with Roberta Conditi and Teresa Franqueira

This talk presents a specific approach to service design based on social innovations in urban contexts. Within these social innovations the focus is on creative communities, which are “groups of innovative citizens organising themselves to solve a problem or to open new possibilities, and doing so as a positive step in the social learning process towards social and environmental sustainability.” Analyzing the services developed by these communities it was pondered the possibility of designing solutions to facilitate their diffusion. One of the key aspects is to maintain the quality inherent to the original innovations, when replicating them.

This approach is validated through the analysis of an on-going experiment—cohousing.it case—of which both the strategy and instruments of the services designed to facilitate and accelerate the process of participatory design will be presented.

About Roberta Conditi

Roberta is a Designer and PhD student in Industrial Design, she study the possibility of replication of enabling solutions. She works in the research unit DIS, Design and Innovation for Sustainability of the Department INDACO of Politecnico di Milano, where she works since long time as a tutor in Service and Strategic Design issues.

About Teresa Franqueira

Teresa is Assistant Professor in Design at the University of Aveiro (Portugal). At present, she is a PhD student at the Politecnico di Milano under the supervision of Prof. Ezio Manzini. Her research theme focus on the creative city and the role of strategic and co-participatory design towards community networks.