Worldbuilding Practice as a Collaborative and Inclusive Design Process. The Case of ACTS-A Chance Through Sport

This paper aims to address the power of worldbuilding practice in promoting shared and collective imagination, activating a process of cultural and narrative change. Specifically, the work presents a collaborative, social project entitled ACTS—A Chance Through Sport, whose main aim is to promote sports in prison as a tool for social reintegration, according to a multidisciplinary approach combining architecture, engineering, and design competencies. The focus is the work conducted by the Imagis Lab research group (Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano) regarding the role of narrative-based strategy in enhancing the transmission of values and messages through worldbuilding practice. Far from being a narrative gimmick for selling stories, it can allow people to participate in and interpret culturally situated narratives providing ownership. As such, the first part of the paper will describe how the project ACTS—A Chance Through Sport has addressed the role of narrative-based processes in promoting inclusion. Then the second part is devoted to presenting the narrative-based design framework: practical strategies for rethinking stories in practice that we have developed in our research since 2013.