design – Progress in Research

Digital Care: emerging care models, new players and future relationships

Posted on 05/07/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

On Wednesday 28 June, the results of the research project Cura Digitale (Digital Care), conducted by D\Tank, the think tank of the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano, were presented at the Gianfranco Ferré Research Centre.

The pandemic has accelerated digitisation processes in the healthcare sector, prompting users to make greater use of online services, for instance to keep specific problems under control (diabetes, heart disease, insomnia, etc.) or to adopt a healthier, more balanced lifestyle.

A group of researchers from the Department of Design investigated the topic of Digital Care through the four main tools – research of scientific articles, exploration of patents, user analysis and discussion with decision-makers – with the aim of outlining a shared trajectory towards equitable, accessible and inclusive digital care.

Three relevant themes emerged from the research – Distributed Care, Self-Care and Health Booster Technologies – which can be considered as three different areas of design. Each area has been declined to the Present, the Possible Future and the Alternative Present to identify convergences and references useful for the realisation of strategies, products, services and places of Digital Care.

Cura Digitale on the D\Tank website

Designing the hospitals of the future

Posted on 22/06/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The World Health Organization presented in Baku (Azerbaijan) the new design recommendations for hospitals to be built in the European region: the document was written at the Design & Health Lab of the Department of Architecture, Built environment and Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, coordinated by professor Stefano Capolongo.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of being prepared to deliver uninterrupted health services also in case of natural and human-induced disasters, emergencies and other social crises: for a hospital to remain functional during these situations, it must be designed with strong and flexible infrastructure, high resistance to hazards, and a focus on safety and comfort; it also have to ensure sustainable compliance with hygiene standards.

The technical brief collects guidelines for addressing different aspect of design: hospital localization; creation of green areas for the well-being of patients and medical staff; space accessibility; digitalization to improve service management; synergy between territorial hospital organizations; hospital hygiene; social, economical and ecological sustainability; prevention and security.

The document

PALIMPSEST – Creative Drivers for Sustainable Heritage Landscapes

Posted on 21/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano continues to affirm its leading role in European research with new projects in the context of the New European Bauhaus initiative, launched by the European Union to spread the culture of the European Green Deal among citizens.

PALIMPSEST activities are coordinated by the group of prof. Grazia Concilio of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies.

Inspired by the idea that territories are “palimpsests” shaped by the stratification of projects and practices that have acted on the natural environment, the project looks at landscapes that make this stratification visible, focusing in particular on three agricultural and urban landscapes called to face significant environmental and climatic challenges.

PALIMPSEST, whose activities will be carried out in Milan, Jerez de la Frontera and Lodz, aims to reconnect to a lost “wisdom” by triggering co-creation processes in which architecture, design and artistic practices are in dialogue with technical-scientific knowledge, specific needs of places and the great systemic challenges, to imagine new scenarios and experiment with innovative practices capable of combining human actions, landscape heritage and sustainability goals.

DESIRE – Designing the Irresistible Circular Society

Posted on 20/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano continues to affirm its leading role in European research with new projects in the context of the New European Bauhaus initiative, launched by the European Union to spread the culture of the European Green Deal among citizens.

DESIRE – Designing the Irresistible Circular Society, involves the Department of Design with the group led by prof. Alessandro Deserti.

This Coordinated and Support Action supports the “100 climate-neutral and smart cities” mission, proposing an approach to design that is attentive to circularity principles and open to artists, creatives, makers and other organizations. Starting from architecture, design and art, DESIRE will create an open learning environment, defined by principles, methods and guidelines that support the design of an irresistible circular society.

DESIRE is one of the six “demonstrator” projects of the New European Bauhaus initiative and will be tested in 8 urban spaces and neighbourhoods in 6 different European countries: Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia and the Netherlands.

DESIRE will work in and with these contexts, focusing on three challenges: creating of forms of inclusive housing; the “symbiotic relationship” typical of urban landscapes and the related optimization of the use of material flows; “reconciling cities with nature” for designing liveable habitats and functional ecosystems from a multispecies perspective by rebalancing land use to accommodate the generation of resources and biodiversity.

DC4DM Project

Posted on 20/01/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Digital Creativity for developing Digital Maturity future skills (DC4DM) is the three-year research project funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme. Its main objective is to implement, apply and disseminate the DC4DM educational model to develop and empower digital creative abilities to strategically drive the application of future emerging digital technologies in any field.

Shared within a European network of HEIs, SMEs and Startups, Business Incubators, the DC4DM model will train talents that will enable companies to achieve digital maturity. They will become Digital Maturity Enablers.

Design, with its human-centred approach, plays a key role in this transformation. As researchers and educators, we must update our educational models and train the necessary skills so that our students are able to strategically address the future social and environmental challenges of the future by exploiting the opportunities offered by emerging digital technologies, keeping people at the centre.
Project Coordinator Marita Canina, Associate Professor and scientific head of the research lab IDEActivity Centre

The DC4DM model, developed considering the main Digitally Mature company’s needs, promotes the development and empowerment of creativity, design and entrepreneurial skills with tools and methods to adapt and advance new collaborative practices, integrating digital technologies, creative process and design in order to boost employability, and companies’ competitiveness and innovation potential, in different contexts of application. For each identified need, the model integrates the specific set of skills defined as Digital Creative Abilities (DCA) that empower people to express their creative potential and think and act in a non-predictable digital world. The skills included in the model are structured along different dimensions, among these, the Digital Sustainability and Responsibility become therefore a pillar on which the model is based. This dimension includes the future, ethical and sustainable thinking skills relevant when designing for uncertain digital futures.

The project main outcome will be an educational box that includes the action model and the tools and methods to train cross-functional teams of design, engineer, business students to face the complex real-world challenges brought by digital transformation.

The ongoing digital evolution is having a strong impact on every sector of our society, creating opportunities and threats that need to be strategically addressed and managed.

The consortium, coordinated by Prof. Marita Canina, Associate Professor at the Department of Design and scientific head of the research lab IDEActivity Centre, includes 4 universities from 3 EU countries – Politecnico di Milano (IT), Universitè Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne (FR), Institut Mines-Telecom (FR), Universidade de Madeira (PT) – and one business incubator – Startup Madeira (PT).

Home page del progetto DC4DM

Pagina del progetto Erasmus+

SISCODE: co-design processes in the field of social and scientific innovation

Posted on 02/11/202106/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Horizon 2020 project SISCODE (Society in Innovation and Science through CO-Design) saw the involvement of 17 inter-sector partners from around Europe coordinated by the Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano.

The goal of SISCODE was to explore the use of co-creation processes and tools to involve citizens and other actors in designing more responsible innovation capable of leading to the policy changes requested by society.

More than 150 transverse co-creation case studies in different areas were analysed in the project. Ten pilot projects were also carried out to develop concrete solutions capable of responding to a series of local problems: a new plan to reduce atmospheric pollution, a recycling system to create new products in a circular economy, solutions to fight food waste developed by a collective of local designers, a permanent learning programme to improve active citizenship by elderly people, a new programme on precision agriculture for advanced professional schools, an annual festival dedicated to designing boats to take advantage of the potential of the Tagus River in Lisbon, programmes to improve the mental health of young people by drawing on their hobbies, co-design tools to support public decision-makers, and even cultural performances to explore artificial intelligence with the public.

Milan, in particular, tested BODYSOUND, software created for physical reactivation exercises. Based on dancing and the transformation of movement into sound, it is aimed primarily at children with motor difficulties.

The software underlying this system uses a body-tracking system to calibrate the exercises based on the child’s mobility, monitoring motor coordination and the time and frequency of alignment, recording and comparing the precision and speed of the movements.

The project was conducted within the research activities of Polifactory, an interdepartmental lab at the Politecnico di Milano.