Shifting Perspectives
Co-design and Interaction Design to Approach Urban Issues Inside Urban Living Labs: The LOOPER Project in Verona
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chiara Scanagatta
This paper aims to explain how the Co-Design practice can be implemented using Interaction Design and how, applied within Urban Living Labs (ULL), this can improve the decision process for designing better urban spaces. The experience that will be described is expanded inside the framework of the LOOPER project (Learning Loops in the Public Realm), co-founded under the JPI Urban Europe program. Here it will be analysed the case study of Verona in Italy, where stakeholders (citizens and policymakers) are called to work on the theme of air and noise pollution: they will have to analyse problems, via co-monitoring activities, and to propose design solution, like mitigation measures. The aim is to apply Co-Design approach to solve urban issues and it will be strengthen using the Learning Loop, which means that participants will be called to evaluate the work they will do. Another goal of the project is to implement the Co-Design process using different strategies of Interaction Design to share and visualize spatial analysis results and all the possible design solutions. As different tools will be used, both existent and created for the LOOPER project, lot of attention has to be put in how to make these instruments as user-friendly as possible to meet the different age range, cultural levels and skills of ULL participants.
Design Approaches in European Policy Labs: Mapping Design Methods for Public Policy Innovation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Federico Vaz Canosa
This paper discusses the emergence of design approaches for policy innovation in Europe, mobilized through specialised governmental bodies known as Policy Labs. The purpose of this investigation is to map how Policy Labs in Europe are integrating design practices at each stage of the policymaking cycle. Policy Labs, defined as government units that assist in developing public policies in a design-oriented fashion, are tasked to innovate how these are conceived and implemented to gain in effectiveness and efficiency. However, these structures are relatively novel, and the way in which they operate significantly differs as public policymaking is a context-dependent activity. The relevance of this research is given by the scarce theoretical work on how and under which conditions design is adding value to public policy innovation. We begin by discussing public policy innovation in terms of a product vs. process innovation dichotomy. Secondly, we surveyed a sample of twenty-eight Policy Labs in Europe operating at various levels of government for their understanding of public policy innovation. Thirdly, and based on the process model of public policymaking, we look into which specific design methods are currently being deployed to innovate how public policies come into being. The survey showed the importance of the process perspective in understanding public policy innovation. The mapping of methods utilised by Policy Labs offered a picture of the challenges these face in innovating public policies. Contrasting the findings with the literature on design methods, we found a significant gap in the awareness of the methods’ nature.
Modern Architecture in Mexico: The Beginning of a New Architectural Identity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Valeria Carnevale
Modern architecture comes to Mexico as a European style just like earlier times, but in the philosophical battle between ‘what is European architecture and what is national architecture’ the result, which was not evident in its origins, has become a unique architecture that can now be called ‘Mexican Style’ or architecture. The early part of the twentieth century, after the 1910 revolution, saw a strong development in Mexico, particularly Mexico City. The wars in Europe and depression in the USA brought a high number of immigrants to the country, amongst them architects and engineers with ‘modern ideals’. This paper analyses how the modern movement settled in Mexico, developing in time into a unique architecture that can be called its own. An architecture that is new as per the values of a Mexico that is re-building itself but adapts into it the context and the culture of such a contrasting history. To do so, the paper puts forward the architecture and more importantly the thoughts behind the architecture of less known architects that are an important part of this process. The starting point for this argument comes from the statement Hitchcock and Johnson (1932 p. 239) make about the international style “…There is now a single body of discipline fixed enough to integrate contemporary style as a reality and yet elastic enough to permit individual interpretation”. Following a brief discussion of what is Mexican, we assess how architects of the mid-twentieth century achieved this goal.
