Social Design for the Mediterranean

This article deals with the design practices in the Mediterranean areas and presents a selection of projects developed in the last years for different contexts of this area. These projects, range from architecture to product and visual design, offer some possible answers to the emerging socio-political problems by exploiting opportunities tied with social communities and territorial resources. The special feature of these projects is to be outside the normal logic of the relationship between industrial production and design. In fact, these projects have been carried out by magazines, university research centres, single designers or cross-disciplinary group who operate culturally and critically in the geopolitical field. These projects had adopted different approaches to the project (from critical design to activism creative practices), and have been co-designed in partnership with associations and social communities, developing ideas who are freed from any industrial requests. These projects have a common focus on social needs as the priority, in order to improve the awareness of the people on the real problems in the frame of geo-political Mediterranean scenario. The reading of this design practices acquires strategic relevance in a perspective finalized to promote social innovation and economic development through “social design”.