My scientific work about design interior and interaction design

2. A CREATIVE LAB OF DESIGN FOR OUTSIDERS
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Marco BORRELLI,
Facoltà di Architettura, Seconda Università di Napoli, Italia
E-mail: marco.borrelli@unina2.it,
Abstract
The scientific contribution of the interior design and tecnological research is inspired by the social
value expressed in the project "Feli-city", whose main object is the creation of temporary spaces
or "creative laboratory" focused on the rehabilitation of people who are socially and
psychologically marginalized such as "hope-less". The outsiders are generated by the advanced
society giving privileges to "exclusive profit” logics rather than civil and ethical values. Hopeless is
a subject with psicological hardship produced by the flexible capitalism in its recession, where the
"less" of the project “Feli-city” represents “less waste of human creative asset, evaluation of
unexpressed potentials as a consequence of the experiences gained”. The main content of the
creative lab is rappresented by the right dimension of an institutional contest able to interact with
current psycological disease through design training.
More subsumes the less as dedicated personal services, and better prospects of listening, it
means to project in the current scenario of the knowledge factory, new forms of integration through
a shared system of spontaneous human relationships in places appropriately tailored to promote a
"personal outing" in close collaboration with young designers able to manage the creative
process, useful and necessary for social rehabilitation.
Key-words: Social Rehabilitation, Creative Laboratory, Hope-Less, More-Service, Feli-City
"One has to allow the possibility that there cannot be a complete
destruction of a human individual’s capacity for creative living and
that,even in the most extreme case of compliance and the
establishment of a false personality,hidden away somewhere there
exists a secret life that is satisfactory because of its being creative and
original to that human being.” (D.W. Winnicott, 1896-1971)
1. Assunti, obiettivi e scenario di riferimento
The occasion of the project: The scientific contribution is inspired by the social value expressed in the
project “Feli-city”, presented in collaboration with the Designer Edgar Uggiano and with the Association for
Social Promotion “Pietre Vive alla salute”for the contest organized by the Community of the Old Town Centre
of Naples and “Il Mattino”.
The interdisciplinare character of the actors: Such planning experimentation developed in the range of
research on design and interior architecture in college of architecture’s laurea degree course of industrial
design of the Second University of Naples is based on new considerations and methodologies which
promote innovation according to the model of the sociological-economical developement gathered by the
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metaphor of the Triple Helix in which the base of success is given by the convergence of three fields
actually considered distant and untied:
a) University b) Enterprise c) Politics institution.
The creation of the social value originates from action and correct synergic organization of the three factors
of which we highlight the specific features:
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a) University through the open source is set up in a new model of Hybrid University for its main role of
research and developement linked with the actions of social policy, b) the Economic System of Social
Enterprise expressed by the third sector aimed at the social progress through ecological innovation and by
the Community of the Old Town Centre of Naples which finds social innovation and developement of new
ethic values able to promote personal and social growth of local community,and the role of the c) Politics
expressed by the municipal corporation which represents the governance and the referential system aimed
to guarantee the right balance of relationship between local entrepreneurship and research.
The mission: The construction and emplacement,where necessary,of new structures in the service of the
citizen,able to intercept the social and psychic discomfort of a new cathegory of outsiders, the “hopeless”, to
guarantee an earlier form of psychological outing aimed at the constitution of new Workshops or Creative
Labs. The instrument of innovation is assigned at the definition and construction of a creative unit where two
moments of doing togheter are activated:the bank of time and the bank of ideas owned by the creative
community. The instrument of originality is assigned at the figure of design for health in social range which
re-sets up consolidating the already well known declinations of user-centred design, co-design, design for all,
design for interaction to offer itself as a first level structure for psychological support aimed at the redemption
and recovering of discomfort and environmental context of reference.
1.1 The analytical-descriptive phase of less’ dimension
The modern industrialized and globalized society engenders different forms of exclusion, discomfort and
outcasting since it doesn't give the right support to all the persons, often labeled as differents,who can't
integrate themselves completely in the social context in which they live. Therefore these new figures need an
early form of redemption through a psychological and creative outing to express their personal experiences
by a system of intersubjective relations and recreational activities. Such condition of the individual results
nowadays the fruit of a discomfort ripen and imposed by an economic system which advantages profit logics
rather than civil ethical values and sustainability to such a point to originate,in the scientific research of
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interior design field too, analytical reflections on the Third Sector . Toward the state the third millenium's
society has noticed a detachment of the old models of welfare state since the factors dependent on labour
market's crisis,weakening of the familiar fabric and loss of references into civil society have enlarged the gap
between the traditional catalogue of safeguarded risks and the new set of necessities and social questions,
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producing a new "Risk Society ". The psychic and social discomfort condition, associated mainly with the
condition of poverty has taken several connotation becoming part of a bigger phenomenon which aggregates
differents forms and typologies of marginalization such as social exclusion,vulnerability and lack of self
confidence.Such new figures of outsiders, definied in our article as hopeless, represent new forms of psychic
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discomfort and isolation, fruits of "Flexible Capitalism " in its recessive phase, where the "less" of hopeless
can represent generically scarcity and instability,but also lack of references and loneliness of the isolated
individual;therefore,the term "less" must be read as a quality as expression,from the individual,of internal
pain and deep sensitivity as well as experiences, knowledge and trans-territorial visions. Nowadays, as the
hopeless, also the jobless and the youthless are individuals who in their field meet difficulties of various
nature,and so the society must trigger protective actions and safeguard about the condition of their minimum
requirements of psychophysical health aimed at the social recovery and working reintegration in their
autonomous creative and productive dimensions. The research is inclined to offer metaplanning inspiration’s
occasion on interior design and design of services’ field aimed at the developing of transitory spaces or labs
“of doing”, simply definied “creative labs” spontaneously builded and dedicated at the social and
psychological recovering of such outcasts. The Creative Lab represents the right dimension of a new
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inst itutional context with an outpatiently nature which acts on the current dimensions of the psychic
discomfort of those who lose their job in advanced age too or for those who can’t find it, and at the same time
can’t recuperate the right spirit of interior revenge meant as recovering of a spiritual dimension of active
partecipation. The key character of such new experimentation starts from the assumption that nowadays
exist different typologies of creative spaces or workshop labs aimed at the sharing of a “common feeling”
related with the diffusion of social values such as creative handicraft, reutilization and recycle, civil and social
rights of the individual, creative enterprise through small incubators of social enterprise and even the makers
or “garage inventors” who are revolutioning the industry by using the internet and the open source.
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4. Fig. 1: Outsiders trying to meet in the modern dispersive city
Here are some of the examples to be considered as “emblematics” since they represent the basics in the
research of some study cases (case history) taken as sample to set up the proposed model of Creative Lab
of the project “Feli-city” as pilot project:
1) Promotion of handicraft lab that draws on do-it-yourself’s culture (creative handicraft lab cfr.
www.lamentecomune.it )
2) Promotion lab for reutilization and recycle as environmental sustainability with pedagogical aims (creative
recycle for children lab cfr. “Le mani creano… Piccoli oggetti d’arte” www.riciclareconarte.it)
3) Promotion lab for social and civil rights of people wardship and their generation (cfr. Social Design Agency
Lab www.thinkpublic.com)
4) Promotion lab for individual growth and developement for assertion and promotion of interpersonal
relations (cfr. www.relazioniinarmonia.it)
5) Enterprise incubators promotion labs (cfr. www.officineformative.it)
6) FabLab promotion labs “Social workshop for digital manifacturing and hand-crafted prototyping” (cfr.
Enterprise incubator www.fablabitalia.it and/or www.fablabtorino.org/)
The limit of such cooperative experiences starts from the presupposition that the partecipate contribution in
which sociologists, psychologists and welfare workers, collaborates, with their institutional qualifications of
subjects aimed at the formation and evaluation of discomfort, lacks the comprehension of the aestheticcreative dimension latent in the hopeless and that cannot emerge but by the intersubjective contribution and
the presence of the designer. The competences specifically bonded to the designers’creative actions would
help in the medical history phase and in the assistence for all the actor subjects (outsiders) that after the
outing must restart their own projectual dimension through the rediscovery of the “insight” (creative intuition).
1.2 The operative phase of the exercise through the "more"
The location for the set up of the creative lab's concept would be detected in some small spaces in the hands
of the current local structures(for example the municipal corporation's headquarter or the local sanitary
companies)to guarantee experimentations in favour of social assistance and rehabilitative cure addressed to
such figures to favor psycho-social integration.The innovative character of shared partecipation between
protagonist actors of the counseling intervention among which leads the designers,the psychologists and the
sociologists deputied at the reception phase and at the structuring of the path into the creative work
too,consists of time (bank of time) and ideas management(creative community) aimed at the recovering of a
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5. productive and recreative cooperating dimension in terms of environmental sustainability too. Then the
designer in the following phase after the medical history,by the recovering of more operativity,builds the right
environmental and communicative conditions to start a process of Creative Rehab of the capacities and of
the emotional and cognitive resources of the individual, producing immediately a sensationi of indipendence,
autonomy, serenity and self-esteem.The building of homely, stimulating and original shaped and coloured
spaces and contexts ,originated from shared process of auto-reproduction tipicals of do-it-yourself way,
through the guide and control of the deisgner guarantees a general improvement of the perceptive condition
of the individual toward the space as well as the relationship of indipendence between man and environment.
The creative lab represents more services to the people prefiguring the receptioning space as field for
planning understood as a "school"of politeness, humanity and for talents' personalization since it allows the
outsiders to percieve theirselves as active subjects, in reference with tools and with the utilization
interactive's and attitudinal link's methodologies to build an integration. More interactive areas where the
immaterial represents the new frontier of creator's dimension, more edutainment (education and
entertainment) through events and analysis of the relationship between cause-and-effect of the outsiders
operating concretely emulating models and evaluating the result.
Here are some examples of interaction between subjects, areas and objects:
1) Real and/or virtual noticeboard (database and bank of time) where the registration of the capacity and
availability of the actors and creators with the counselor designer is possible in chronological order through a
relationship of empathy in which emotional interrelation exchange is fundamental – interaction between
subjects,
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2) Utilization of tablets (materials workbanches on stalls or immaterial ) useful for the sharing of a planning
concept to bring in phase of progress of definied project and performable in a prototype form too (3D printers
or rapid prototyping machines) trough this relationship the designer is able to build new sceneries –
interaction between subjects and areas,
3) Definition and realization of particular work-areas manual and technological-experimental able to explore
the properties and the potential of natural materials for example recovery of ground scruff of mussels' and
nuts' shells in order to melt it with natuarl glue such as resins, rabbit glue, various clay in order to obtain new
self-carrying conglomerates , or and artificial materials of disused artefacts obtained by a first phase of
comparative selection such as plastic recover which represents the artificial basic material with the worst
environmental impact for its disposal (PE-polyethylene, PP-polypropylene, PS-polystyrene, PVCpolyvinylchloride, PET-polyethylene terephthalate) – interaction between subjects and objects.
2. Interdisciplinary work mediated by the action of the designer for health
The originality character of suchCreative Labs consists in the identifiction of a new actor figure of the
productive and creative management process as the designer who, contextually with the operation of
hopeless'psychic rehab explain the topic of the more expressing himself as a mediator of holistic knowledge
of the system produced addressing the creation’s target of quality through management capacity of different
experts. Such universe of objects tought and produced in a team under the control of the health’s designer
are tought and realized for the user considered no longer as a diseased but as a subject with specific
necessities addressed at the reappropriation of its collocation.
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A supply chain of knowledge governed by the designer able to mediate the connection between designer
counselor and actors-creators as well as processes and materials in the third sector in which the presence of
the state is still late in putting in effect of social governace polithics.
Such new idea of design is far from the common definitions of “user-centred design”, “co-design”, “design for
all”, “design for interaction” which considered the product-design as a tool aimed at users who started from
standard situations to define objects and products of extended use, to arrive to a most inclusive form to
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realize a dimension of Design for health mainly focused on behavioural diseases of the individual in a
psychological and social context. In detail appeals on actions of control and management of designer’s
activities to generate a process of improvement achievable through emotional and artistic-creative
solicitations , to build a form of rehab and reintegration of the individual with his provenance context. The
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designer as Personal Creativity Trainer busy in the improvement of the active role’s value of each subject
creating the conditions for the change inside and outside of himself trough technical and methodological
processes developed as integration of psychotherapeutic protocols aimed at the emprovement of selfesteem and creative talent.
The expressed value through the reappropriation of denied rights (the job) costitutes a valid mission of
innovation expressed as references with triple helix developement model in so far as the convergence of the
three institutions offers a big projectual imput of civilization aimed at the comprehension of the emerging
categories until now soffused by the economic system of negative growth.
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Paraphrasing Serge Latouche’s
treatise on the dicotomy between serene decrease inasmuch as
advantageous tendence to things’natural dimension, against negative growth as source of unequal and not
in agree with the available natural resources’ consumption, means in the scientific contribution of the project
Feli-city to introduce a new form of related dualism less /more, which transposed in social context means to
appreciate in the less creative and aesthetic dimension of the inadequacy sense generated by the
consumerist society, expecially in those who lose their job against the more unscrupulous use of
technologies in which the designer only represents the saving answer to the belonging relationships’control
system to the present scenario of human existence.
Less subsumes the More as more dedicated personal services, and better prospects of listening, it means
to project in the current scenario of the knowledge factory, new forms of integration through a shared system
of spontaneous human relationships in places appropriately tailored to promote a "personal outing" in close
collaboration with young designers able to manage the creative process, useful and necessary for social
rehabilitation.
Fig. 2: Creative Lab’s Interiors for Psychological Rehab through more services to people
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7. Fig. 3: Creative Lab’s Zenital View
Fig. 5: Interaction Lab from inside
Fig. 6: Creative Images projected on wall and ceiling
Fig. 7: Interactive Panel for Virtual City Sightseeing
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8. Note:
[1] Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff Triple Helix innovation model
[2] Mario Calderini lectures, teacher of Innovation’s Management and Strategies in Torino’s Polytechnic
School
[3] Definition: The Third Sector includes a series of organizations (cooperatives,foundations etc.) placed
between the state and the market, represents an answer of unquestionable efficience to the Welfare
States’weakening supplying products and services of social benefit
[4] Ulrich Beck, Risikogesellschaf. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. (traduced by PRIVITERA Walter ,
SANDRELLI Carlo*) 1 ed. Roma: Carocci Editore, 2000, pp. 380. La società del rischio. Verso una seconda
modernità*. ISBN 8843016504
[5] Richard Sennet, L’uomo flessibile. Le conseguenze del nuovo capitalismo sulla vita personale, Feltrinelli,
2000. Titolo originale: The Corrosion of Character, The Personal Consequences Of Work In the New
Capitalism, Norton, 1998
[6] IPAD Interactive Technologies, Cloud Computing
[7] Web: http://blog.debiase.com/2012/03/informazione-di-mutuo-soccorso.html Enrico Viceconte’s Comment
in March 2012
[8] Francesca Giofrè, Autismo. Protezione sociale e Architettura. Firenze: Alinea Editrice, 2010, ISBN
9788860555380
[9] Vittorio Cei, Libera la tua creatività. Come vincere blocchi e inibizioni e sviluppare il proprio potenziale.
Milano: FrancoAngeli Editore, 2009, ISBN 9788856812350
[10] Serge Latouche, Petit traité de la décroissance sereine (traduced by GRILLENZONI Fabrizio*). Torino:
Bollati Boringhieri Editor,2008,pp.135. Breve trattato sulla decrescita serena*. ISBN 9788833918693
Riferimenti Bibliografici:
[11] BAUMAN Zygmunt, Liquid Modernity (traduced by MINUCCI S.*). Ed. Roma-Bari: Laterza Editore, 2011,
pp.294. Modernità Liquida*. 8842097357
[12] RULLANI Enzo. Valore rischio e lavoro nella società della conoscenza. Vivere sperimentalmente, vivere
pericolosamente. In DEMICHELIS Lelio, LEGHISSA Giovanni, Biopolitiche del lavoro Ed. Udine-Milano:
Mimesis Edizioni, 2008 pp.255
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