Cross Cultural Design Attitude

matter that requires appropriate tools to be read, understand, accepted and then interiorised. These considerations about the role of the Designer in the societal positive transformations were the assumptions to build the DeCA research program (Design Culture Accoglienza3). DeCA is an ongoing research focused on a re-think, in a cross-cultural way, and a re-design of the spaces of the Italian Centers for Refugees based in Milan. The research program was funded by “5 per Mille” destined to Politecnico di Milano’s young researchers, co-driven by an inter-disciplinary team from the Design department and the Environmental Psychology (Cultural and Environmental Heritage Department, Università Statale of Milan) with the support and the active collaboration of Farsi Prossimo Social Cooperative, the Department of Social and Health Services of the Municipality of Milan and some of the main agencies involved in the management of the building in Milan (Milano City - Sector District Contracts and Aler). DeCA has been the basis that started the main topic of Final Design Studio developed during the academic year 2012/13, Cross Cultural Design Attitude – design for temporary hospitality for politic refugees, in a virtuous cycle of nourishment between research and teaching.

POLISOCIAL The Final design Studio was a part of the new Politecnico di Milano Social Responsibility Program named “Polisocial” and the students’ tasks are within the experimental initiative “Teaching The aim of this operation is to integrate the usual educational activities with some interventions and experiences beyond the University, outside the classrooms, creating a narrow relationship with the extended network of representatives of associations, the voluntary sector, the public authorities, foundations and corporate social enterprises. Since October 2012 Polisocial presented sixteen different proposals

The results presented demonstrate how to shape places, objects and services that respond to a system of complex needs in an emerging era, coherently with the contemporary design challenges. The awareness of this relevant social issues is facing with the dynamics of a hospitable society in order to support the transformation of places, fostering the human relationship within.5

THE RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION Where design aims to provide answers for designing spaces with a marked semantic content, such as living spaces, its con-formative action must use tools aimed at interpreting the requests, needs and vocations of those who inhabit such spaces, and at translating them into a full set of elements that determine the designed environment. The design of living spaces relates to the whole range of meanings associated with man’s “being-in-the-world”. The ancestral ownership of a place, the act of settling, are closely connected with the selfthe recognition of belonging to a certain place, with which one establishes a privileged relationship and with regards to which one “orients” oneself to the rest of the world (Norberg-Shulz, 1984). The constructed universe, which includes urban areas but also squares and public buildings, as well as homes and private rooms, is at the same time a manifestation and a determination of the quality of this relationship. A relationship that over time

one: projects able to treat social exclusion and marginality,

living. The acquired awareness “that ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’ are to a large extent negotiable and revocable” (Bauman, 2003), makes a new type of “transitory” bond with the inhabited place possible: “the appropriation of a place is carried out only in the present time dimension and bears the mark of a meteoric presence, which can immediately go elsewhere” (R. Tomassini and P. Volonterio 1995). Besides, the massive migratory phenomena which have become accentuated over the last two decades pose for the interior design of temporary housing the challenge of integrating culturally diverse housing models.

populations that live in a state of social or individual alienation (homeless, prisoners, refugee…).4

The DeCA research focuses on the quality of Italian centres for temporary refugees accommodation. The ephemeral nature

3. https://www.facebook.com/DesignCultureAccoglienza

4. F. Cognetti in “Fare didattica sul Campo. Un anno di sperimentazione” – Q01 | I quaderni di Polisocial (2014) - I. Castelnuovo, F. Cognetti – Milano - Polisocial 5. A. Rebaglio in “Fare didattica sul Campo. Un anno di sperimentazione” – Q01 | I quaderni di Polisocial (2014) – I. Castelnuovo, F. Cognetti – Milano – Polisocial – pp. 38 - 39

The research project started with these and other questions. It developed actions for analysis and observation of places, actions of listening to the needs of refugee guests, working closely with local social workers, mapping best practices. Research and education have fed each other in a circular, virtuous way. The partial results of the research activity established the basis of the preparatory work for the learning path offered to students. The analysis of the sites, the users' needs that have been investigated and mapped, the scenarios outlined by the design constraints for the students’, so that they were faced with a real process of research and expected changes. On the other hand, the studio lab has produced more research, analysis, many design concepts and considerations that have provided some interesting nourishment for the research group.

DESIGN EDUCATION PROCESS The “Cross Cultural Design Attitude” Studio Lab has asked students to think and design with a cross-cultural approach: the target (users) was considered and analysed basically from a cultural point-of-view, focusing on diversity as a value and a key vision for the project. Arguably, the concept of perceived quality,

in post-modernity, would be easily described with words such traceability. Each inhabiting place is primarily seen as a relational 6

shaped by the interaction between three main elements: the Bodies, or the social component; the Objects, or inanimate actors of the inhabiting scene; the Spaces, or the whole of physical containers. In this framework, to design with a crosscultural approach means to adopt ethnographic and other social disciplines’ methods and instruments to understand the different national cultures of users and to design appropriate and "culturally accessible" spaces for theme. The Studio Lab has provided various phases of work. 1 phase: scenario design + ethnographic portraits or IDENTITY. boards + users’ needs analysis Students’ were offered some scenarios of architecture and interiors for contemporary living, and in particular for relationships that the design of a complex system can promote (hierarchies, connections, separations, overlays, ...). Furthermore, students were asked to design an IDENTITY. boards of the ethnic groups prevalent in centres. The aim of the tools is to visualize, synthetically, a “culturalbased” idea of welcome and related inhabiting model (arguing also about colours, materials, textures, indigenous objects and architectures and even symbols). The ultimate goal of this phase is to identify, from the temporary hospitality scenarios, a conceptual diagram of the reception center. From the "election" of a scenario as a reference (from those presented in the classroom), from the knowing of cultural "vision", an idea, an image that was able to describe how they imagine and will project the changing of the center. This idea was displayed with an image (or collage of images) and a schema or diagram analysed and explained the layout of the functions that respond to the needs of users. In particular, students’ were asked to take into account: privacy / bedrooms; autonomy / food and services; self-care / water and bathroom;

6. salind Krauss). That concept, which particularly represents the last stage of reexhibition, results to be not only a ‘way of using’ space but it has changed the could be considered more generally as a ‘way to inhabit’ places.

Approaches - Milano

of the settlement in the centres and the variety of identities of the tenants due to their multi-ethnical and multi-identity nature, require tools, processes and knowledge from a wide range of disciplinary contexts. Design and Interior design has a fundamental role in the settlement of a place that is not a home, but which aspires to be so for a short time, responding to a wide variety of cultural needs. The challenges are profound: how could design comprehend the environmental-psychological concept of place-identity [Proshansky, 1978] within temporary places? How could design, starting with a social condition of dis-location and dis-placement [Papadopoulus, 2002], re-place a new location, a new place? How is it possible to intervene incisively in these places in a low budget conditions? How is it possible to connect the Centers for Refugee with the city and the local community? How is it possible to design a welcoming and readable space able to create a sense of protection and belonging?

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relations in little groups; relations in large groups. 2 phase: design strategies and design tactics and have declared the most appropriate strategies and tactics to be adopted for achieving their objectives. As we considered Interior Design practice an overwriting action on a pre-existing architectural-box, students’ were provided by a broad set of writing instruments and tools; it is arguable to call them design strategies and design tactics. In the course, we asked to students to adopt one of them as a favorite way to design their projects. Design strategies refer to the main aspects, of an interior space, that project is able to manipulate such as the limits (vertical, horizontal plans), the light, the color, the material, the objects/ furniture. On the other side, design tactics “design attitude or procedures” adopted in order to develop the project: such as DIY practices, reMIXING assemblages, strategies and design tactics are respectively related to the general setting and the techniques involved into the project; to

3 phase: design development Each student-group chose its own favourite scenario, trying to think melting cultural instances, as said, and answering up to one function/need of space. The concepts they generated are related to space “2.0.”: promising outputs were temporary settlements that should be able to “welcome” personalization practices and support cultural affordance. The design process was at last applied on one of the Centers for Refugee, for about 60 male inhabitants, in the west side of the city of Milan.

To deal with the project of reception sites dedicated to multi-ethnic users, as refugees and asylum seekers, seemed teachers’. It was a challenge that required a multi-disciplinary and an unconventional approach. We needed to understand the meaning of “hospitality”, of a "good" space for ourselves and others, and also be free from cultural bias. In a sense, the design process has also been a process of growth and civil awareness for all. The creativity was stimulated by the many constraints

developed were very much appreciated by operators who have grasped interesting impulses. We were called to re-design a temporary place that is a house although not a home, that cultural background but also to introduce them into the new culture. It’s a place that hosts a process of changing, of learning, of redemption. In this sense we should think to a place “on the move”, which explores a multiplicity of strategies and tactics over time, which is able to respond to the wide range of requirements from the guests. In this sense the design attitude was fed by a cross-cultural approach, so to be able to foresee places and scenarios that speak a multitude of languages and signs to a multitude of people. Finally, during the Salone del Mobile 2014, in the “Fuori Salone” area in the center of Milan, were set up an exhibition of DeCA results with a gallery of portraits of student projects of the Studio Lab and two micro-rooms that told of two areas, the private and common ones, where are played the relationship between privacy and sharing, between personalization and relationship, between living and transience.