CONNECTED 2010 – 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DESIGN EDUCATION 28 JUNE - 1 JULY 2010, UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Design, system, territory: a multidisciplinary didactic activity to enhance places Marina Parente, Beatrice Villari * INDACO Department, Design Faculty, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, 20158, Italy marina.parente@polimi.it, beatrice.villari@polimi.it KEYWORDS: DESIGN FOR TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT, ACTION RESEARCH, MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH, STRATEGIC DESIGN, SERVICE DESIGN ABSTRACT The competition between territories, the goal to attract people and investments, the capacity to prefigure local sustainable development represent new opportunities to reflect about design theories and practices. Defining a "portrait" of an area, visualizing the specific features, enhancing the different levels of territorial resources are actions related to the refinement of design methods and practices. These activities are developed through a discussion and a synergy with other disciplines and also through the ability to build relationships and coordinating actions between different local stakeholders. The design for territories also represents an integrated approach into the design discipline: strategic design and services design to build scenarios, to propose design visions of local development using some themes of sensemaking such as the brand as collector of a coordinated system of the territorial offer. In 2008, Poli.Design (consortium of Politecnico di Milano) has promoted an advanced training course "Brand for the Territorial Systems" on these themes. The multidisciplinary approach and the design practice in real contexts are the main characteristics of the didactic model. In the first two editions, these methods have been applied in two Italian contexts: the territory of Ostuni and San Pellegrino Terme. This is an original didactic approach that regards different aspects: - the focus on design for the exploitation of the territorial resources (territorial capital) as the main theme of the projects; - the application of the multidisciplinary theoretical tools in real contexts (field activities). The results are related to different levels: - a training of a complex professional profile able to interact with business and institutional environments and also with the main competencies acting in local contexts; - the learning of conceptual and operational capabilities that integrate strategic vision and the ability to manage projects in term of product-system design (services, communications, products). I. DESIGN AND TERRITORIAL VALORIZATION: A SERVICES BASED APPROCH The relationship between design and territory on different thematic areas (1) has been developed by the community of the Politecnico di Milano through different researches according to a design approach integrating design research and field experimentation. Different design issues have been developed on the basis of the conceptual model of territorial capital (Villari 2005; Zurlo 2003) considered as the synthesis of all the values and resources that characterize a territory. The concept of territorial capital may actually refer to different kinds of resources - individuals, social context, local productive activities, cultural resources, infrastructure systems, know- how, development paths and external connections. It is thanks to the integration of the different resources that territories can promote their own development, their socio- economic growth and people wellbeing. From an economic point of view, the ability to create value (for example expanding the range of services, developing infrastructures, attracting investments, offering cultural activities) triggers a growing competition among territories; the richness of a territory represents the base to establish long-term goals, which enable the territory itself to gain a positioning in the global market (Caroli 2006), triggering mechanisms of investments, transformation and development of new activities that impact heavily on the local social structure. From a sustainable point of view, it is very important to prefigure the related phenomena and the implications of these changes. Territorial valorization comprises the introduction of innovations at the local level, changes able to affect both artifacts (products and services) and processes (technical and organizational ones) in order to generate value for a territory in a long time perspective. This means also to consider the local values and the heritage (Magnaghi 2000) and thus favoring what, in Europe, is referred to as integrated local development (Osservatorio Leader 1999).