DA COSA NASCE COSA: verso l’urbanistica della gentilezza
The project promotes the regeneration of Milan’s suburbs using field-based education with schools, universities and citizens, such as workshops that become the tool to learn how to re-imagine the city in an equitable, inclusive and sustainable way.
Local
Italy
The project focuses on the regeneration of the area of Dergano, Lancetti, Bovisa (and now Affori) which are the peripheral areas to the northeast of Milan. Ex-industrial areas now undergoing urban redevelopment and characterized by multiculturalism and a strong intergenerational mix of users of the area.
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Repubblica del Design Type of organisation: Cultural association First name of representative: Davide Last name of representative: Crippa Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Founder Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: via Enrico Cosenz 44/4 Town: Milano Postal code: 20158 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 02 9153 7360 E-mail:info@repubblicadeldesign.it Website:https://repubblicadeldesign.it/
URL:https://www.instagram.com/repubblicadeldesign/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #regeneration #urbanisticadellagentilezza #dacosanascecosa #energy #social #designdifferente #nonsibuttavianiente #recycled #upcycling #socialdesign #ghigos
The project promotes the regeneration of Milan’s suburbs using field-based education with schools, universities and citizens. The workshops are the tool to learn how to re-imagine the city in an equitable, inclusive and sustainable way. All workshop activities have always used imagination as a driver of transformation, which in some cases has been linked to tools closer to communication (pictorial design) or design (transformation of plastics into objects of use for the community). When the tools of design were used, the use of imagination was linked to the European strategy to combat plastics by promoting in the Milanese neighborhoods of Lancetti, Isola, Dergano, Affori and Bovisa, the first locally based circular economy system by intervening on the plastic waste problem. In the urban context it stands as a good practice, on a scale of small regeneration, involving the citizenry in educational programs created in collaboration with schools and universities, oriented to generate a gradual change of habits toward a conscious use of plastic, complemented by concrete recycling and reuse activities. The first prerequisite was the active engagement of the citizenry, who were called upon to collaborate by bringing plastic caps to the containers housed by some of the commercial establishments in the area. Finally, with the material collected and processed to become a reusable semi-finished product, innovative design start-up DESIGN DIFFERENTE, one of the first makerspaces dedicated to the circular economy, designed and made artifacts for public use.
There are 60 seats, street furniture and insect houses, installed in the 16 planned urban areas and complemented by pictorial design interventions and augmented reality artworks conceived during co-design workshops coordinated by Bepart and Ghigos studio.
education for sustainability
education for regeneration
partecipatory design
kind urbanism
eco design
In terms of sustainability, “DaCosaNasceCosa:verso l’urbanistica della gentilezza” carried out the dissemination of recycling bins within schools and commerical enstablishments among the Bovisa,Dergano and Lancetti neighborhoods, with the aim of collecting plastic waste for the creation of design furniture to be donated to the community. Parallel to the waste collection activities, the project carried out didactic actions around the themes of circular economy and recycling of plastic waste. Educational workshops aimed at teaching children on the issues, methods and machinery involved in the recycling process of plastic waste were carried out within elementary schools. Design workshops aimed at bringing young designers closer to the design of sustainable products and furniture by engaging local buisness owners to pinpoint the needs og the neighborhood were carried out in universitites. All these actions actions were carried out with the aim of linking urban regeneration directly with sustainability issues.
In terms of aesthetics and people’s experience, the project “DaCosaNasceCosa:verso l’urbanistica della gentilezza” has been concerned with tying the themes of beauty and altruism, which are fundamental constituents of the concept of “kind urbanism,” to the themes of urban regeneration. “Urbanistica della genitilezza” was born from the idea of integrating the theme of kindness within education, and was carried out by means of multiple co-design and participatory design workshops involving citizens in the design of “kind” urban design interventions. The resulting interventions are conceived in response to a direct citizen demand, designed for a better city, capable of adopting an aesthetic that is representative of the different needs of the businesses and principals that support the project, envisioning a different public-private collaboration for the city.
In terms of inclusion, the project “From What Comes What: Toward an Urbanism of Kindness” aims to include citizens within educational actions for the design of furniture and urban regeneration interventions, for a greater integration between new and old, between modernity and tradition.
The project therefore included citizens from the Dergano, Bovisa and Lancetti Districts in design workshops with universities. The interventions thus created are designed to respond to a direct request from citizens, and are given free of charge to the latter, who are also responsible for taking care of them, toward a different public-private collaboration for the city. The workshops enabled intergenerational meeting and collaboration by having younger people work for older people and vice versa.
The project involved different targets among the citizens of the neighborhoods of Bovisa,Dergano e Lancetti, on several levels of depth:
- Several elementary and middle schools and business owners in the Lancetti, Dergano and Bovisa neighborhoods were involved in the collection of plastic waste through the dissemination of cardboard recycling bins. All the plastics collected were used by the project to make design furniture.
- Elementary and middle school children (6-12 years old) were involved within plastic waste collection actions through the dissemination of cardboard baskets. Furthermore, the children were engaged in didactic workshops revolving around the themes of plastic materials treatment and recycling processes carried out through the plastics collected, as a mean to be able to see and touch the results of their sustainable actions. Lastly, as a way to “close the cricle” the schools received design furniture produced through the plastic waste collected.
- Students from the universities involved were engaged in participatory design workshops conducted together with buisness owners from the Dergano, Bovisa and Lancetti neighborhoods, which revolved around the porduction of interwiews and surveys, and were subsequently involved in the designing and prototyping process of “kind” furniture to gift to the neighborhood.
- Buisness owners and citizens of the Dergano, Bovisa and Lancetti neighborhoods were involved in participatory design and co-design actions, as well as in the implementation of pictorial interventions of urban regeneration.
The impact of such an involvement from the citizens of the neighborhoods involved was two-fold. On one side the involvement of the citizens in the design stages of the urban interventions empowered their ability to answer the needs of the neighborhood. On the other hand, the semi-permanent nature of such interventions as a part of “Repubblica del Design” allowed for a greater impact on the urban scale.
In addition to the project partners, “DaCosaNasceCosa: verso un’urbanistica della gentilezza” involved a large number of local, regional and international Stakeholders engaed directly and indirectly including:
- A school in the area of Milan (“British school of Milan”) involved in a didactic workshop.
- Two universities (Politecnico di Milano - Scuola del Design, Universita IUAV di Venezia) involved in multiple design workshops for the design of “Kind” seats.
- Multiple businesses in the Bovisa,Dergano and Lancetti neighborhoods, involved in collecting plastic waste by disseminating cardboard bins and designing “kind” street furniture that responds to the needs of the neighborhood.
- An international gallery (RossanaOrlandi), landmark of contemporary design, with items designed by internationally renowned designers
- The Venice Biennale 2021 which exhibited and presented projects in the spaces of Italian Pavilion dedicated to the themes of “resilience”
The added value of such a network was the involvement of actors on various levels, with the idea of “regeneration” as the dialogue between these levels, envisioning a new ideafor the town based on citizens’ needs.
The project required the involvement of a variety of disciplines involved in both the teaching innovation phase and the project innovation phase.
In the area of teaching innovation, knowledge and skills in different areas were employed:
-Competencies in coordinating and organizing didactic and design workshops directed at urban regeneration of neighborhoods.
-Competencies of Co-design and participatory planning for the involvement of citizenship in processes of design and implementation of urban regeneration interventions.
In the area of project innovation, knowledge and skills in different areas were employed:
- Material chemistry skills, needed to process the plastic waste obtained from the branch collection in different places in the city.
- Mechanical and electronics skills, for the use and explanation of machinery related to the processing and transformation of plastics.
- Management engineering skills for coding production processes suitable for teaching anddidactic activities, at different levels (Identifying the most malleable plastic waste, modifying machinery, creating molds and designs)
- Manual and digital craft skills for the protyping of furniture in the teaching stages.
- Design skills for the creation of urban furniture and pictorial interventions for urban regeneration.
The added value of such an approach lies in the interdisciplinary nature found in the continuous contaminations between the educational and practical fields, which were thus able to enter into a process of continuous mutual stimulation and truly “regenerative”
About the innovative aspects of the project, it is worth noting the unique character of the “Repubblica del Design” initiative within which the educational project is developed, which creates during Milan Design Week 2019 the only permanent design district in the city of Milan, a change of direction from how the city has always experienced this initiative as temporary actions that revolutionize the city for 7 days. Instead, the idea of Repubblica del Design is to work on a peripheral area, where many of the schools of the project are located, to create a district that would last all year round and where the actions thought during Milan Design Week, and not only, could become semi-permanent so as to change the spaces of the city with a sum of interventions of different subjects according to 9 thematic keys. The interventions of “DaCosaNasceCosa” are born and developed in the same way and with the same propulsive and communicative drive as the other temporary interventions of Design Week, but with their permanent character they progressively regenerate the district with the direct involvement of citizenship. A formula that puts the educational actions coordinated by workshops of the association at the center of the transformation with the collaboration of various subjects and also building innovative formats such as the formula “MANY kg of different waste equals MANY kg of public design”; new ways to teach by doing
In terms of replicability, the scalability and possibility of exporting both the citizenship engagement and the educational and training packages formats developed for schools and universities is to be note. Also to be noted is the involvement of the project within the area of “Repubblica del Design” (Milan’s Bovisa, Affori and Lancetti districts) but it is codified as a process that can be replicated and exported to other territorial realities and is continually expanding, allowing for the presence of “embassies” (locations that are located out of the initial perimeter, but are hosting interventions from within the “Repubblica”. An example of such an “embassy” was created during the Milan Design Week 2020, where the limitations imposed by the Covid 19 pandemic led to moving the interventions of “DaCosaNasceCosa” within the walls of the “Leonardo da Vinci Museum,” in Milan’s City Hall 2.
In terms of methodology, the project involved didactic formats such as workshops and open-calls. On the side of citizenship involvement the project relied on participatory design and co-design practices, such as interviews and surveys in the preliminary stages and direct or indirect involvement in the actual design stages. Finally, the whole project was characterized by an interdisciplinary approach, with continuous contaminations and cross-references between the educational and and the design and prototyping fields.
Among the global challenges that the project intends to address, it is possible to list:
-Promoting the regeneration and reappropriation of periferic areas of cities, pursued by establishing relationships with local stakeholders and their involvement in design activities that closer adress the needs of the area.
-The promotion of environmental sustainability, pursued by initiating collaborations with local stakeholders, and the design and cooridnation of educational and training actions on recycling and circular economy issues related to the regeneration of peripheral contexts.
- Limitation of waste overproduction, pursued by experimenting with new waste collection and transfromation techniques, for educational and awareness-raising purposes.
-awareness-raising, pursued through synergy with local cultural associations to coordinate training and involvement activities in the area, such as training and educational workshops.
Finally, it should be emphasized that the entire process, although developed locally, is potentially replicable and scalable to different urban contexts globally
The project already led to several workshops (educational, training and design) and a variety of physical products in the field of design (Urban furniture and pictorial interventions in urban regeneration), such as:
-”Illumina-MI”: Digital-pictorial intervention that tranforms the drawings produced by children from the schools of the area during workshops into lighting exhibitons devices around the city
- “Muro dell’energia”: pictorial intervention of urban regeneration in the square of the North Bovisa Station in Milan dedicated to the themes of ENERGY POVERTY, in collaboration with ENEA and elementary schools in Milan (January-April 2019)
- “Giocare è una cosa seria”: pictorial intervention of urban regeneration in Via Toce in Milan, with the involvement of children and families in the neighborhood. (January-March 2021)
- “Da Cosa Nasce Cosa”: design workshop at Politecnico di Milano, School of Design (June 3-10, 2021) Design of “kind” urban furniture for the Bovisa, Affori, Dergano neighborhoods
- “Da Cosa Nasce Cosa - Take back, give back”: design workshop at Politecnico di Milano, School of Design (June 7-12, 2022) in collaboration with Carlsberg. Designing “kind” street furniture from the recycling of Carlsberg company’s spent beer kegs.
- “Da Cosa Nasce Cosa - kids”: educational workshop held at the British school of Milan-Sir James Henderson (Feb. 3, 2022) simulation of a mini-plastic recycling row to bring even the youngest children closer to circular economy issues
- “La fabbrica dei giocattoli”: ludic-educational workshop at La Triennale di Milano (June 4-5, 2022), workshop exhibition to discover and playfully test samples of Neo-materials aimed at elementary school children and their parents
- “Non Si Butta Via Niente”: demonstrative and interactive workshop held within the WIRED Festival (Oct. 7-8), demonstration of the processes and machinery used to recycle heterogeneous plastics to a wide audience with dissemination purpose.
The project helps education and training institutions to integrate sustainability into teaching and learning and across all aspects of their operation and it helps creating a shared understanding on the deep and transformative changes needed in education and training for sustainability and the green transition by by coordinating workshops and didactic actions together with schools and universities of the municipality of Milan that integrate the theme of sustainability to urban regeneration.
