Neighbourhood, community and public space: Designing the proximity together.

This chapter starts with an introduction that frames the theory behind the interlink between the public space and community engagement by highlighting the role of designers as activators and facilitators of social innovation solutions. These premises are then declined to a specific context (the Nolo neighbourhood) where the authors applied methods and tools of design for social innovation to point out spatial scenarios aiming at improving the concept of proximity in the area. A set of codesign tools are then described through their application with the citizens of the district. These tools refer to the Vocabolario di Quartiere – the “Situated Vocabulary” action research pro- ject that helped the authors to validate some of the premises set in the introduction.