, nutrition for children, gaps in policy design and implementation, set up of new sustainable systems to tackle complex challenges. She has worked across India and Sub-Saharan Africa with global teams. UNICEF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Practice and Impact and national and local governments are some clients/partners she has worked with.

Through the Service Design masters at the Royal College of Art, Rasi explored the evolving nature of the discipline and its value in creating impact in society. 


Final Project

In London, many local governments are working through the challenges of reduced funding, a diverse society to cater to and increasingly complex problems. Involvement of communities in the functioning of local government is becoming increasingly popular as a means to tackle these. 


  • Community involvement has many forms such as consultation, co-design, co-production and community powered approach. 
  • Services have varied levels of complexities and associated regulations. 
  • This shift requires change in processes and experiences for all the stakeholders in a borough - residents, voluntary and community sector organisations, partner organisations and different council teams


Better Borough is an approach to understand the readiness of a borough for this transition and to enable its adoption in a manner that is valuable and feasible for all. Through a relational and easily incorporated tool it: 

  • builds trust among council staff to create openness to change
  • builds an understanding of relationships between residents, voluntary and community sector organisations, partner organisations and different council teams
  • encourages small changes to pave the way for a mindset shift

WIP project 2022

FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL