Prototyping social practices in the Martesana district: research and teaching experience that involve local communities

This paper describes “Reinventing Martesana District,” a research and teaching project that involves different actors: Polimi Desis Lab, a furniture company Cargo, the students of the School of Design at Politecnico di Milano and six local communities of the Martesana neighbourhood. Polimi Desis Lab is a research team of the Department of Design at Politecnico di Milano, part of the International Network of Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability that adopts a strategic and systemic approach to design, with a focus on space and service design, in specific contexts, also involving local communities. Cargo, a famous furniture store located in the north-east of Milan, focused on the concept of tradition, innovation, and creativity, asked help to the Polimi Desis Lab to increase their relations with the neighbourhood offering the residents a new space of aggregation, community, and sharing. A group of forty international students of Temporary Urban Solutions (TUS), an elective course of the Master Degree at the School of Design at Politecnico di Milano, was involved in this research and teaching project. In particular, they were asked to work on the Martesana area, a territory characterized by a cultural fabric socially fragmented. The studio is composed by a heterogeneous group of students coming from different nationalities and with several backgrounds in terms of design: interior, product, communication, fashion design and PSSD (Product Service System Design). To open a dialogue with the Martesana urban fabric identity six local communities have been involved: small non-profit associations, which deal with contemporary art, culture, pedagogy, social experimentation, music and performing arts, a G.A.S. - Solidarity Purchase Group - that applies principles of equity and sustainability to food and consumer products, and a Fab Lab. The students from the course developed a series of projects, with the purpose to enhance the involvement of the Cargo company in the neighbourhood, that culminate with a final prototype event where the local community could test and try through a series of prototypes.