“Ideas Sharing LAB”. Co-designing multifunctional services with local food communities

In recent years design has taken an active role in projects for ‘place’ development (e.g. Dott07, Veil), where a series of local projects aimed to nudge a region in a more sustainable direction (Jegou, 2010; Manzini, 2010b). In this framework service design seeks to foster new relations and create synergies among local actors and services (Mirata & Ristola, 2005). In the case of periurban agriculture it means creating a network of de-mediated services (Renting et al., 2003, Meroni, 2006) to connect small-scale sustainable farmers with the city dwellers. The paper presents the main results of the author’s doctoral research achieved through case studies and a participatory action research carried out within two farmers’ markets. The research firstly detected a new service typology, called multifunctional service, pointing out its added value in terms of creating local networks of people and services. Then, from the actions undertaken in the markets it went on to define a new format for service design intervention called Ideas Sharing LAB (IS-LAB).This takes the form of a temporary living lab in the farmers’ markets to co-design new collaborative services with a Community Centred Design approach (Meroni, 2011), i.e. designing with and within the local community of farmers and city dwellers. The paper concludes by outlining the methods and tools of IS-LAB and the opportunities offered by Community Centred Design in ‘place’ development projects.