Empowering vulnerable women by participatory design workshops

This contribution addresses the issue of homeless women’s empowerment through design workshops and according to the capability approach. The paper presents small, ordinary stories of women that experience being designers. Besides the professional label, being a designer means to approach reality from the transformative perspective of pursuing a positive change. It also translates in claiming the space for the expression of a personal vision of the world, within a cooperative environment. It enables to experiment innovative strategies to solve problems and to pursue self-determination in practical activities

ORTORAMA. Dialoghi di orticoltura urbana: le pratiche, i territori, le persone.

ORTORAMA è una rassegna a cura dall’associazione OrMe ETS - Orti Metropolitani, in collaborazione con Torino Urban Lab, tenutasi per la prima volta a settembre 2022. L’obiettivo di ORTORAMA è promuovere il confronto sul tema dell’orticoltura urbana, valorizzando la multidimensionalità del fenomeno e l’esperienza diretta dei territori e delle persone che operano in questo campo. Nell’ambito di ORTORAMA sono state organizzate due tavole rotonde che hanno visto la partecipazione di sedici ospiti provenienti da diverse regioni italiane e Paesi europei. Questa pubblicazione ha l’obiettivo di restituire quanto emerso durante il convegno e contribuire alle conversazioni sul valore dell’orto come dispositivo imprescindibile per la progettazione del futuro alimentare, sociale e spaziale delle città

Participatory Design Processes Towards Inclusion: Three Case Studies within Italian Social Care System

The presentation discusses the topic of participatory design processes with a systemic approach as a tool to negotiate, shape and prototype new inclusive models of citizenship and care to benefit marginal groups in society. Since 2009, our interdisciplinary research group, composed by designers and anthropologists, carries out socially engaged practices in several italian cities, entailing both methodological analysis and transformative actions on social care systems and on their users: services’ beneficiaries (e.g. asylum seekers, migrants, people affected by chronic diseases, homeless people), caregivers, services’ management. The topic will be addressed via three case studies from our !eld experience: ‘Design for Each one’, a co-design project of personalised devices for people suffering from multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy; ‘Cantiere Mambretti’, a participatory renovation of shelters for migrants and homeless people; ‘Costruire Bellezza’, a new service aiming at social inclusion based on design workshops involving homeless people and university students

Co‐Design and the Collective Creativity Processes in Care Systems and Places

This article examines the topic of participatory design processes (co‐design, co‐creativity, co‐creation, and co‐production) as tools to promote models of inclusion that benefit people experiencing marginality, and as means to solicit the public dimension of the spaces in which they live and where they have access to their health and welfare services. The topic is addressed through four case studies drawn from the experience of participatory action research aiming at social inclusion and cohesion through an approach based on design anthropology. Following Jones and VanPatter’s (2009) four design domains (DD), the projects discussed in this article are the following: participatory design of devices for people with mul‐ tiple sclerosis (DD 1.0); participatory renovation of shelters for homeless people (DD 2.0); design and craft led lab aiming at social inclusion (DD 3.0); and innovation of public services for a city homeless population (DD 4.0). All these projects are driven by stakeholders’ demands for a transformation that improves the quality of users’ lives, the quality of caring services, and that they modify, temporarily or permanently, the venues where they take place. In order to support and facilitate this “desire for change,” the projects are based on wide participation and collaboration between many different stakeholders in every phase of their design processes. Methods, tools, and results will be analysed from the points of view of both users (beneficiaries and social operators/caregivers) and designers. Furthermore, the interaction between spaces, co‐design processes, and attendees will be investigated to determine how they contribute to turning those venues into citizenship environments, permeated with greater care and attention

D tutt*. Esperienze di empowerment femminile in Costruire Bellezza

D tutt* raccoglie una serie di esperienze progettuali partecipative, condotte all’interno del progetto Costruire Bellezza, che sviluppano una particolare attenzione al coinvolgimento del genere femminile. Si propone di discutere come queste, combinate con una modalità di lavoro incentrata sul capability approach, possano produrre un impatto positivo sulle donne senza dimora protagoniste dei laboratori. Oltre ad una etichetta professionale, ‘fare il designer’ implica soprattutto adottare un approccio trasformativo alla realtà e perseguire un cambiamento positivo attraverso la pratica. Il ruolo che il design può assumere all’interno delle riflessioni su temi di genere e di homelessness, è quello di favorire contesti in cui gli individui - le donne- possono scoprire, sviluppare o rafforzare le proprie capacità. Le brevi storie che si intende presentare sottolineano l’essenza della pratica di design nel suo svolgimento più quotidiano. Nei workshop di Costruire Bellezza, design significa aspirare al miglioramento, approcciare la complessità con un atteggiamento aperto e riconoscere agli esseri umani il grande potere di innovare, sia la società̀ che se stessi. Queste esperienze sono fondamentali per le donne in condizione di fragilità nell’ottica di sperimentare le condizioni di benessere necessarie a riattivare fiducia in sé stesse, costruire relazioni significative, esplorare abilità e costruirne di nuove che siano utili alla vita personale

Per un’economia circolare sociale. Come dagli scarti generare opportunità d’inclusione

In questo articolo intendiamo mettere in luce la reciprocità̀ che è possibile generare tra pratiche di economia circolare ed economia sociale. Lo faremo a partire da una sperimentazione concreta di riuso di materiali di scarto, fatta con un approccio di upcycling e socialmente inclusivo. I materiali di scarto sono quelli promozionali dell’evento “Torino 2015 – Capitale europea dello sport”. Dai tessuti dismessi stipati nei magazzini della Città di Torino ha preso origine il progetto “Un sacco di sport”, che in queste pagine proveremo a raccontare

Systemic and participatory design processes in care systems

The paper discusses the topic of participatory design processes with systemic approach as a tool to negotiate, shape and prototype new inclusive models of citizenship and care to benefit marginal groups in society. The topic will be addressed via three case studies from the field experience of our action research through Design and Anthropology toward social inclusion (World Bank, 2013). The two disciplines shaped a collaborative and vibrant research environment challenging the issues of participation in design processes. Since 2009, the research operates in several italian cities, entailing both methodological analysis and transformative actions that have tangible effects on social care systems: marginalized people, caregivers, services’ management organizations. The beneficiaries involved are asylum seekers, migrants, people affected by chronic diseases, and homeless people. They are usually intended as “fragile” people since they manifest urgent and highly impacting needs that require specific answers, usually provided by the care system, composed both by public and private sector. Usually, beneficiaries’ needs are multilevel (housing, health, income, work, social relationships, autonomy) and interconnected. The variety of actors that contribute to meet those needs is not part of a coordinated network. From the perspective of our research a care system shouldn’t be intended as a crystallized system but as an ever-changing system that constantly needs to be transformed to better answer to social change. All the projects described move from the stakeholders’ desire of tangible transformations in order to improve the quality of service: development of new products, redesign of spaces and processes, innovation of the service itself. In order to support and facilitate this “desire of change”, on the basis of the complexity of the relations that shape the network of the system, it seems to be preferable to operate with a systemic design approach (Jones, 2014) and to develop projects based on participation and collaboration among all actors, in order to include the most of them in decision making processes. Method and Tools We developed a specific interdisciplinary method and a set of practical tools to operate into the social care system. The fundamental elements that define our method are: 1. To observe and analyse the system in order to understand it in its complexity, focusing on the social relationships that occur among people and the stakeholders, and how they shape the system through the usage of spaces and objects. We use focus-group, in-depth interview, video-tour and participatory observation when the project has been undertaken. 2. To carry out co-design processes: all the actors are involved as expert users. We build shared decision making processes designing together a shared vision of change, and tools and procedures to achieve this change. 3. To encourage co-production of the intervention with every stakeholders. They are invited to make available resources in order to produce and manage the interventions. 4. To lead co-creation processes of the most tangible and practical stage of the project set out during the co-design process. We invite the actors to take part to the process sharing knowledge, skills, and competences. The participatory workshop is the practical tool we adopt to materially shape the desired change. It consists of on-site interventions through creative and collaborative processes, working from within the context. The workshop is an occasion to stimulate synergies among the actors in an informal and dialogic environment. During the workshop new connections between all the actors are found out, tried out and tightened. The workshop is also a way to prototype solutions that can be tested, discussed and implemented with all participants. Moreover, the workshop offers the opportunity to connect the social care system services, so often marginalized, with the society. We do so by inviting in the “outside” to take part to the processes: university students, volunteers, citizens. CASE 1. Design for Each one _ Co-design of personalised devices for people suffering from multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy The co-design process involves users, care givers, design students and researchers, promoting collaboration between Politecnico di Torino, Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla and Animazione Valdocco, the social cooperative managing the care service. In the framework of collaborative workshops, everyday life problems of sufferers are investigated by a group of designers and caregivers, through participant observation. The group investigates on those gestures that users cannot do and they prototype small tools. Within a one-week long workshop, the product is developed and prototyped by a continuous collaborative process with the user. Than, with the same method, the product is implemented and tested for a long time until it is ready to be released. CASE 2. Cantiere Mambretti _ Participatory renovation of shelters for migrants and homeless people in Milan The project relies on the collaboration of homeless people and migrants in the role of expert users, workers belonging the organization managing the reception service, designers from Politecnico di Torino, young volunteers as high school students and citizens in general. The design action places emphasis on ideal of “co-created beauty” as trigger to reshape reception services and spaces. The co-design process is stimulated by preliminary focus groups with hosts and workers, in order to understand the needs and to define together solutions that all the actors can agree on. Than, the group of participants is engaged in the tangible transformations initiatives: furniture building, wall painting, wayfinding set up. The project generates a sort of temporary “creative revolution” in the shelter: everybody is welcomed to participate and help with the design interventions. The vibrant environment of the workshop challenges the reception service’s routines and fixed roles and create a positive impact, also because it involves operators and users in the actions, giving value to people’s skills and aspirations (Campagnaro, 2018). The effects of this process are diverse in relation to each category of participant: for migrants people, participation acts as a trigger for a sense of protagonism and gratification, while, for the organization’s workers, the project offers the chance to rethink to the way the service is provided and to imagine how the spaces could contribute to improve it. CASE 3. Costruire Bellezza _ Design Anthropology led lab based in Turin aiming at social inclusion The group of participants of Costruire Bellezza is heterogeneous: homeless people, care givers, social workers, students and researchers in design and social sciences and creative talents. The process is rooted in the collaboration between the Municipality services for homeless people, the social cooperative managing these services and our universities (Politecnico di Torino and Università di Torino). The lab functioning is based on regularly held creative workshops leading to the production of co-design and co-created artifacts for the participants of the project and for the neighborhood communities. The main outcome of the project can be traced on what the collaboration of the participants generates in terms of empowerment of the homeless people (Sen, 1992) putting in value their capabilities, development of new skills in the students (Margolin and Margolin, 2002), and in the offer of an innovative and informal occasion during which the relationships between social operators, educators and homeless people are tightened. Design domains The specificity of the case studies presented can be traced in the extensive use of the co-design method in order to develop all the (tangible-intangible) artifacts together with the users: either the output is a tool, a space or a new social service. However, if we analyse those processes by the “design domains” (Jones, Van Patter, 2009) a scale of incremental impact can be observed between the projects. The ‘Design for each one’ objects represent an unseen ground for the design of innovative products based on specific needs usually unspoken by the users or not answered by the traditional market because of their specificity. Moreover the project produces an empowerment effect on the organization, fostering the participatory approach also in the educational work. The ‘Cantiere Mambretti’ projects have an effect on a systemic dimension. They impact on how the reception service is provided in terms of both quality and functionality of spaces. Assuming the co-design model as “a new way to do things”, the stakeholders are connected systemically as agents of change. This environment activates all the participants and design enhances not only physical changes but also the strategy that lies behind the service (Campagnaro, Di Prima, 2018). Lastly, it is possible to read ‘Costruire Bellezza’ as an example of a project operating on the highest level of the scale of the design domains. Started as an experiment (Binder, Redström, 2006) in 2014 and now recognized by the public administration as a new public service for homeless people and the development of initiative of social cohesion, Costruire Bellezza provides an example of how initiatives of co-design of objects and services can encourage new policy models that rely on the alliances fostered by the participatory design processes. Final remarks According to our experience, the systemic vision, thanks to a participative approach, enhances the relationships among all the stakeholders developing new visions of the services, making everybody a “beneficiary”. In order to facilitate and foster an horizontal environment of mutual exchange and collaboration, the researches need to stay within the processes. Doing so, they understand attitudes, behaviors, unspoken needs and outcomes and they can reorient the process on the basis of what the field and the people respond. Places of care can become places of innovation if the project’s system is open, flexible and sensitive to context and individuals. This fosters the cohesion and the inclusiveness of the care systems and it generates the opportunity for all those involved to flourish

Ai margini. Un’antologia di social design

La monografia raccoglie l’esperienza di un gruppo di ricerca-azione, operativo presso il Dipartimento di Architettura e Design del Politecnico di Torino, che da oltre dodici anni si occupa di design per l’inclusione sociale secondo un approccio partecipativo e multidisciplinare. Attraverso l’analisi di 17 esperienze progettuali condotte dal gruppo, il volume si propone di mettere a disposizione di chiunque, designer esperti e non, le evidenze principali emerse dal lavoro e dallo studio, le modalità operative sperimentate nei vari contesti, le storie, i gesti, i pensieri, gli sguardi che hanno accompagnato la pratica sul campo, offrendo un contributo alla discussione sul tema del design per l’impatto sociale e sul ruolo del designer nei processi di innovazione partecipata della nostra società

“Un sacco di sport”: design toward a new socially responsible production chain for dismissed textiles

The following article is based on a case study of “Un sacco di sport,” a design driven research project for the development of a new socially responsible production chain for dismissed textiles resulting from promotional campaigns of city events. The project is based on the hypothesis that, in the city of Turin, a strategy based on the upcycling of dismissed textiles offers unseen opportunities for the development of innovative models of education for design students and circular economy chains, based on both reciprocity and social inclusion. This will be addressed in the paper through a description of the different phases of the project, with a focus on the potential offered by the dismissed textiles to shape design concepts developed by students of the Meta-design course at Politecnico di Torino. In addition, this article will underline the importance of collaboration in strengthening the relationship between the numerous stakeholders that took part in the process. The methodology adopted by the research presents a participative orientation and a collaborative design approach. This approach, tested by “Un sacco di sport,” was significantly influenced by the combination of relational resources, skills, and capabilities offered by the stakeholders. Due to the ongoing nature of the project, it has produced a number of significant outcomes that contribute to discourse around the value of waste materials, the importance of collaboration in strategic processes, and the role of design for the promotion of new frameworks of active citizenship. At the same time, issues for further research have been identified, especially in regard to the ambition to make projects such as “Un sacco di sport” the basis for a new policy-model for the city of Turin in relation to the valorization of the dismissed textiles, based on collaboration and social inclusion. This paper positions the research toward this ambition

Fighting food waste towards a new social food chain: The Egg of Columbus workshop

From 29 February to 4 March 2016, seventeen students of Design and one student of Educational Studies designed and tested recipes for fruit and vegetables with the aim of recycling unsold food. The goal of the experimentation was to verify the strategies aimed at improving homeless people’s access to a certain and healthy daily meal. The workshop was named ‘The Egg of Columbus’ and it was led by two designers and one chef. It took place in a non-professional kitchen, inside a municipal building, which is a location for social inclusion and interdisciplinary education projects. Some homeless adults with prior kitchen experiences actively participated in the workshop, offering their knowledge and collaborating with the students at every stage of the project. The group successfully produced and tested nineteen food transformation strategies. These were recipes that promoted transformation of the surplus produce, preserving its nutritional values and making it available to the deferred consumption. The food design experience offered new perspectives about the food chain for night shelters focusing on the issues of right to food, sustainability and circular economy