Service design as an agent oftransformation of residential areas: the caseof a new Brazilian “gated condo”

The phenomenon of new condominiums, located in suburban areas, conceived as gated communities where thousands of people live is today affecting urban development, particularly in emerging countries like Brazil, along with the issue of safety. This paper presents a research study for a service design project to be nested in a “condominio fechado” under construction in Porto Alegre (Brazil), where nearly 10.000 inhabitants are expected. While the architectural project foresees many spaces for services (swimming pools, common kitchens for parties, gyms etc.) it doesn't really address the design of services. The introduction of a service design perspective (Meroni & Sangiorgi, 2011; Miettinen & Koivosto, 2009) is thus strategically interacting with the architectural project by: re-orienting the vision of the close condo towards the idea that services can be links with the city; affecting the conception of spaces starting to design them from the services they will host; innovating the services for the condo moving from a individual to a community centred design perspective. The paper is structured as follows: section 1 describes the phenomenon of gated communities as a contemporary trend in urban housing; section 2 discusses the phases and the output of a preliminary study conducted to design services within a new housing project; section 3 presents lesson learnt from the study and discusses them in terms of the implications for the design of a system of innovative services that goes beyond the existing offering, supporting a process of community building as well as the construction of structured relations with the exterior.