Donato Ricci

In 2005 he graduated in Industrial Design at Politecnico di Milano. In 2010 he obtained a PhD degree summa cum laude in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication at Politecnico di Milano with the dissertation “Seeing what they are saying: Diagrams for social complexity and controversies”.
After two years  as research fellow and senior designer at DensityDesign Lab, where he carried out scientific researches, design project and teaching activities in the field of visual epistemology,  he joined, as Post-Doc reseach fellow the Bruno Latour’s AIME project [founded by ERC Grant ‘IDEAS’ 2010 n° 269567 under the EC – FP7/2007-2013].
He is Research Assistant Professor of “Digital tools and methods for visualization” at the Politecnico di Milano and Assistant Professor of “Representação e Conhecimento” (Knowledge and Representation) at the Universidade de Aveiro.

Research

Publications

Composition practices at the intersection of design and social research: Technical gestures, synthesis methods and imagination apparatuses

Gabriele Colombo, Donato Ricci. 2025. In Azimuts Research Art Design n°60 - Stories of composites (pp. 59–78). Saint-Étienne: Cité du design / ESADSE.

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Pratiques de composition au croisement du design et de la recherche sociale : gestes techniques, méthodes de synthèse et dispositifs d’imagination

Gabriele Colombo, Donato Ricci. 2025. In Azimuts Design Art Recherche No. 60 - Récits dé-composite (pp. 57–76). Saint-Étienne: Cité du design / ESADSE.

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Engaged research-led teaching: composing collective inquiry with digital methods and data

Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Richard Rogers, Tommaso Venturini, Donato Ricci, Axel Meunier, Michele Mauri, Sabine Niederer, Natalia Sánchez Querubín, Marc Tuters, Lucy Kimbell, Anders Munk. 2022. Digital Culture & Education, 14(3), 55–86.

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Enrolling nature in the smart city: Discourses and imaginaries of Parisian smart city

Donato Ricci, J. P. Cointet, A. Rankovic, Gabriele Colombo. 2018. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2018, Understanding the uneven landscapes of smart cities. Royal Geographical Society.

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Designing Digital Methods to monitor and inform Urban Policy. The case of Paris and its Urban Nature initiative.

Donato Ricci, Gabriele Colombo, Axel Meunier, Agata Brilli. 2017. 3rd International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP3) - Panel T10P6 Session 1 Digital Methods for Public Policy, 1–37. SIngapore.

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Designing Controversies and Their Publics

Tommaso Venturini, Donato Ricci, Michele Mauri, Axel Meunier, Lucy Kimbell. 2015. Design Issues, 31(3), 74–87. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00340

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Linguaggi e proiezioni cartografiche del territorio: dal panorama del Reno alle orme digitali

Donato Ricci. 2012. In Architettura e turismo Ed. Luigi Coccia. Franco Angeli.

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ARS’11

Donato Ricci, Azzurra Pini. 2011. 3rd International Workshop on Social Network Analysis, Collaboration Networks and Knowledge Diffusion: Theory, Data and Methods Contributed Sessions on Network Visualization. Naples, Italy. June 23-25, 2011.

Data-driven Exploration of Dynamical Networks

Donato Ricci. 2011. DexDyn(Data-driven Exploration of Dynamical Networks). IMéRA - Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, Marseille, France. April 14-15, 2011.

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Dust: A Visualization Tool Supporting Parents’ School Choice Evaluation Process

Matteo Azzi, Giorgio Caviglia, Donato Ricci, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Loredana Bontempi, Emanuele Bonetti. 2011. Parsons Journal for Information Mapping, Vol. 3 n° 4

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Engines of findings: A Data (Re)Materialization Experience

Donato Ricci. 2011. OpenStudio 2011. International Communication Design Programme (CommDe) Department of Industrial Design - Faculty of Architecture | CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY, Bangkok, Thailand. May 09-13, 2011.

In Poche Parole. Brevi note sulla storia dei linguaggi visuali

Donato Ricci. 2011. LINK, n. 10, pag. 143-153

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Tell them anything but the truth: they will find their own. How we visualized the map of the future with respect to the audience of our story

Michele Graffieti, Gaia Scagnetti, Donato Ricci, Mario Porpora, Luca Masud. 2011. Arts | Humanities | Complex Networks – a Leonardo satellite symposium at NetSci2010.
Leonardo Journal, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2011) MIT Press

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Visualizing and understanding (Italian) society between ethics and aesthetics

Donato Ricci, Paolo Ciuccarelli. 2011. Frontiers of Interaction 2011 Firenze, Italy. June 20-21, 2011.

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A Didactical Framework to Experiment the Potential of Visual Languages in Engaging Social Complexity

Francesca Valsecchi, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Donato Ricci, Giorgio Caviglia. 2010. In DRS2010 - Design & Complexity proceedings, eds.David Durling, Rabah Bousbaci, Lin-Lin Chen, Philippe Gauthier, Tiiu Poldma, Seymour Rowoth-Stokes and Erik Stolterman. Montreal: 7 - 9 July

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From Data to Knowledge. Visualizations as transformation processes within the Data-Information-Knowledge continuum

Luca Masud, Francesca Valsecchi, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Donato Ricci, Giorgio Caviglia. 2010. Information Visualisation (IV), 2010 14th International Conference. 445 - 449. 26-29 July 2010, London, United Kingdom.

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The DensityDesign lab: communication design experiments among complexity and sustainability

Francesca Valsecchi, Donato Ricci, Giorgio Caviglia, Paolo Ciuccarelli. 2010. in Proceedings Cumulus Conference 2010 "Young Creators for Better City and Better Life", Shanghai, Tongji University, China, September 2010

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Versus – Diagrams and visualization to observe social Complexity

Donato Ricci, Giorgio Caviglia, Gaia Scagnetti, Daniele Guido. 2010. 6th Swiss Design Network Conference, Basel, Switzerland, October 28-30, 2010

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Visualizing environmental discourse in design issue.

Donato Ricci. 2010. World Graphic Day Commemoration 2010 workshop. Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal. May 6, 2010

Complexity Maps

Paolo Ciuccarelli, Donato Ricci. 2009. In International Summer School. Designing Connected Places. eds. Eleonora Lupo and Cristian Campagnaro. Milano: Editrice Compositori.

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Design and visualization. Diagrammatic tools for complexity

Donato Ricci. 2009. In International Summer School. Designing Connected Places. eds. Eleonora Lupo and Cristian Campagnaro. Milano: Editrice Compositori.

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Dust. La multidimensionalità del dato e la sua visualizzazione

Giorgio Caviglia, Donato Ricci, Paolo Ciuccarelli. 2009. In Design Research Maps. eds. Paola Bertola and Stefano Maffei. Milano: Maggioli.

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New maps from the media-city. CityMurmur as a tool for the visualization of urban space

Marco Quaggiotto, Donato Ricci, Gaia Scagnetti, Giorgio Caviglia, Daniele Guido, Michele Graffieti, Samuel Granados Lopez. 2009. In Nouvelles cartographies, nouvelles villes. HyperUrbain.2 Ed. Khaldoun Zreik. Europia Productions.

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Handling changes through diagrams: Scale and grain in the visual representation of Complex Systems

Paolo Ciuccarelli, Donato Ricci, Francesca Valsecchi. 2008. In Changing the change Proceedings, eds. Carla Cipolla and Pier Paolo Peruccio. Turin: Allemandi, July 10.

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Diagrammi generativi (Generative diagrams)

Donato Ricci, Gaia Scagnetti. 2007. Linea Grafica, International review of Graphic Design and Visual Communication, n. 370, July/August, pag. 58/65

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Reshaping communication design tools. Complex systems structural features for design tools

Gaia Scagnetti, Donato Ricci, Giovanni Baule, Paolo Ciuccarelli. 2007. In IASDR07 Proceedings, ed. Sharon Poggenpohl. Hong Kong, November 12.

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