Communication Design for Urban Environment: creative Projects to Explore the Cultures of the Places

The paper describes DESIGN+CONTEXT: Design for innovative products/services for the promotion of urban environmental contexts (D+C), a transmobility project promoted by Consorzio A.S.T. (Agenzia per lo Sviluppo Territoriale) of Vigevano and funded by European Union, Italy, Regione Lombardia in collaboration with Fondazione Cariplo. It regards the role of design within the domain of creative and cultural industries. D+C aims at the development of project proposals for enhancing the attractiveness of territory, its identity and cultural heritage, through a six months professional internship for 10 young designers. The project involved also six European academic institutions which are interested in the field of design and/or territory, at different levels and with different perspectives. The ten project proposals have been developed on the basis of the research carried on by DCxT (Design della Comunicazione per il Territorio), a research group of the Design Department at Politecnico di Milano, which activity focuses on communication design meant as an agent for the promotion of territory and place identity. The paper describes D+C project, its aims and the context in which acts (between creative and cultural industries, design, and tourism). Paragraph two provides an overview of DCxT's research and paragraph three describes the main results of D+C, focusing on the ten project proposals.