Designing a cultural event as an inclusive educational activity

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the design process and output of “GIDE Milano 2015”, a yearly international event for BSc design students and instructors held at the Politecnico di Milano Design School. The paper will focus on how design schools are moving towards educational process models based on “teaching-in-the-field” and peer teaching. Adopting the Product Service System Design approach, the design of an international event was the opportunity to experiment educational design strategies from double point of view: by adopting the design of the event as an inclusive educational activity through the PSSD approach, and by setting up a full immersive experience through a teaching-in-the field approach. The main expected and achieved results were: the chance for students and instructors to attend an interactive, multidisciplinary and locally immersive experience, the creation of collaborative micro-networks for further projects, and the setup of an international design environment for sharing knowledge.