Marina Parente

Enhancing the widespread cultural heritages of our territories is not only a moral imperative and respect for the values established over time but an increasingly felt need to direct local development towards more sustainable strategies for the environment and communities.The culture of design, especially in Italy, has questioned what its disciplinary contribution can be, in addition to the specialist approaches such as exhibition, communication or lighting design. In national financed research carried out precisely on these themes (D.Cult research: Design for the enhancement of cultural heritage. Project strategies, tools, and methodologies, 2002/04), two elements emerged that managed to briefly define the operational and strategic characteristics of design in this field: the planning of experiences and relationships [1].In this contribution, the attention is to the role of souvenirs in these systems: from iconic objects, often of low material and aesthetic quality, they can instead play a significant role in the processes of use and design-driven enhancement [2].From an evolved perspective, designing a souvenir means establishing a synergistic and cohesive relationship with the territories and their values. Not only with the tangible cultural aspects of the natural and artificial landscape, historical and artistic testimonies, and material culture but also with the rich intangible heritage made up of knowledge, traditions, and know-how [3, 4]. And it can take on different roles in product, storytelling, communication strategy and activation of experiences.In this way, the souvenir becomes a “touchpoint” of a territorial development strategy that relates different cultural systems and brings value to local economic and production chains, even those not directly linked to tourism, such as the many forms of material and cultural production, typical of that context [5–7].Through analyzing some exemplary case studies and presenting some design experiences, we will draw a map of the possible “connective” roles of meaning and actions that a new generation of souvenirs could interpret.

Information about the paper titled "EDUCATE TO INNOVATE ORGANIZATIONS TOWARDS SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC RESPONSIBILITY: A NEW POST-GRADUATE TRAINING PROPOSAL" at IATED Digital Library

Information about the paper titled "E-LEARNING METHODS FOR UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE COURSES IN DESIGN DURING THE COVID-19 EMERGENCY" at IATED Digital Library

Design for Territories is a rather recent field of study and research. It began to be outlined at the end of the ‘90s and was initially established as a direct application to real situations through action research activities or educational experimentations. Thus, situated design methods are applied and verified, models and processes are improved and specific tools are developed. The aim of this paper is to describe this field of study’s state-of-the-art in order to fulfil the goal of outlining the distinctive features of design for territories from a theoretical point of view. What does Design for Territories deal with? What are its strategies and its methods? The paper aims to answer these questions through a review of design research experiences and the debate with experts in the field, who have been involved in this study through interviews and focus groups.

In the last years, a new phase of economic crisis, which is concerning sectors of manufacturing industries, is affecting Europe. Focusing on Italy, sectors which have strongly characterized our country, such as textile and accessories, are facing with an fluctuating period of crisis. Also in this case, as it happened from late ‘80s, the urban structures and identities are seriously affected and need interventions of regeneration in order to gain new life both from social, productive and commercial point of views. Having in mind the Italian case, while the first phase identified had the characteristics of a disruptive macro-phenomenon, the second phase is more subtle and gradual. In this paper we are going to focus on changes of design culture in light of these urban phenomena. While we can already make a first evaluation of regeneration projects developed after the crisis of heavy industry sectors, the most recent events of industrial recession and the consequent regeneration of the correspondent empty areas are still ongoing. In order to analyze and, where it is possible, compare these two phases, we are going to look at two Italian case studies. The first is Bicocca, an area of Milan, which in the ‘90s was interested by a massive plan of regeneration and transformation after the closure of Breda and Pirelli industries. The second is Biella, a Piedmont Province city, which has been one of the most important centers for the textile and wool industry; the crisis of this sector strongly emerged in the first years on 2000 even if it had already begun between ‘80s and ‘90s when the biggest textile factories closed down. The differences between these two examples are not merely physical and dimensional but are clearly influenced by a different timing in the regeneration processes, which occurred in these areas (or, in the case of Biella, is still occurring). The analysis proposed in this paper will be focus on the action-research developed within two didactic experiences. Notwithstanding the distinctions in terms of objectives and actors involved, in this paper we are going to delineate a systemic approach to study and design for the regeneration, improvement and innovation of places. We will try to understand if, through strategic design, it is possible to identify those soft levers and interventions able to rejoin the pieces of places, which lost their functionality and identity.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/IFDP.2016.3284