Cittadini Creativi originates within the Ph.D. research of Daniela Selloni at Politecnico di Milano, in the field of service design.
The initial idea is to carry out research outside universities and bring in the society, in a direct contact with the city and its residents, specifically in a place which is a symbol of Milanese activism: Cascina Cuccagna, a farm-house located in the heart of “Zona 4″. Cittadini Creativi applied to the call for the assignment of temporary spaces in the Cascina, presenting a program focused on participatory design between designers and local communities, by using the tools of service design research.
The main aim is to generate a collection of everyday services co-designed and co-produced with the active participation of city dwellers, envisaging a possible intersection with the public sector, enhancing a novel form of welfare and the birth of original service start ups, run by the people themselves, that will become social entrepreneur.
The project is a meeting space for citizens and designers from Politecnico di Milano, hosted by Cascina Cuccagna and powered by the local Council of area 4
Cittadini Creativi is a project by Daniela Selloni with Anna Maggi.
The project is composed by several meetings among citizens and designers, on different weekly topics.
Cittadini Creativi was presented in Cascina Cuccagna during an open day event
Many people participated at the first meeting, which was devoted to the cycle of “objects and skills sharing”. To approach the topic, we started exploring existing services in the field of exchange, rental and sale of goods, tasks and skills.
During the second session of Creative Citizens, we have started to co-design a service for the city of Milan, with the aim to exchange tasks and skills within the community.
During the third session we have tried to sketch out a neighbourhood objects library. This was the last session on the topic “exchange goods, tasks and skills”.
We have used several co-design tools: an illustrative map of the library, a graph to indicate the different actors of the service and a set of “suggestion cards” to find sparks and inspirations.
On Thursday 18th April 2013, it was held the first meeting dedicated to the food services for the neighbourhood.
Two professors from Politecnico di Milano attended the meeting as tutors: Anna Meroni and Marta Corubolo.
The creative session began with an overview on some food-related services, which take place in Italy or abroad, to approach the topic. The case studies have been divided into two clusters:shopping and eating.
We have sketched out a concept for a new legal desk, aiming at preparing next co-design session on services-offering by a group of different professionals (lawyers, fiscal experts, architects…) at citizens’ disposal.
After a brief introduction about services on the food sharing, we analyzed in detail the operation of the Restaurant Day service, to figure out if it could be replicated in Milan, within the zone 4.
The session on March 16th was the last one about the topic “food services”. It was a meeting with the aim to explore the possible development of a neighborhood food network.
The network has been designed ad hoc for the area 4 in Milan, both the digital part (a web site supported by existing tools such as Google docs, Google Maps and Facebook group…) and the analog side (developing tools like a neighborhood’s board or a condominium’s one, to share food, advices, recipes and local events).
We thought about the feasibility of this sharing platform, providing the realization in the close future of both digital and analog elements and thinking to let the area-4-inhabitants handle the service.
The platform takes the name of “Facecook, a food network for area 4”.
On June 13th we have deepened the topic of cultural services with a specific session for creating urban guides of Zone 4, starting from passionate city dwellers. We have divided into categories the different tours, aiming at discovering hidden places and at giving the possibility of telling original stories to the citizens, starting from their knowledge.
We have supposed to organize a tour about industrial archeology, another one about trees and stars and also a tour for discovering missing the buildings of the past…it is possible to do a tour by day or by night, walking or biking.
ON THURSDAY, JUNE 20th, LAST APPOINTMENT OF CREATIVE CITIZENS, FROM 7.00 pm!
We have presented all the projects done in the previous months to the institutions and to the interested public woth an exhibition showing the various services has been set up, involving all the explored fields: exchange objects and skills, food services, cultural services and legal services.
