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posted by Gaia Scagnetti
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

There isn't one space

George Perec

I was just hanging around in a library close to my office and I bought George Perec’s Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. While my friend was driving us back home I started to read it out, and that book became our map of a different city, a bright inspiration for the debate about space and urban planning. Try the experiment:

…We live in space, in these spaces, these towns, this countryside, these corridors, these parks. That seems obvious to us. Perhaps indeed it should be obvious. But it isn’t obvious, not just a matter of course. […] What’s certain, in any case, is that at a time too remote no doubt for any of us to have retained anything like a precise memory of it, there was none of all this: neither corridors, nor parks, nor towns, nor countryside. The problem isn’t so much to find out how we have reached this point, but simply to recognise that we have reached it, that we are here. There isn’t one space, a beautiful space, a beautiful space round about, a beautiful space all around us, there’s a whole lot of small bits of space, and one of these bits is a Mètro corridor, another of them is a public park. Another – and here we suddenly enter into much more particularized spaces – originally quite modest in size, has attained fairly colossal dimensions and has become Paris, whereas a space nearby, not necessarily any less well endowed to begin with, has been content to remain Pontoise.

posted by Paolo Ciuccarelli
Monday, March 31st, 2008

DensityDesign goes to Turin (World Design Capital 2008)

TWDC

The DensityDesign team is involved in the organization of the workshop “Complexity maps” included in the programme of the Summer School entitled “Designing Connected Places” :

Designing Connected Places is an international summer design school. But there is much more. It is also a programme for action throughout Piemonte. Using the tools of design, solutions will be outlined for 6 problems expressed by 6 local bodies. These are: health and well-being, food and new food networks, urban mobility, security and quality of life in the city, new production systems, and forms of representation of the region and its communities.

The workshop will be leaded by Christian Nold. Apply now!

posted by Donato Ricci
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Infrastructure System | Spactio


Infrastrucute System | Spactio
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

Spactio as presence in territory, such as the need to make their voice heard; as acronym of Society for Action who must undergo decisions taken far away from him.

Spactio is a project of Federconsumatori which aims in involving citizens in decisions concerning the construction of new infrastructure. Instead of being passive part, thanks to Spactio tools, now citizens can create a way to enter to the decision-making table bringing their proposals. To achieve this goal Spactio points to the creation of small local groups particularly sensitive and with a strong link to their own territory. Task of these groups is to collect information and spread it to the rest of people, informing their of the relevance they have about their own territory.

(the scenario)
(the diagram)

posted by Donato Ricci
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Infrastructure System | Fedora


Infrastructure System | Fedora
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

“In the center of Fedora, that gray stone metropolis “, there is a multitude of crystal globes. Inside each crystal globe you can find a different figure, a fine model about a conceivable metropolis.
Fedora project means to show thinking diversities, questions, troubles and each possible hypothesis while we plan an infrastructural project. Fedora belongs to our social world: it is sharing information, it is our memory.
Fedora uses net potential and mass media visibility: each single project is “narrated”, described and analyzed by various technical instruments. It makes use of information collected by public administrations, individualities and business directly involved in project planning, financing or management. And, above all, by people that lives there. You can use a web portal to keep track of the mediatic information, of citizens’ voices, of the projectplanners, financiers or managers’ opinions. You can make use of two minutes of project-figure-out in a short local TV program; we also provide a scheduled printed documentation, both as a long detailed informative report and as a regular supplement to local newspaper: graphical representation of the most important facts and rumors about the project.
Fedora will be in every public square of the cities involved in each big infrastructural project. There, a huge transparent globe shall contain wooden models. Pastels, felt-tip pens, ballpoints or tempera colors will be the instrument for writing, drawing and finally spread your own opinions, doodling on many truck paper model.
A map where you can find both the big «gray stone» infrastructure and every little ideas sketched over a white paper sheet.

(the scenario)
(the diagram)

 

posted by Donato Ricci
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Hospital System | Labirintignoti


Hospital System | Labirintignoti
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

Following a change of philosophy, due to the recent studies’ results, the hospital system does not consider the user any more as a generic and standardized customer, but it takes conscience of the psychological factors able to condition and affect positively not only on the times, but also the recovery itself. The patient is not deprived any more of his characteristics, identity and culture, and it is considered paying attention to his necessities, given both by the subjective characteristics of the individual, and by the illness itself. From here it is born the project of improvement of ambient atmosphere, which sees in Regione Lombardia the subject promoter of the initiative; to this, a communication and an action are partnership taken turned to awaken the audience and look for some companies by one: Labirintignoti, or rather a space prepared in his turn communicated by promocard, shows and posters 3d.
The role of the preparation is triple: above all wants to be aware the audience, thanks to a programming which will move the first in every province, what it will be so dipped in a different reality; in second place the will and the engagement of Regione Lombardia are clear made in improving the regional sanitary system, also promoting events of this kind to pick up funds.
At last, many people will visit the preparation, materials and tools will see used be for the building of the “labyrinth” itself, and both those that they could be used in the putting into effect of the project , therefore an interesting shop window is revealed for whoever wants to show its products.
The space wants to be a reclause in metaphorical key of the difficulties of orientation and exploration of environments and seeds places or completely ipo conditions or also of not vedenza, recreating the uneasinesses lived during the bound period in bed to problems so than the sight. To awaken the visitors on the theme, and therefore push them to contribute in first person, they one places in the same conditions as the beneficiaries of the intervention , therefore the user is placed in a labyrinth with poor lighting. These during the way it is dipped in various environments, each of which points to confuse the user, or rather whats can be produced in seeds-darkness when, without being used to and a situation being different from that several relatives, more the other senses are used. At the end of this experience there will be an informative area turned to awaken and let know both the principal causes of the ipo and not vedenza, both the relative remedies, and above all the project of the ambient atmosphere in the hospitals. Subsequently he wants to make the solutions test in first person to get round these orientation difficulties and himself thanks to the cube-room placed to the space prepared exit, to leave the visitors with a reflection starting point on the hospital theme, beyond the one already received.
As regards instead the Labirintignoti communication, such a system has been planned to be yes communicate the prepared space, but also send again to the Quality Hospital project to transmit the tie which connects them: prepared in concomitance with the space, to ‘ intern of the hospital complex principals of the province, an informative show will be exposed in the greater passage points ( hall or he salts of appearance ). The presence of the informative panels in the hospital structures wants to be a starting point on the reflection of the treated themes and still importing more, a returning, to the prepared space, able to make live in first person the themes treated for a comprehension better than the themselves ones. Besides that, promocard will be used and you show 3 d to give more echo to the Labirintignoti presence, so as to attract several possible audience.

(the scenario)
(the diagram)

posted by Donato Ricci
Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Hospital System | Hi!sotopia


Hospital System | Hi!sotopia
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

A Hospital System constitutes a very complex system where there are intese flows of information, materials and, specially, people. In the designed map, it’s possible to see all the flows and procedural processes beloging to a standard italian hospital.
Doing a map’s scrutiny to find its critical points, it was clear to see that hospitals have an usual “company” structure and view about their patients. Patients are often considered as clients instead of patients, their different characteristics, knowledge about the system and cultural backgrounds are generally ignored.
The primary concept of this project is considering these differences. The first reflections generated by this approach are “How can the user know about all these processes to get his cure? And if he is a foreign? How can he express himself in this system?”
In the “Healthcure Project” the main idea is considering that it is not the user who should get adapted to the system, but the system which should get adapted to its user. In the present case, this means that the hospital should get prepared to receive different patients, including those from different cultures.
This project concerns with a “problem understanding” to improve human relationship inside the hospital environment, aiming to reduce cultural chocks between patients and employees. The service was designed taking into consideration that the hospital management must understand what kind of problem they are passing through. To make it possible, it’s necessary to collect data inside the hospital. Then, this empirical data must be decoded and interpretated by a specialized professional, who is going to understand and select the most important phenomena/ problems and, later, he is going to propose the solutions for it – the chosen methodology it’s based on the Grounded Theory, explained later in this work.

The Healthcure Project predicts, inside its service, internal learning actions and specialized tools for hospital employees that help to translate data and to optimize communication between people. This service doens’t have an “end” and doesn’t work only to solve one problem. It’s continuous and works in parallel with the hospital’s normal activities, contributing to its good working and improving the atmosphere and multicultural conscience by all people involved in.

(the scenario)
(the diagram)
(the site)

posted by Donato Ricci
Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Hospital System | H.Story


Hospital System | H.Story
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

A narrative based medicine project
H.story is a project that wants to promove the diffusion of the Narrative Based Medicine in the Italian hospitals. So the patients can express themselves, and this will help them to live a better time in hospital.
The goal is to produce and provide informative material on the Narrative Medicine, to awaken patients and people outside the hospital through events and informative campaigns. Furthermore the H.story diaries will be given in the hospitals: diaries in which the patients will be able to read stories and experiences written by patients, but there will be white pages to be written by you! It Will be you that -through your narration- will complete the diary. The narration of the illness will support your sensitiveness and furthermore sharing it with other people, will make it a very important resource!

(the scenario)
(the diagram)

posted by Donato Ricci
Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Fashion System | Look at MI


Fashion System | Look at MI
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

The project aims at building a new brand image for Milano Moda, Milano fashion week. In order to reach this goal, we have planned some intermediate, micro steps that could lead us to Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (the organization that takes care of Milano Moda image) .
1. First of all we need to contact Triennale Museum, a Milan-based gallery where several cultural events take place.
2. With the help of Triennale we can ask the fashion designers to take part in the project.

They are requested to decorate black and white photos of Milan that will be shown during an exhibition at Triennale Museum. They also have to write their point of view on Milano and its fashion week.

During Milano Moda Donna in september, starts LOOKATMI, an exhibition that features the manipulated photos and a wall on which visitors can put their version of the images. On the same days, the statements fashion designers wrote about Milan are projected on buildings all over the city.
Now that we reached public opinion too, we have enough visibility and strenght to propose CNMI our project: an handbook including the results of our analysis and a rebranding proposal. This project can have a macro effect: by rethinking and rebuilding its image, Milano Moda could be competitive again and balance the quality of clothes with the quality of their package.

(the scenario)
(the diagram)

 

posted by Donato Ricci
Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Fashion System | Nodo


Fashion System | Nodo
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

The project aims to give new spaces for young people intresting in fashion. We have underlined a few points in order to reach this goal.
1. Rent at low cost a place where to work.
2. Speak about fashion and share knowledge.
3. Show ideas and project.

Ispired by the nineteen century cafè in France, where ideas were created and spread all over the world, we thought to create a big place divided in different areas:
1. ATELIER where the young designers could rent a studio to work
2. PHOTO SET for fashion shooting
3. EVENT AREA to show the collection, to give lectures and concerts
4. LIBRARY provided with books, magazines, reviews and video to support the fashion culture
5. BAR where people could discuss and chill.

Moreover this place will have its pubblication to spread its own ideas about fashion. The first one is a sort of awards for student and young fashion designer, it will pubblish every year their best projects and the activities of the atelier. The second one is a book series about style theme related to fashion like: cinema, cars, photography, travel,..
There will be also a social network on line where people can share their own scouting experience and news.

The name choosen is NODO, an easy word related to fashion, to express a place where different element combined together can create something stable.

(the scenario)
(the diagram)

posted by Donato Ricci
Saturday, March 1st, 2008

Fashion System | My Fashion


Fashion System | My Fashion
, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

1 Fashion in the world
Fashion is illustrated from a worldwide point of view in its main four categories: design (fashion schools), production (import and export of textile and apparel), advertising (press and fashion shows) and retailing (high street and low cost).

2 Hidden Treasures in the System

A further analysis describes how the high street fashion brands operate. A stylist is responsible for the design that is then manufactured. The outcome penetrates the apparel market via fashion press, shows and finally retailing and -commerce.
There are some underemployed figures in this system. On one side there is redundancy of designers that therefore lack a good income and visibility. On the other hand there are underemployed tailors, a profession in extinction due to the hegemony of brand’s marketing and high labour costs. The third figure is represented by the consumers. American surveys indicates that many apparel buyers are not satisfied with the style and the fit currently available. These consumers would buy custom made garments but they can’t afford them. These three adrift figures could gain profits if connected through one platform.

3 MyFashion

There are already some websites offering custom made affordable apparel but they lack attention on design and they keep anonymous the process of tailoring. MyFashion is instead a unique infrastructure that turns the visibility of the employs into one of his main value: individuality or personality. Specifically MyFashion provides three steps of individuality. The first is the individuality of the designer who has his own profile page with a system ofr ating. e second is the individuality of the client who receives a dress that simply fits his measurement and that he can customize by choosing details in the design. The third individuality belong to the tailor that will have his own profile page and a system of ratings

4 www.myfashion.com
The user who accesses the site for the first time can find a suitable garment by making a search query about a certain style. This leads to a page with the list of designers who have at least one collection about the requested style. The user can see the picture, the name and the rating of each designer. If interested in one he can click it and accesses the full profile with the designer’s works and resume. From there he can choose a piece of garment and secondly he can inserts his measurements and customize it by choosing the fabric, the colour and adding other additional details. At this step the last thing the user needs to choose is to go trough the lists of tailors available. Every garment at MyFashion is indeed manufactured entirely by one tailor who is responsible for the whole technical quality. Once again ratings, previous works and resume helps the user to choose. After a couple of weeks the clients finally receive his shipped order and is invited to provide a feed back to contribute to the site ratings system.

5 How passers become top models

For creating interest about MyFashion a performance has been designed to take place in one of the fashion capitals of the world during a fashion week. The event will happen in the crowded street where most of apparel stores are located. A runway is laid down on the pavement where passers inevitably have to walk on. Once someone is walking on the runway the passer got surprised by the flashes of many professional photographers taking pictures like in a fashion show. The passer has been suddenly become the protagonist of a fashion show indeed. Once surprised the person received an invitation to discover the latest MyFashion collections on the website.

 

(the scenario)
(the diagram)