Design Directory: creating networks among the design community

Design Directory [Italia] is a research project promoted by Triennale di Milano and carried out by Dipartimento Indaco of Politecnico di Milano. It is also a tool to map the Italian design system (including companies, professionals, publishers, culture, schools and research), which, by visualizing information, allows to represent, interpret and share the system. It is a “mechanism”, a simple service design tool which wants to become a winning action and a cultural activity aimed to stimulate the creation of social networks, the participation of all the actors and the co-creation of contents. All this by using the web 2.0 approach. The www was chosen as “the place” where data are built and shared: this choice is validated by the effectiveness of the web as a popular tool to share information. This solution develops belongingness and identity, which apparently are non marketable nor exchangable goods. It also stimulates the need of the actors, involved in the system, to be acknowledged and it generates attention and communication. Within the Italian context, lacking both norms and insitutions, there are no laws to control the Italian design system, nor a public institution such as a design center or a design council. Thus, Italy is an ideal context to practice research.