Six dialogues on contemporary design

This essay focuses on three main aims related to the contents of the book. Authors describe the context in which the book was conceived, explain curatorial choices, provide the reader with comments on the collected essays. They shortly outline the PhD programme in Design at Politecnico di Milano, its aims and goals. Then they focus on the concept of dialogue which structures the architecture of the book. A dialogue is not just a conversation. It is not about establishing the truth: a temporary, fragile, and often deceptive one. A dialogue is not a matter of winning an argument but of looking at different opinions and making them interact and cross-fertilise. Dialogues have an extraordinary capacity to draw energy from people's differences and channel it towards something new. With these premises six dialogues have been selected between scholars of the Politecnico di Milano and international scholars. Each dialogue focusing on a specific topic recently addressed on the PhD programme in Design: the role of users, social innovation, fashion design, colour design, interaction design and urban design. Many perspectives, then, are brought together to depict the challenges facing design, and especially design research, over the coming years.