The Italian Design Research and practice in cultural heritage exploitation

This paper will present, starting from some of the results of Milano Politecnico Industrial design Dept. Research Group in “Cultural Heritage Enhancement”, some theoretical considerations about how to develop design research in the groundbreaking field of enhancing Cultural Heritage. In fact, this is an emerging area of knowledge and professional field for design research processes and practice. The investigations and projects realised provide a wide range of cases which give evidence to the innovative and often tacit role played by design in enhancing the value of Cultural Heritage. Design can in fact enable sustainable cultural awareness and permit people to experience culture in a more involved way. This paper will illustrate some academic design experiences and exemplary research activities on cultural heritage evaluation, analyzing different contexts and pointing out their implications with design theory and educational approach.