About
Uncommon Places Design is the experience design practice of Ida Benedetto. I craft experiences with and for groups facing pivotal moments and complex challenges. I draw from game design to promote agency and ingenuity, experiential design to drive learning and growth, and organizational psychology to integrate smartly into the realities of teams and work.
Core Values
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Trust in Emergence
Breakthroughs important to your organization can't be scripted. The most powerful insights happen during a moment of unexpected connection or an honest disclosure between team members. I design the setting and maintain the conditions for those moments to occur.
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Responsive Collaboration
You are the expert on your organization. I bring a depth of rigor in designing gatherings of consequence. The magic happens when we combine those domains. I adapt in real-time to your team's needs, ensuring our work together is authentic and integrated.
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Vulnerability through Integrity
Tough problems scare us. We put up our defenses. But real growth requires vulnerability. I promote trust and psychological safety through unflinching integrity, rather than expecting people to lead with vulnerability in environments that might not support it. The goal is to create moments where people feel safe enough to do what they were afraid to before, opening the door to changes that shape an organization’s future.
Ida Benedetto, Founder
Linkedin | idabenedetto.info | Get in touch
I began my career designing adventures and games, where I learned how to create conditions for people to engage unfamiliar challenges with courage, ingenuity, and enthusiasm. I founded Uncommon Places Design to bring that same spirit of high-stakes play to leaders facing consequential moments for their organizations.
I mediate in the Brooklyn civil court system, sitting with people through intense conflict and supporting the training of new mediators. My research on designing transformative social experiences identifies lessons from high-stakes gatherings that can be applied when helping any group through a situation of real risk. It has been widely cited and incorporated into coursework at Harvard, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and NYU.
I have worked for high-profile clients at SYPartners, NOBL Collective, and MESA. I hold an MA in Design Research from the School of Visual Arts, a BFA in Design and Technology from Parsons, and a BA in History from the New School, where I won awards for humanitarianism and outstanding research. My adventure design work has been featured in Businessweek, NPR, and The New Yorker, my research has been noted in multiple New York Times bestsellers, and my consulting work was a small part of a Harvard Business School case study.