Re-activate the city, sharing spaces for research on design and humanities

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DIVERSITY:DESIGN / HUMANITIES

DIJON DE MORAESREGINA ÁLVARES DIASROSEMARY BOM CONSELHO SALES

(EDITORS)

PROCEEDINGS OF FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF DESIGN AS A PROCESS

SCIENTIFIC THEMATIC MEETING OF THE LATIN NETWORKFOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF DESIGN PROCESSES

IN COLLABORATION WITH:HUMANITIES DESIGN LABPOLITECNICO DI MILANO, DEPARTAMENTO INDACO (ITALY)ESCOLA DE DESIGN UEMGCENTRO T&C DESIGNMESTRADO EM DESIGN (PPGD)UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAIS (BRAZIL)

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEEDijon De Moraes(Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais - UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)Flaviano Celaschi(Coordinator of the Latin Network, Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Paulo Belo Reyes(Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - UNISINOS, Porto Alegre, Brazil)Raquel Pelta Resano(Universidad de Barcelona, Spain)Roberto Iñiguez Flores(Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara, Mexico)Rui Roda(Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)Sebastiana Bragança Lana (Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais - UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)

MEMBERS OF THE HUMANITIES DESIGN LABAntonella Penati (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Eleonora Lupo (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Salvatore Zingale (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

SCIENTIFIC SECRETARY AND ORGANIZING COMMITTEESElena Formia (Politecnico di Torino, italy)Rita Engler(Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais – UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)Giselle Hissa Safar(Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais – UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)Mariana Misk Moysés(Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais – UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)Regina Álvares Dias(Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais – UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)Danielly Tolentino(Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais – UEMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)

REVIEWERS (ABSTRACTS)Alessandro Deserti (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Antonella Penati (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Chiara Colombi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Cristina Portugal (PUC-Rio, Brazil) Dijon De Moraes (UEMG, Brazil)Elena Formia (Politecnico di Torino, Italy)Eleonora Lupo (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Flávia Nízia Ribeiro (PUC-Rio, Brazil)Francesca Rizzo (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Gregory Sedrick (Christian Brothers University, US)Lia Krucken Pereira (UEMG, Brazil)Manuela Celi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Marcelina das Graças de Almeida (UEMG, Brazil)Marizilda Menezes (Unesp, Brazil) Paulo Belo Reyes (Unisinos, Brazil)

Raffaella Trocchianesi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Raquel Pelta Resano (Universidad de Barcelona, Spain)Rita Aparecida da C. Ribeiro (UEMG, Brazil)Rita de Castro Engler (UEMG, Brazil)Roberto Iñiguez Flores (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico)Rosemary Bom Conselho Sales (UEMG, Brazil)Rui Roda (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)Salvatore Zingale (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)Sebastiana Luiza Bragança Lana (UEMG, Brazil)Sérgio Antônio Silva (UEMG, Brazil)

REVIEWERS (FULL PAPERS)Dijon De Moraes (UEMG, Brazil)Regina Álvares Dias (UEMG, Brazil)Rosemary Bom Conselho Sales (UEMG, Brazil)Sebastiana Luiza Bragança Lana (UEMG, Brazil)Solange Pedra (UEMG, Brazil)

PRODUCTION TEAM EVENTAlice Andrade GuimarãesAna Paula de Sousa NastaAndré MolAntonnione Franco Leone RibeiroBárbara Dias LageBianca Teixeira OliveiraCaio LacerdaCarlos Magno Pereira Daniela Menezes MartinsDébora de Assis WatanabeElisangela Batista da SilvaFernanda Melo Almeida (UFMG)Gilberto Almeida Jr.Iara MolLia Paletta BenattiMaria Cristina Ibarra HernandezNadja Maria MourãoOrlando Gama da Silva JuniorPaula Glória BarbosaPaula Maria Areias de FreitasPriscila Bruna Medeiros Ferreira Rachel Menezes Coelho de SouzaRafaela Guatimosim AssumpçãoRaquel CanaanSoraia Cabral SimõesTeresa Campos VianaVinicius Gomes Marques

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The emitted concepts, use of images and translation expressed in

this book are the responsibility of their authors.

The publisher makes no representation, expressed or implied, with

regard to the accuracy of information contained within this book,

and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors

or omissions that may occur.

Os conceitos emitidos, o uso de imagens e tradução expressas

neste livro são de responsabilidade de seus autores.

A editora não faz qualquer declaração, expressa ou implícita, no que

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não pode aceitar qualquer responsabilidade legal ou obrigação por

quaisquer erros ou omissões que possam ocorrer.

UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAISRectorDijon Moraes JúniorVice-rectorSantuza AbrasCabinet ChiefEduardo Andrade Santa CecíliaPro-rector of Planning, Management and FinancesThiago Henrique Barouche BregunciPro-rector of Research and Post GraduationTerezinha Abreu GontijoPro-rector of TeachingRenata Nunes VasconcelosPro-rector of ExtensionVânia Aparecida Costa

Escola de Design da Universidade do Estado de Minas GeraisDirectorJacqueline Ávila Ribeiro MotaVice-DirectorSimone Maria Brandão M. de AbreuApoio financeiroFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais – FAPEMIGCapes – Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Editors Dijon De MoraesRegina Álvares DiasRosemary Bom Conselho Sales

© 2014, EdUEMG | Editora da Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais

Diversity: design/ humanities. Proceedings of Fourth

International Forum of Design as a Process. /organização:

Dijon De Moraes, Regina Álvares Dias, Rosemary Bom

Conselho Sales - Barbacena: EdUEMG, 2014.

806p.: il. – v2

E-book / ISBN: 978-85-62578-33-5

1. Design. 2. Design como processo. 3. Design

e humanidades. 4. Diversidade. 5. Identidade. 6.

Inovação. I. Moraes, Dijon De (org.). II. Dias, Regina

Álvares, III Rosemary Bom Conselho Sales, (org.).

IV. Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais. V.

Título. VI. Série.

CDU: 7.05

FICHA CATALOGRÁFICA

EDUEMG - EDITORA DA UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAISAvenida Coronel José Máximo, 200 - Bairro São SebastiãoCEP 36202-284 - Barbacena /MG | Tel.: 55 (32) 3362-7385 E-mail: [email protected]

EDITORAL COUNCIL OF EDUEMGDijon Moraes Junior (Presidente)Fuad Kyrillos NetoHelena LopesItiro IidaJosé Eustáquio de Brito José Márcio BarrosPaulo Sérgio Lacerda BeirãoVânia A. Costa

PRODUCTION EBOOKEdUEMG | Editora da Universidade do Estado de Minas GeraisCoordinationDaniele Alves Ribeiro de CastroGraphic projectLaboratório de Design Gráfico (LDG) da ED/UEMGCoordinationMariana Misk e Iara Mol

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SUMMARY8 PRESENTATION

10 ABOUT THE FOURTH FORUM

13 FOREWORD

15 TRACKS

17 GUEST PAPERS

57 TRACK 1DESIGN AND HUMANITIES: A DISCIPLINARY COMPARISON

277 TRACK 2FOR A “HUMANISTIC” DESIGN: DESIGNING FOR DIVERSITY

408 TRACK 3HUMANITIES CENTRED INNOVATION

526 TRACK 4THE DESIGNER HUMANIST AND THE HUMANIST DESIGNER

559 TRACK 5DESIGN AND HUMANITIES: DIVERSITY AS IDENTITY

638 TRACK 6THE UEMG TALKS ABOUT ITSELF

TRACK 04THE DESIGNER HUMANIST AND THE HUMANIST DESIGNER

CHAPTER 51. Design and theatre: crossed paths: The narrative as a design approach[Manuela Celi, Raffaella Trocchianesi]

CHAPTER 52.Re-activate the city, sharing spaces for research on design and humanities[Raffaella Fagnoni, Silvia Pericu]

CHAPTER 53.Why Design?: A visual and theoretical manifesto on the role and responsibility of the graphic designer in society [Henrique Eira]

527

538

547

Re-activate the city, sharing spaces for research on design and humanities

Raffaella Fagnoni [email protected]

University of Genoa – Department for Architectural Sciences, ItalyAssociate Professor

Silvia Pericu [email protected]

University of Genoa – Department for Architectural Sciences, Italy, PhD Researcher

AbstractThis paper investigates the diversity of design/humanities through the designer’s role in the urban context. Public space, not only as physical territory, but also as relational and social space, is a potential field of action for the designer humanist. In urban systems, today the core of the debate regarding smart cities, not only involves more technical requirements, system interactions and new technologies, but also those activities related to knowledge and culture, to imagination and talent. It means to re-activate the city, set connections between best practices for the city, starting from its inhabitants, activating a chain reaction, fed through a system of actions at different levels. This paper analyses two kinds of experiences and defines two different professional figures in line with the session’s quest. The urban context, potentially a living hypertext, represents the ideal scenario to experiment the relationship between project and human behaviour and where design fulfills its different roles as a mediator of identities.

KeywordsReactivating the city; Sharing space, open source; Designers as activists and activators.

CHA

PTER

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Re-activate the city, sharing spaces for research on design and humanities p. 538–546 538

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1 Raffaella Fagnoni is the author of the texts: Man, the measure of things. Reactivating the city, Design activism, The human di-

mension of design for public space, From impassibility to wonder, Sharing space, open source.

2 Silvia Pericu is the author of the texts: The operational diversity – profiles, The designer as activist and activator, Case study:

Spazi Urbani Ricreati, The designer as identity detector, Case study: Cantieri Urbani.


Man, the measure of things.

The human-centered paradigm, and the vision of a socially engaged and oriented project towards man, is part of the genetic design code. It is crucial to imagine possible solutions, especially in the difficult times we are experiencing now, with the economic crisis and environmental and social emergencies which lie on our choices. This context leads to shift focus to lifestyles and values, rather than to the production of goods. The quality of the project is evaluated on the basis of cultural change that triggers and not according to the formal aspects of the products. An already on-going change, also undertaken by the OECD, is distinctly directed towards well-being. The new Better Life Index3 measures and classifies the quality of the countries belonging to the organization based on different parameters by consumption, investments and exports, traditionally considered to measure the wealth of a country, rather than evaluating the conditions, and the values relating to ways of being and living.

A challenge to recall objects and environments is proposed as a postponed commitment for design-ers, entrepreneurs and administrators, starting from the knowledge and observation of reality itself. A logic that requires the affirmation of a “modus operandi” in which more parts, more skills, can work together. Single subjects, in the absence of general views upstream, are unlikely to provide answers to any further processing. The main difficulty is in understanding what the actions need to be and how they can be involved in regenerating the feeling of being part of a process, to be able to do the best for our communities, to count on a vision and a more human dimension.

Reactivating the city

Degradation, chaos, loss of identity and indifference, are constant clichés when the themes of pub-lic space and common space, are faced. From these, critical issues emerge on which to intervene, issues arising everywhere in our daily lives. They relate to security issues (on a personal level, on food, environment, energy, etc.), landscape themes (urban suburbs, industrial sites, agriculture, etc..), waste problems, conditions for young and elderly, and emergency management. The Italian scenario presents various situations, regarding the exploitation of local resources (tourism, cultural, etc.) with great potential, but not fully exploited.

The processes, that aim to re-activate cities in recent years, are involving groups, associations, and more or less spontaneous organizations, and primarily focus on the role of people, their activities, and their emotions. These have in common the experimentation of a series of processes bottom-up, to re-start, re-put in circulation, to re-connect a number of good initiatives starting from the cit-izens. They generate a capillary system of actions, or micro-actions, which become important for the relationship established between individual actions and reality, between individual actions and the public. Through this interaction a process of pervasive osmosis, capable of self-sustaining with the effects produced by the individual projects, is activated.

In this way a design approach comes into play, based on the attitude of observation, on the anal-ysis of information and on the ability to translate them into creative solutions. A method (problem

3 Better Life Index, 2011 (http://oecdbetterlifeindex.org/). The index classifies different countries belonging to the OECD, accord-

ing to several parameters: housing, job opportunities, incomes, public administration, civil partecipation, instruction, enviroment,

haelth, personal satisfaction, safety and balance between public and private.


setting - problem solving) that allows to create the conditions so that the action may be possible and effective, towards the re-appropriation of the city.

Design activism

In recent years, with a considerable dispersion, the design’s role is increasingly becoming a social activator, capable of bringing and stimulating collective intelligence and offering the possibility of regeneration of the community belonging to the economic system and to society. The active char-acter of design appears and evolves in close connection with its context; it fulfills itself through di-alogue, gaining from other knowledge bases with the purpose of coordinating in toto the concrete dimension of a tangible or intangible artefacts, products or services (Fagnoni et Puri et Sabeto, 2012). It follows a dynamic vision, based on relations capable to give life to a product, from its conception to when it is designed, manufactured, sold and consumed. A vision linked to the process, in fact, which requires not only the strict application of formal skills, but rather a way of thinking and approaching problems using a particular methodology, a logical process, categorized by a suc-cession of formal, typological and cultural choices.

The human dimension of design for public space

Public space allows, contemporarily, exposition, representation space, and co-presence, social space. (Amendola,1997) It is thick with meanings due to unpredictable collective and relational components associated to the presence of man. The act of design in public space is an application of reflective observation through which members of a community are able to produce a shared reality, as well as their status as citizens, consumers, experts, etc.., experiencing integration and sharing. The achievement of a good quality level lays in the ability to socially organize a sphere of mediation between subjectivity, experience, involvement and generality (Innerarity, 2008).

The humanistic approach of design, is active in this process of osmotic interaction, recovering its equilibrium with technology. The predominance of the humanistic factor on the technical/scientific issue does not govern the modus operandi, as in any case it would be of a different time.. Contam-inations, parallel actions, a transversal vision between being technical and being human are needed instead. When it is not the project that uses technology as a tool, but the technique gets the upper hand, a gap is opened between the effects generated by human actions, controlled by technology, and the human dimension of meaning (awareness and feeling) attributed to them. Man’s ability comes into play when he associates with the meaning of what is around him.

The challenge for design, in reactivating the city through the osmotic process of micro-actions, stands therefore in connectability, in the sensible reunification (of meaning and sensorial) of man with the everyday surrounding reality, even if disordered and ruled by elements out of control.

From impassibility to wonder

The continuous search for newness, the prevailing of image without a corresponding consciousness, often without the responsibility of the people involved and/or towards the people involved, leads to an impassive attitude and finally to indifference.


Regarding this, Franco La Cecla speaks of getting lost in the city, that is the loss of sensitivity, hence the impossibility of a metaphorical relationship between the environment and ourselves, or in other words, it is the aesthetical non appreciation of a place and at the same time it is the non appreciation of ourselves in it. Getting lost is generally retraced to disorientation and to inaffec-tivity, connotative, more than in any other time, of our living in places and in social spaces. When the activity of generating places is not allowed and its trace is destroyed, when the inhabitants are assigned to spaces which cannot be modelled, the local mind is lobotomized. (...) You get lost in the same environment you live in. You do not belong to it: you become, in respect to it, a stranger, an absent-mind. (La Cecla, 1988) The attention toward the world around you vanishes, you live in a state of disorientation, out of place, where the inability to recognize and to be recognized prevails, where impassibility to urban noise overcomes you.

Acting in public space, intended not only as a physical territory for the project, but as a space of social relations and interactions between people, is, then, the challenge and the opportunity for a future already present and capable of awakening the peoples’ attention. A possible practice of the humanist designer, through knowledge, skills, and models of design intervention, is directed not so much to the construction of artefacts, but to how these artefacts are taken on a performative dimension. It is not related just how to draw the object/space, but how people react to this object/space.

Sharing space, open source

A radical change of mind is needed to transform an empty space or void so that it is no longer an absence, but a possibility; it is no longer a problem, but a resource. Also, for temporary interventions, the expectation of future destinations can be filled by everyday uses, by living spaces, according to the logic of a spontaneous, shared and open source design.

In the future of our historical and medium-sized cities, every action must point to the restoration and enhancement of existing resources, of its stratified pattern, bearer of the meaning and of value of the city: resources as buildings, but also empty spaces, temporary interventions, events and related services. The urban environment, as a kind of living hypertext, becomes the stage where the relationship between the project and human behavior is experienced.

The traction power is developed through actions carried out by individuals and/or groups, through their propagation, through interdisciplinary work, through approaches that lead to the user’s in-volvement in the process. Design, as a discipline related to a method, refuses to identify with a particular area, a limited relevance allows to take a broader and appropriate function of coordinat-ing the disintegrated factors of reality, in the synthesis of the relationships that bind humanity to its work. (Mango,1965)

The operational diversity - profiles

The actual possibilities of socially engaged design to be the agent of change, to represent and relate to places of life and the dynamics that take place in them appropriately, and to facilitate critical readings, nowadays allow the definition of new professional profiles, able to exploit them through a process that finds its strength in the richness of articulation and in the ability of constant change.

The designer is, today, after a series of developments, a more critical actor in the urban space and a


more livable and human city, but in spite of these considerations, is not yet sufficiently recognized as a partner for urban space projects by public administrations for several reasons. Among these the lack of a shared profile that can outline the responsibilities and the concrete fields of application certainly prevails.

Therefore it is necessary to individualize what the specificities to operate in the urban environment actually are and what frames of reference are used in assuming the intervention of design in urban regeneration and in the definition of a new relationship between individuals-environment in the urban scene4.

The need to start this work from the observation of people and from the study of their relationships with objects, places and spaces of urban life, can join the operational design’s research to social, psychological and cognitive sciences, with which to finally identify a real common ground.

The designer as activist and activator.

To discuss the deeper dimensions in the interaction of people with places means to use new lan-guages able to deal with semantic and cultural references to history, traditions, connections and feelings, to intervene positively on the use of places by citizens, both at a functional, technological and social level.

The diffusion of active participation practices is a subjet that deserves attention, especially when it comes to the integration and comparison of human and social sciences and the possibilities associ-ated with new technologies of communication and with the infrastructure of smart cities.

In this sense we cannot only refer to public space, but to a broader concept of common space or to the idea of space not only as a physical place, but also as a place of social, cultural and political interaction, going back to a deeper meaning and reconnecting to the Aristotelian polis, seen as a political society made to achieve the happiness of man.

An important issue for this professional profile is participation as an antidote to the loss of confidence in institutions, which in recent decades has been the mirror of their inability to represent the people.

The search for different modalities of representation and democratic participation, is the cultural dimension that new citizenship practices are taking. The citizens seem to organize themselves on the basis of ideas and common identities, starting a community based on common interest in de-veloping the use of new media and technologies.

These technologies are able to combine and facilitate relationships between individuals, due to the easiness of communication, writing, creation and consumption of images, allowing the sharing of world views of individuals, providing the means of communications, and bridging the distance.

In this context, the profile of the designers changes and, finding themself to operate in increasingly large and different groups, their role gradually evolves towards process facilitators, whose creativ-ity and specific responsibilities allow to stimulate and guide the creativity and design capacity of other process actors (Manzini , 2009): hence, on one side a facilitator, able to make shared inno-

4 To live in means to expand someone’s own personality, to take possession of it and somehow to find a mainly mental relation to

it. (La Pietra, 2010)


vations, creating new partnerships and relationships, but also on the other, an activator, capable of engaging new dynamics within the designer’s context.

To activate often means to achieve small projects and actions to search for immediate answers to simple questions, expressing people’s intuitive requests, and generating ideas that can create new visions towards all those indefinite spaces present within the urban habitat, highlighting their potential and seeking out new languages, surfaces, stories and communities. To activate means to intervene on the area to gain people’s trust, to also establish, as well, a dialogue capable of triggering a virtuous circle where people themselves become actors of transformation, thanks to the commu-nication of shared meanings and the definition of strategies and innovative services by the designer.

Case study: Spazi Urbani Ricreati

Spazi Urbani Ricreati (recreated urban spaces)5 is a workshop of the Department of Architecture of the Polytechnic School of Genoa, held in collaboration with the City Council, aiming to develop a district, Di Negro, in the city of Genoa. The workshop’s activities investigate the possibility of reactivating the city and its spaces through the deployment and development of people’s creativity. A city seen as a habitat for the inclusion of individuals in the creative economy and in knowledge.

The aims and, at the same time, the fields of operational research have foreseen a definition phase of alternative scenarios that could re-invent reality, coming to make dialogues with local residents and creating a flow of shared experiences, ideas, culture and information.

From this first phase, participatory experiences in situ have generated through the construction of a collective space able to hold various events, spontaneous or not, and where people with different behaviors and goals have participated in group activities .

The results from this sharing have led to the establishment of new urban identities built with residents, as identity is the product of a continuous urban narrative and of its changing nature. The interest areas of intervention of this experience were: the testing of an alternative model of participatory planning, redevelopment of disused areas, social reactivation of a district, the reconsideration of spaces with hidden potential, urban communication, public design, and the organization of cultural events.

The experience of public design in Di Negro, originated from a living pattern of individuals and or-ganizations usually active in the area. This experience is still in progress and foresees, on the basis of the results achieved, the implementation of urban redevelopment through the use of colour, participatory planning unused gardens, whose maintenance will be managed by the local popula-tion, and other coordinated image interventions on a neighborhood gymnasium under construction, aimed at building the identity of spaces and a sense of belonging for the inhabitants of these places, that will be returned to them.

The active participation in the proposed method has been intended as a tool to stimulate and guide citizens and associations into taking care of their neighborhood through a process aimed at defining

5 The ongoing research involves D.S.A. (Dipartimento di Scienze per l’Architettura) and the local administration, (Comune di Genova) to find solutions related to Public Design for the regeneration of the area of Via Digione in Genoa. The regeneration program is named as P.R.U. “Ex fabbrica del ghiaccio in Piazza Sopranis e aree contermini”, and related to the construction of a district gymnasium and the completion of its facade. Scientific coordinator : Prof. R. Fagnoni


questions and answers, and, in the end, shared solutions to live places, by comparing and knowing themselves, in a modality in which process is already perceived as the design solution to the problem.

The experience revealed how it is necessary to adopt a more fluid and open mind, to take advantage of the connections between different realities, and to perceive and make people perceive the city as a more general sensory and emotional experience in order to understand the impacts on individ-uals and on the dynamics regulating it.

The designer as identity detector

The mission of this type of design starts from the analisys and the exploration of places, communi-ties, spatial practises, from memory related to territory, beliefs and habits of people, to bring back to the surface and reveal the identity of a place.

Public space has a universe of signs that carry an identity; they are often places with personality to preserve or to develop, and the designer acts on them to make a deep analisys or sometimes to create an identity out of nothing. This work, in addition to the study of the physical, social and symbolic characteristics, analyzes the dimensions needed to describe the identity of a place and a territory as a whole. The action adapts to the place, leaving aside an aesthetic approach so as to generate renewal on all levels of identity, and restoring value to a property or uncovering historical elements in order to help a better understanding and acceptance by citizens.

The territory as a design object (Parente, 2010), thanks to the recent spotlight on the competitive scene of territories and cities and to the changing economic scenarios, has become an important resource to build new identities and to detect differences in order to build and develop consistent and sustainable scenarios able to infuse new energy and new ideas for society. To shape and to communicate operationally identity means to use methodological/organizational tools and project resource analysis of places and people, to generate tools for the communication of information to facilitate creative processes with the definition of project solutions that result in the starting of complex processes.

Case study: Cantieri Urbani

Within this type of approach the role of large urban transformations (structural infrastructures, urban regenerations, safety implementation of territorial systems, major restructuring) may have in defining the identity of a territory in urban areas and as an opportunity to start a dialogue with the final users of these transformations has been investigated.

Traditionally, construction sites are considered transition phase, mostly for merely technical ques-tions: often being subordinated in respect to the finished work, but an enlightened management of the construction site and its communication can create significant added value, capable of mit-igating conflicts, that in many cases the development of new interventions may generate, and to facilitate the creation of a sense of belonging to places and new cultural identities.


The research6, carried out on the occasion of the generation of an overall communication plan on the functional recovery of the final stretch of the Bisagno River in Genoa, has explored, therefore, the theme of the construction site not only as a physical place of urban transformation, but also as a temporary space of labor and processing, which involves relations between territories, the building site and individuals, working on the border between adaptation and overlap, inclusion and exclusion, attraction and discomfort.

The construction site also becomes an ideal area to incubate method, experimenting along with the building of working models, new ways of managing the process of investigation of the meth-odological context and the territorial impact of the work. It also becomes the occasion for testing modalities for the inclusion and involvement of the community and of the system of competences.

The specific contribution of the research is characterized by having dealt with the complex issues related to construction sites: from the analysis of a series of case studies evaluated in relation to different environmental effects, landscapes, social and economic contexts of regional and local authorities, to define strategies and methodologies for the identification of tools and methods able to build a dialogue between the different actors involved (technicians, politicians, citizens and administrations).

In this process of development and attribution of meaning, design represents a laboratory that moves on the border of the project thanks to the broadness of its tools, ranging from visual design, corporate identity design, analysis of signs and images for the purposes of communication, but also thanks to the critical energy allowing to expand and explore these tools through the new territories of the contemporary city.

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Complementary bibliography

BORASI G., ZARDINI M. 2008. Actions: What You Can Do With the City, SUN Architecture and CCA, Montréal.

CARTA, M. 2007. Creative City. Dynamics, Innovations, Actions, Barcelona, List, pp.160.

FAGNONI, R. 2011. Lo spazio pubblico urbano. Connettibilità sociale, colore, comunicazione. In:Spadolini M.B., I colori di Cornigliano, Design per lo scenario urbano, Firenze, Alinea, pp. 20-26.

FLUSSER, V. 2003. Filosofia del design, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, pp.160.

MARGOLIN, V. 2007. A Call for Social Design, A lecture presented at the conference “Best-Practice Medical Design for 2020” Technion, Haifa, Israel, 14.06.2007. Visited in: 06/12/2012 ftp://ftp.sni.technion.ac.il/events/14.6.07/margolin.pdf

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Re-activate the city, sharing spaces for research on design and humanities

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