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calendario 2008-2009, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

During any design activities a lot of ideas fail and it is very difficult to understand how and why it happened.
The Mister O comics strip by Lewis Trondheim lead me to reflect on the experience of failing and to consider how to learn from it. Using the irony of this language it is possible to step forward the personal involvement and clearly ponder upon these situations we, as designers face every day.
I was so excited about this theme that I suggested it to a student as a subject for a final master thesis. He refused, of course.

HANDLING CHANGES THROUGH DIAGRAMS
To change towards a more sustainable development could means to make decisions not only with a systemic approach, but also to be able to decide in the right time: the density. It seems that, when the discipline of Design integrate a systemic approach with the competences of designers in visualization, it can cope with dense situations, providing effective artefacts – diagrams – to improve the decision process and making profit from the richness of complexity. The prior findings of the Complexity Science are here assumed as a theoretical framework to have an interpretative model on how the knowledge about systems could be organized and depicted. Three tools to produce effective diagrams, framing, graining and scaling are here discussed though six case studies.

Have a look

Have a look at the presentation

The traditional monument is understood by its symbolic imagery, by what it represents. It is not understood in time, but in an instant in space; it is seen and understood simultaneously. Even in traditional architectures such as labyrinths and mazes, there is a space-time continuum between experience and knowing; one has a goal to work one’s way in or out.

In this monument there is no goal, no end, no working one’s way in or out. The duration of an individual’s experience of it grants no further understanding, since understanding is impossible. The time of the monument, its duration from top surface to ground, is disjoined from the time of experience. In this context, there is no nostalgia, no memory of the past, only the living memory of the individual experience. Here, we can only know the past through its manifestation in the present.
by P. Eisenman

“In architecture the diagram is historically understood in two ways: as an explanatory or analytical device and as a generative device. Although it is often argued that the diagram is a postrepresentational form, in instances of explanation and analysis the diagram is a form of representation. In an analytical role, the diagram represents in a different way from a sketch or a plan of a building. For example a diagram attempts to uncover latent structures of organization, like the nine-square, even though it is not a conventional structure itself. As a generative device in a process of design the diagram is also a form of representation. But unlike traditional forms of representation, the diagram as a generator is a mediation between a palpable object, a real building, and what can be called architecture’s interiority.” (Eisenman 1999, Diagram Diaries)

Knowing Complex Systems. The limits of understanding
Due to their non-linear nature, complex systems are incompressible. They are also open systems and cannot be understood without also understanding their environments and their history. To fully know something complex will therefore involve incorporating all the complexity of the system and its environment. This not humanly possible, perhaps not even possible in principle. Thus, our models of complex systems always have to reduce the complexity. Since what is left out also has non-linear effects, we cannot predict the error made in the reduction. The modelling and understanding of complex system thus always involve an element of choice which cannot be justified by pure calculation. There is always a normative element involved.

This is not an argument against calculation, but a justification for why formal models will always have to be supplemented by narratives which make the limits of the model explicit. At the same time, the narrative models are also limited to a certain perspective. It can thus be argued that there is an irreducible ethical component to our understanding of complexity. We have to accept the responsibility for our models although we know they are flawed. When dealing with complexity there are simultaneous roles for the natural and the human sciences, for both mathematics and imagination.

(From Paul Cilliers’ Abstract presented at The first World Knowledge Dialogue Symposium)

I have been discussing a lot about quality of life in the last month in very different situations, and it made me thinking this is a key and imperative issue now.
I presented a paper in Changing the change conference in Turin. The conference was about design research for sustainability and was a very outstanding place for exchanging ideas and meet interesting people. I spoke with Chris Ryan about giving example of a more quality base life to everyone as a power of change, with Banny Banerjee on design complex and I had a great dinner with Jogi Panghaal and a lot of other designers and research from all over the world.
Back to Milan I bought the issue 15 of Monocle a “special edition devoted to building better cities, neighbourhoods and residences” that present the world’s top 25 most liveable cities (there is no need to say that Milan is not in the 25).
I went to Pollenzo to participate the Designing connected places summer school. I worked very hard for a week, sleeping few hours and stressing out a lot, but having the possibility to eat excellence food in a slow natural environment and giving myself the time to swim in the sun for half an hour a day has changed the whole perception of the hard job we had to do.

Now this quality of life idea is constantly in the back of my mind, I only have to throw away all the junk food in my fridge… That’s quality of life!

Designing Connected Places is the slogan of the International Summer School, an initiative of great interest in the calendar of Torino 2008 World Design Capital, which led students and teachers to look at the territory of Piemonte understood as a complex network of social co-existence and production processes. The six workshops were held at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo under the banner of the promotion of effective and original local development strategies linked to the following emergencies: citizens’ health and well-being, sustainable urban mobility, security and quality of life in the city, new distribution networks of local food products, advanced systems of representation of complex phenomena that involve local communities, and distributed re-organization of production facilities. The summer school brings out a new definition of the “local” and a new role of design: a connected local, understood as local in the era of networks and high connectivity, understood as a concept able to promote original development strategies.

About Complexity Maps
Torino is a city on the move. The tradition forms of representation are obsolete or inadequate to depict the current reality and the dynamics in progress. How can the city be made legible and comprehensible, understood as a complex organism and as a web of physical and social networks? The urban territory is a system whose complexity is growing, in which a multitude of tangible and intangible flows (people, goods, information) stratify and interconnect.
Faced with all this, the traditional modes of mapping and representing the city appear entirely inadequate: the representations of the new physical and social networks, like that of their individual and collective life, are a new challenge for the design of communication. The representation of the phenomena demands the gradual abandonment of classical visual languages, i.e. of maps that lay their trust chiefly in the topological and geographical metaphor.
Overcoming these limits means building a new representation of the city: a collective vision capable of defining and visualizing the new concept of urban space and, more in general, social spaces. The theme, proposed in collaboration with the Urban Center Metropolitano of Torino, aims to produce visualizations in the form of diagrams and maps of relationships that induce a new way of viewing human-city interaction, and also useful for outlining new criteria for its development.

Workshop leader : Christian Nold
Workshop assistant : Jim Segers
MetaDesign team: Paolo Ciuccarelli, Donato Ricci
Commitment : Urban Center Metropolitano – Torino

Brief
This project has a specific target area as well as a partner organization. The focus is on a socially deprived area in the north of Turin, earmarked for future development by the Urban Centre our partner organization. Our challenge is to complement the Urban Centre’s long term and strategic understanding of this place with the complexity of views and agendas of local people. We will experiment with the concept of the ‘Actor-Network’ and treat our site as a complicated entity made up of a range of competing actors with different interests.

Challenges
Consultation
How can we develop a range of ad hoc ethnographic techniques to engage with local people and get past the language barrier and collect holistic ‘data’ about the local actor network? We suggest to organise a community event that will draw in skills and resources from the local community, while at the same time establishing a meeting space where local actors come together. The setting up of the event will provide an opportunity to contact different stakeholders in the community, and to gather data on their role and visions of the future of their local area. The event itself is an opportunity to bring together and collect different visions of the future.

Visualizations
How can we analyze, visualize and communicate the complicated local networks to our project partner, the local participants and a wider public?
The students worked in small groups on a broad range of themes that overlap strongly with the other workshops: People, History and Future, (In)security, Environment, Mobility.
This workshop has been ambitious in attempting to create a very broad way of looking at a very specific place, so we benefit from connections with the other workshops that create more detailed analyses of a particular topic. We also generated a lot of new data about the project area. Since the aim of this workshop is to develop visualizations we focused on the final presentation and communication of our results. The aim was to have a whole wall that will represent the target location from a multiplicity of perspectives.

Output
Environment Group
How are the local people engaged with their surroundings? What effect does the environment have? Who uses the river area? Why is it being used? Are there environmental pollutants in the area? How could we measure them? Who holds the data for this sort of thing? Who is resoponsible for dealing with it? What could local people do to engage with possible pollution? How do we visulise all the relevant actors in this network?

Main Research Conclusion:
The lack of communication between different kinds of actors (people, media, administration) overshadows the environmental and pollution problem of the project area.

History / Future Group
Who decides the future of this place? What do local people think will happen? How involved are they in the planning processes taking place? What affect will the proposed changes have on the local area? How can we communicate some of the proposals? How can we make the Golf Course proposal physically imaginable in the space? What might be the unexpected effects of these proposals? Can we come up with better ideas? What plans do local people have? Are there any temporary interventions that might change the place? How can we visualise alternative local visions of the future?

Main Research Conclusion:
In the past social systems like the illegal allotments kept the connections between local actors alive. The place has been disconnected through top down design actions.

Mobility Group
How do local people move about in the area and where are they trying to get to? Where do people work? Are people using public transport? With all the planned changes how will this impact their future travel possibilities? Who is responsible for planning these sort of things? How will the people who use the Golf Course get there? What impact will this have on the local area? How is mobility affecting the local sense of place and quality of life? What do people think should be done? How can we work with the other mobility workshop taking place?

Main Research Conclusion:
The current use of the park has been entirely determined by the a series of external factors that suggest its future dynamics

People Group
Who are the different groups of people who use and/or own this place? What different uses do they make of the space? What completing needs and requiremetns do they have? What are their aims, wishes and desires? Are the concepts of ownership or stakeholders the right way to change the area? How can we visualise these power relations?

Main Research Conclusion:
The locked loops of local policy and money perpetuate a situation of local abandonment which feeds illegal activities and social & political exclusion.

(In)Security Group
What does security or insecurity means in the local context? What are people’s local fears? Is it really about the drug dealing or about jobs or whatever? Who is creating these feelings of security or insecurity? Are the planned developments going to help with this? Are there particular groups being targeted in the local area? Are the local allotments under threat? What do the local newspapers say about these issues? Do the local shops have a different opinion from the local residents? Are there differnces of opinion? How can we visulise these differnces?

Main Research Conclusion:
the perception of safety in the area changed between 2003 and 2008.

Complex Faces, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

TWDC – Designing connected places Summer School –
Thank you all, it was amazing.
It was about people.
It was about discovering a no-where place.
It was about wishthinking. No insurance flip flops in a landfield needles-covered.
It was about trust. No clear ideas of final results; but they emerged!
It was about talking eachother. So many different culture eating the same watermelon.
Thank you for inspiring an idea of designing not only spoons, buildings or nice color palettes.
It was discovering a new meaning for communication.

Ops… all the results of the summer school will be visible here and on the official blog as soon as possible.

DR and GS

DRM, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

DRM research shows how research in design can be an effective tool in producing innovation in many strategic fields in the national system, but in general also for contemporary economies, beyond the common stereotypes which accompany the view of this discipline. This awareness must guide the actors of research and the institutions they must sustain in order to enter a more structured course of actions, most of all integrated at an international level. A DRM platform extended to Europe can certainly be a useful tool in increasing this awareness.

The aim of the DRM research is to map the experiences of design research in Italy.
It also aim at:
– Identifying the peculiarities of national design research contexts
– Developing strategies for future researches based on the described framework
– Producing a “visibility” tool for the national university system
– Awakening the Institutions about capacities of design research for participating to the development of the Country.
Furthermore the objective is to build a story in images through commented infographic maps, which has become the main tool for visually representing results, creating a visual reading trough a series of interpretive, comparative and indexing maps able to synthesise and represent complex information, valorizing the information and facilitating an immediate but detailed reading.

The design research map will be presented at the International Conference “Changing the Change” in Turin on July 2008, as part of events planned for “Torino 2008 World Design Capital“.

The promoters of the initiative are:
CDD | Coordinamento Nazionale dei Dottorati di Design – Association of Design Ph.D. Schools in Italy;
CPD | Conferenza dei Presidi delle Facoltà di Design e dei presidenti di corso di studi delle classi di disegno industriale e design – Association of Design Faculties and Degree programs in Italy;
SDI | Sistema Design Italia – Rete nazionale di agenzie universitarie per la ricerca in design – Network of ten academic design research agencies.
Sponsored by the Design Faculty and INDACO Department of Politecnico di Milano.

The full PDF is avaible here