Il Design tra costruzione e arredo: percorsi storici alle origini del rapporto fra attrezzatura ed edilizia industrializzata nello spazio abitato

The current conditions of “polycrisis”— climatic-environmental and socio-economi — exacerbated by the pandemic emergency and the global political situation, call for a reconsideration of design assumptions to address a context of increasing complexity and constant transformation. On the one hand, the demands of ecological transition necessitate the evolution of established production models towards solutions that prioritize life-cycle control, dry assembly, and ease of recycling and/or reuse. On the other hand, the rapid transformation of lifestyles — resulting from new forms of mobility and social structures — anticipates innovative ways of using and experiencing the home, pursuing well-being through the creation of new habitats, and introducing an adaptive renewal of the meaning of domesticity. In both cases, the use of industrialized processes in spatial and constructive design, or in the definition of new service-product systems, represents an intriguing area of investigation for design. Here, the definition and delineation of habitat overlap, indicating a clear line of research and experimentation rooted in the post-war period. This paper traces several historical design experiences between the 1950s and 1970s in the fields of industrialized construction and prefabricated furniture elements. These projects integrated technical and expressive perspectives within a historical and cultural context in which the methodological approach across different scales — between technology and design — was unified and characterized by an awareness of the social and cultural value of its applications. The research outlines a trajectory moving in one direction from building components, emphasizing their integration as fundamental elements of inhabited environments, and in the other direction from furniture industrialization, expanding from container functions to elements that articulate and equip interiors. From this, multiple approaches emerge: on the one hand, equipping the perimeter and/or partitions that define habitable space and its cladding systems; on the other, defining multifunctional equipped islands, fixed or mobile, serving as containers and/ or accessible units that enable space and impart new meanings. These experiences serve as a significant historical reference for addressing both environmental challenges and the ongoing reconfiguration, adaptation, and personalization of contemporary domestic spaces.