Co-designing services in community-centered design: Conviviality and participatory prototyping

This chapter, by reflecting on the use of co-design techniques in design for social innovation, discusses one of the contemporary transformations of the role of the designer, into that of a coach, an agent of change in society. Presenting the case of the applied research project Feeding Milan, Energies for Change, a bottom-up initiative conducted by Slow Food in collaboration with the POLIMI DESIS Lab and the University of Gastronomic Sciences (Pollenzo), it introduces the concept of community-centered design (CCD) to describe how this co-design approach can support social innovation initiatives designed to “make things happen” and transform the behavior of an extended community of producers, on one hand, and consumers, on the other. In particular, it introduces the concept of conviviality and the method of participatory prototyping and describes the different actions implemented to generate and subsequently test new service ideas with local stakeholders. In conclusion, the paper shows how co-design can become a way of envisioning and discussing alternative futures with the community, so as to align visions, expectations and actions, stimulate bottom-up initiatives and eventually achieve social engagement. In so doing, designers become activators of complex participatory processes in which they play the role of community coaches: people able to propose, discuss and share visions, while training the community to use specific tools and methods to generate, develop and prototype ideas.