PERL
Partnership for Education and Research for Responsible Living
D 6.1
Framing the Enabling Kit approach
Authors:
Francois Jégou;
Francesca Rizzo;
Ezio Manzini;
Daniela Sangiorgi;
Per-Anders Hillgren;
Liz Davis;
September 2010
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
1
Index
Index
2
Outlining the enabling kit approach
3
What do we mean by enabling kit?
Who is it for?
What does it consist in?
How to use it?
3
3
4
5
LEADING
6
INVESTIGATING
6
FACILITATING
9
ENVISIONING
14
SYSTEMIZING
14
ENABLING
20
COMMUNICATING
21
In this document, Liz Davis wrote INVESTIGATING; Per-Anders Hillgren wrote
FACILITATING; Francois Jégou wrote Outlining the enabling kit approach, SYSTEMIZING
and Orientation Guidelines; Francesca Rizzo wrote ENVISIONING and COMMUNICATING;
Daniela Sangiorgi wrote LEADING and ENABLING.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
2
Outlining the enabling kit approach
What do we mean by enabling kit?
The SEE research project focuses on forms of local transformation projects toward
sustainability (Framework Projects; Local Projects) whose main distinctive characteristic is
that they are promoted and supported by design schools and universities. The first sample of
projects, identified throughout the DESIS1 network, was built using a series of skills and tools
relating to the strategic design ability to facilitate a project process within a complex context
and via the interplay of multiple and heterogeneous stakeholders: i.e. envisioning scenarios
and simulating their possible implementation in order to engage participation; stimulate social
conversations and prompt convergence.
These design-driven local sustainable transformation projects emerged in very different
socio-cultural context such as China, Brazil, USA, Italy, Sweden or France, that form a
community of practice partly due to their common design background and partly due to their
mutual influence within the DESIS network. The SEEK project is aiming at capturing these
emerging capabilities and make them available to the design schools community in the form
of an enabling kit.
The SEEK enabling kit is meant to be a set of elements which aim to facilitate the start and
development of local sustainable transformation projects. They consists in documented
cases and examples, promising practices and procedures, instructions, guidelines, tools,
check-lists, etc.
SEEK enabling kit is therefore a toolkit in the sense that it provides all the necessary
elements to perform the focused activity and all together, these sets of elements work as an
instantiation of this activity. The SEEK enabling kit is an evidence of local sustainable
transformation projects, providing visibility and making tangible this activity as it is performed
by design schools.
Who is it for?
Within the sample of local transformation projects on which SEEK is based, involved design
schools and universities play the role of ‘agents for social change’. In parallel to their
education role towards students, they behave as active players to support sustainable
transformation in the local context where they are based.
Active learning approaches, projects oriented workshops, field investigations with users, and
other common teaching practices in design schools show a strong potential to involve in real
1
DESIS is a network of schools of design and other institutions, companies and non-profit
organizations interested in promoting and supporting design for social innovation and sustainability
(www.desis-network.org)
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
3
scale development projects where both education role and local stakeholder role are
mutually reinforcing.
The SEEK enabling kit is a support dedicated primarily to design schools to facilitate
involvement of groups of students and professors in performing these two fold activities of
learning by doing in vivo and using for local development the potential of creativity and action
that strategic design exercises represents.
The SEEK enabling kit is therefore not a self-standing toolkit: application of the approach and
use of the tools contained in the first version of the kit will require the availability of design
skills and address teaching environments with groups of students involved in articulated
projects over medium-long periods.
The SEEK enabling kit application and use may be extended to other schools of architecture,
urban planning, sociology, likely to engage in local development. It may also be useful to
larger circles of actors such as social entrepreneurs, sociologists involved in field projects,
actors promoting citizen participation, etc.
What does it consist in?
The analysis of the design role across the sample of projects collected in SEE reveal a
typology of 7 clusters of activity performed in a recurrent way by the design schools involved
and their partners:
LEADING
The very project initiative and its promotion are lead by the design team;
INVESTIGATING
The exploration and mapping of existing local social initiatives oriented toward the inspiration
of new solutions or systems of solutions;
FACILITATING
Tools from Participatory Design are used to support interaction and convergence among the
parties involved;
ENVISIONING
Scenarios, proposals, simulation and rapid prototyping are used to stimulate and orientate
the design partners and stakeholders in the design process;
SYSTEMIZING
Activities oriented towards organising synergies and multiplication effects among the different
single projects and elements of the project;
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
4
ENABLING
Digital platforms, toolkits and other supporting tools are used to enable the local players to
act by themselves;
COMMUNICATING
Illustrated presentations, mapping visualisations, appealing visuals are used to explain and
disseminate the project.
These 7 clusters of activities will be described in details in the following pages and examples
form the on-going projects will be given.
How to use it?
The SEEK enabling kit will be described as a matrix built on 2 dimensions: 1) a series of local
case studies 2) typologies of activities.
On the SEE web platform2, the access to these 2 dimensions of activities is materialised by a
matrix allowing to navigate vertically following step-by-step each particular local processes
as they have developed and horizontally comparing the different ways parallel projects have
conducted a particular design activity.
This matrix structure of the SEEK enabling kit allows to inspire from the different local
experiences and develop a specific process by composing between the different options
presented for each design activities.
The SEEK matrix is an open enabling kit where on-going projects will continue to report and
enrich the different clusters of activity. New projects will add in parallel and modulate and
complete with new options each design activity.
2
www.sustainableeverydayexplorations.net
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
5
LEADING
In short...
Leading corresponds to a series of design activities oriented towards conducting or
facilitating the overall Framework Programme. Often the Leadership is set up in the original
agreements or partnerships at the beginning of the programme, and is often negotiated with
the needs and aims of funding and partner institutions. In some case studies Design schools
and designers practically lead the initiatives engaging various stakeholders in the programme
or in other contexts Design acts more as an overall approach to change that brings together
various partners and, eventually, methodologies. Design activities can have also a significant
leading role when helping setting up a vision that guide the individual projects in the long
term.
More...
Partnerships and visions
What are the main characteristics/aspects/dimensions of the activity?
Design schools, organisations (see for example the Design Council) or studios can have a
role in defining the original agreement or partnership that stand before the Framework
Programme. In the DOTT07 project this is particularly evident as it has been the Design
Council together with an international design thinker Thackara to set up the overall 10 years
programme, its main aims and structure. At the same time DOTT07, as developed in the
North East, needed to answer to the needs and objectives of the region and therefore
develop as a partnership between the two organisations. In DOTT07 Design worked both as
an ‘object of promotion’ (see Design Council) but also as the pivotal approach for change
and public engagement (grass roots innovation and engine for innovation in the region).
Other initiatives have been similarly guided by Design such as the Feeding Milano and
Chong-Ming Island project. In both the initiatives the Design schools have started the
individual projects working with students to then use these project ideas to develop further
initiatives. Feeding Milano started with design students’ work and is now a research project
funded by the City of Milan and Cariplo foundation in collaboration with Slow Food. In these
cases Design leads the project by collaboratively set up the vision and provide an
‘infrastructure’ for the collaboration to progress.
In the case of the NeWu project in China, a joint university project (Polimi, Milan & Jiangnan)
has provided the synergy/platform for a partnership with Wuxi Municipality. Still in its early
phases, the project is dependant on design leadership but the aim is for student service
design proposals to serve as inspiration for local stakeholders.
Finally in the case of Malmö Social Innovation Living Lab, Design works by “infrastructuring”
meaning creating the conditions for quick contextual experiments to explore a sustainable
future among a diverse set of stakeholders. This happens by conducting a continuous matchmaking process that tries to align diverse actors into common projects and initiatives, looking
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
6
up for synergies and opportunities as they emerge. In this case Design doesn’t provide a
determined ‘vision’, but generate the conditions for opportunities to emerge; the real vision is
more related to the process itself, which is to ‘democratise innovation’ within public sphere
and everyday life.
Collaborative Design and open innovation
How to start/develop/disseminate it?
In many of the case studies Design works as an overall approach to change and social
innovation. This doesn’t exclude the use of other methodologies or the integration of other
professions such as artists or architects, in the territorial intervention. Design is actually often
adopting methods and tools from other disciplines to better engage with the citizens and
work on a wide scale. DOTT07 and Nord-pas-de-Calais Sustainable Periurban are a clear
example for this. In DOTT07 designers have been engaged in the main Public design
commission projects, but the ‘activation’ of the public and extensive visibility of the initiative
has been often delegated to artists and media studios. The art-led initiatives had the capacity
to reach out a wider public and sensitise about the overall programme aim, but they were
generally not oriented to generate ideas and solutions.
In other projects Design has been working as main methodological guidance to enhance
collaborative design processes and projects management. In particular when the design
process is an open and participatory one, several questions emerge on how to keep the
collaboration open while guiding it. In the Malmö Social Innovation Living Lab questions arise
as for how: 1) to scale up, meaning developing new relationships, still maintaining old ones;
2) to set up collaborative decision making; 3) to set up experiments during the complex
circumstances that emerge within social innovation; 4) to perform “friendly hacking” of civil
servants? (e.g. to try to engage different stakeholders overcoming difficulties to change their
working structures).
Emergent opportunities and grassroots change
What are the expected results/outputs/benefits?
When Design works at a wide territorial scale working with a large set of partners, starting
from an existing set resources and opportunities, what can emerge is a potential
transformation of innovation processes within single actors or among systems that explore
and evaluate the potential of more grassroots movements and changes. Opening up cultural
and operational barriers among different populations, organisations and professional groups
is one of the key challenges to manage to generate more systemic effects.
Feeding Milano or Amplify both work for example to amplify and connect existing initiatives
and show the potentials behind their connection and collaboration within a similar vision.
Malmö Social Innovation Living Lab does a similar thing, but in unexpected ways, where the
potentials for change often hides behind not foreseen connections and contributions. In all
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
7
cases it is about showing how everybody can be an ‘active’ partner for wider transformations,
instead of relying on other more mainstream actors.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
8
INVESTIGATING
In short...
Investigating is the process by which Local Project (LP) initiatives are searched out and identified
as promising. Principally a field activity, investigating comprises mainly of observation and dialogue
with players and stakeholders, backed up by a range of visual reporting methods. Information
collected is mapped out to situate each project within its own particular system dynamic
(constellation of stakeholders and players).
Investigating is a qualitative process which serves to reveal both emerging and established LP
initiatives. It also applies to the exploration of a context/area as a preamble to proposing future
projects. Furthermore, it offers the opportunity to identify potential key players for long-term
cooperation to create, consolidate or expand sustainable local networks.
The investigating process is principally carried out by design students. Learning basic ethnographic
skills to support observation and exchange become part of an active learning process for the
participating student taskforces.
Findings are assembled, processed and shared in order to provide platforms for determining
potential for future actions/partnerships to be developed in the following activity phases.
More...
Inspiring sustainable living from local social innovations...
What are the main characteristics/aspects/dimensions of the activity?
Investigating covers a cluster of activities which aim at eliciting local assets and at finding
opportunities for new solutions, services, partnerships... to be developed.
Investigating is commonly understood as designating a wide range of field activities oriented towards
informing and understanding in-depth a specific context and the subtle mechanisms that characterise
both its conditions of existence and the dynamics of interaction between the different players
present.
Such generic investigation processes exist within the cases collected in the SEE research project,
but what is understood as 'Investigating' in these cases tends to focus on a more specific activity.
Often as a starting point, local contexts are investigated to identify initiatives of social innovations on
which to build Framework Projects... Inspired by the initial process first experimented in Europe
through the European research project EMUDE3 and further developed in Brazil, China, India and
Africa within the CCSL4 project, this core investigation activity consists of indentifying groups of
3
EMUDE (Emerging Users Demands for Sustainable Solutions) is a Specific Support Actions funded
by the European Commission and aiming at detecting needs for technological developments to
support strengthening and deployment of social innovation in Europe.
4
CCSL (Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles) is a research project within the Marrakech
Task Force on Sustainable lifestyles funded by the Swedish Ministry of Environment within the 10th
years framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production supported by the United
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
9
sustainability active, cooperative people (the Creative Communities) who self-organise, through a
high level of initiative and entrepreneurship, to invent and practise solutions appropriate to their
needs. These solutions are recognised as new ways of doing - alternatives to the mainstream and
promising in terms of sustainability. The systematic investigation and documentation of these
initiatives locally in a neighbourhood, a city or a region reveals how these Creative Communities are
both social laboratories inventing new and more sustainable ways of living and the social context
from which to further develop and deploy these sustainable ways of living.
Action-learning approach and user-centred investigation tools...
How to start/develop/disseminate it?
Many of the skills needed to support investigating activities are part of the designer’s toolkit: tracking
(via sketch, photo or video), interviewing; synthesising; extracting content; translating and giving
form to information to make it understandable and inspiring to others (mainly to non-designers).
Investigating is more effectively carried out in (small) groups, where skills and profiles can be
balanced (male/female, listeners/talkers, observers/recorders etc.).
Schools (students and researchers) are the principal resource. The investigating process demands
a relatively large taskforce, able to offer time and energy. Hence, active learning tasks are integrated
as a broader education framework of investigating activities.
As a first step, practical and general contextual information can be gathered via Internet but
investigating is essentially a question of tracking down innovative, sustainable forms of living, in situ,
and encouraging people to tell their stories.
In DOTT07 designers, working in interdisciplinary teams, conducted investigations at Platform level
(“shallow dive”) and Project level (“deep dive”) by inviting various stakeholders to help define and
build partnerships for the project and by carrying out cultural probes, ‘shadowing’ or co-creating films
to inspire creative exchange and involve stakeholders in the process.
The Malmö Social Innovation Living Lab underlines the importance of building close relationships
with stakeholders. This is likely to be dependent on time available for trust building and the maturity
to manage exchanges. The two-fold aim here is not only of mapping the details of a particular
project but also carefully preparing the ground for future initiatives.
A mix of bottom-up and top-down approach...
What are the expected results/outputs/benefits?
The initial EMUDE/CCSL research projects quoted above focused on a qualitative inventory of social
innovations which were promising in terms of sustainable living. The scope was to investigate
different socio-economical contexts worldwide to build a catalogue of cases and identify recurrent or
similar solutions. This catalogue is the core of the investigating activity and works both as a bottomNation Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Department of Social and Economic Affairs
(UN-DESA).
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
10
up exploration and a top-down design projection. The catalogue is a reference to show the wide
range of existing typologies of initiatives and to orientate local investigation (do similar cases exist
locally?). It works also as a source of inspiration (could such cases be developed there if they don't
exist yet?). The different typologies recorded in the catalogue are progressively enriched by new
local investigations.
With the Feeding Milan project, investigation was carried out to establish the strengths and
weaknesses of the Parco Sud context, in order to draw out existing project/people assets (capital) to
build on for future project development. Two categories of social initiatives of short food network and
local tourism were particularly focused and then systematically investigated.
As demonstrated in the in the Amplify project, students from Parsons New School for Design were
asked to discover and make a comprehensive mapping of examples of urban activism in New
York’s Lower East Side. Interactive settings in the public exhibition developed after were aimed at
completing - through a crowd-sourcing like process - an investigation as exhaustive as possible of
all existing initiatives.
In Chong Ming Island, investigation did not identify particular interesting local initiatives already
existing within the rural population. In this case, investigating was conducted more as a generic
exploration activity to better understand the context and assess if, for instance, similar strategies
based on short food network and local tourism could be pertinent. In the same way the opportunity to
implement other collaborative services was also confronted with the local context.
DOTT07 is an example of a more design-led approach. Five overall project themes were set up by
the main board (led by the British Design Council) with the aim to promote, enhance and connect
existing initiatives, opportunities and needs.
In Feeding Milan and Amplify, investigating seems to be first a bottom-up exploration whereas in
Chong Ming Island and DOTT07 investigating is more guided by a top-down design projection.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
11
FACILITATING
In short...
Facilitating regards design activities that in different ways promotes diverse stakeholders
(such as citizens, NGO:s) to get involved in Framework Project and/or Local project with
different aims depending on the stage of the project in which occur and its characteristics.
Basically facilitating is always devoted to the action of making people, stakeholder, users
able to express their opinion and to include their vision in the project as requirements and/or
project drivers.
If facilitating is analysed from the side of the two project typologies: i. e. FP and LP a
fundamental difference observed:
 facilitating in FM deals with the stakeholder partecipation to the develpment of the
project vision and overall scenario (what the project will be at its end)
 facilitating in LP is more about engaging various stakeholders in the design process
of punctual solutions, collecting data and exploring ideas, ‘doing’ and ‘seeing’ things
differently or together.
More
What are the main characteristics/aspects/dimensions of the activity? How to
start/develop/disseminate it?
Facilitating concerns the driving forces and everyday activities among stakeholders, how
they can be supported and synchronized to become and active part of the project.
Often facilitating is a contextual design activity that can be concentrated in a 1 week
workshop with the aim to develop visions for the context in which the design action is taking
place. That means, for example, helping stakeholder to participate in developing visions for
future Framework project that could invest their context.
Chong-Ming Island is an example where facilitating has served the process of generating a
vision ofr a FP. The mutual understanding of stakeholders (obtained by conducting 3
different 1 week whorkshops) was something that really oriented the direction of the project.
It provided a role for design to act as mediator by designing different co-design activities to
make communication among people as clear as possible and to develop ideas for a FP that
could become a proposal on which to obtain funds.
In Nord-pas-de-Calais Sustainable Periurban facilitating has been used mainly to develop
specific ideas for Local Projects.
Dott07 represents a case in which facilitating has be especially implied as a variety of forms
and levels of engagements with end users such as design camps, explorer clubs, co-design
sessions, design into schools, community awards, events, activities (urban farming) and
installations to enable end users partecipation and active engagement.
In Malmö social innovation living lab project the approach has been to build long term trust
with the stakeholders through collaborative hands on activities and by doing experiments that
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
12
match and make sense from the perspective of the stakeholders everyday activities
(classical participatory design process). Also starting early on to investigate the key qualities
and resources among stakeholders and then highlighting and reinforce them. Dissemination
is done by a collaborative effort including all stakeholders’ perspective and how they have
been affected by the project.
Finally “Amplyfing LES communities””Milano Parco Sud” represent 2 cases of advaced FP
within which a sub-set of LP has been already activated. They both show the two possible
ways in which facilitating can be exploited in a design driven social innovation project (see
the description at the beginning of this chapter).
What are the expected results/outputs/benefits?
Expected results include a sustainable network of stakeholders that trust each other and
have a common work language. It also consists of a capacity to mobilize interdisciplinary
resources and promote mutual learning among diverse stakeholders.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
13
ENVISIONING
In short
Envisioning is about those design activities devoted to figure out and represent, in a visual
language, potential design trajectories/ideas/solutions for Framework projects. Envisioning
takes place basically to inform and build up the vision of a FP.
Outputs of this activity are generally scenarios and simulations.
At the beginning of a project it is in the hands of the designers choosing to start and to
stimulate a strategic conversation with the project stakeholders to build, share and agree on
the overall vision that will characterise the project, about its strategic aims, about what is
expected from it to affect and in which way it will change the context in which it will be
developed.
As secondary level, envisioning also occurs to figure out Local projects that can emerge as
possible specific design solutions: ideas of products, services, interactions that can be
represented in form of sketches, prototypes, mock-ups, storyboard, videos that represent
and show and communicate the idea of a local project.
More
Envisioning to communicate and raise consensus about a problem/project
Projects collected for SEEK are often leaded by design team (students and teachers) from
schools that for the educational activity requested in laboratories have started to work on an
experimenting domain as is, at the moment, for design, social innovation, to elaborate vision
and scenarios for possible projects and detailed ideas and solution potentially
implementable. Envisioning in these cases seems to take the configuration of a design
research activity that having recognised a problem start to envisioning possible strategies to
solve it.
This is what is going on in Chong Ming project, where, by the means of a series of 3
workshops students have worked trying to solve a list of problems:
The periurban countryside area is under the pressure of urbanization.
The industrialized agriculture is poorly efficient, and the income of farming is quite low.
The existing condition of health care, education and transportation could not satisfy the
demands. More and more farmers left their villages and settled in the city.
On the other hand, the populous Shanghai city has a great deal of demand of agricultural
products, especially safe, local, seasonal food. And the interest of agritourism is visible
among the citizen.
This by envisioning a vision like:
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
14
a rural-urban area where agriculture flourishes feeding the city and, at the same time,
offering citizens opportunities for a multiplicity of farming and nature related activities and by
visualising it with different support (sketches, videos, pictures, interviews).
The envisioned vision and the materials produced during the workshops are becoming the
basis on which to communicate the problems of the Island and to raise the awareness about
them and the consensus of different stakeholders to promote a design project devoted to
implement the vision in a series of real initiatives.
Envisioning to build a common vision for a Framework project
Some of the cases collected (advanced as Feeding Milano or at the beginning, as Nord-Pasde-Calais) are characterised by the fact that they are real project leaded by Design: that
means that Design, represented by a team of professionals or researchers, has received
funds to build up a social innovation project. In these cases envisioning become the first step
of a framework project and it aim is to build, together with all the interested stakeholders, a
possible scenarios for the project. This is what is happening in Nord-Pas-de-Calais where:
envisioning is used to kick off a framework project: a design-driven projection allows to build
a 'demonstrator' of what the potential framework project could look like. The form (here
multiple video-sketch) is chosen to be as suggestive as possible to raise stakeholder
interests and engage the strategic conversation.
Envisioning to figure out possible Local Project/solutions/small scale experiments
For those cases that are in the stage of designing solutions it always, in the SEEK collection,
took the form of a local project (a self-standing project that, in the context where it is
embedded must be: economically, technologically and socially viable. And, therefore, it must
refer to locally already existing active communities or to communities that are activated by
the same project proposals). For local projects envisioning works in order to produce solution
and ideas to be visualised by mock-ups, videos, storyboard that make LP visible and help to
communicate them to the project co-design community.
For Feeding Milano this goals has been reached by implementing different contextual
workshops, leaded by design researchers from Politecnico of Milano with the interested
communities make concrete the ideas of the project.
For Malmo envisioning has been more a collaboration between the design team and the
community of the project to explore how to set up small scale experiments in real context
(with low costs) based on functioning prototypes. By conducting the experiments a follow up
has been made to articulate the qualities revealed by experiments and articulate specific
qualities among stakeholders.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
15
Key points:
Envisioning can be a shared process between designers and stakeholder to develop a
project vision and scenario
Envisioning can be a design activity that aim to figure out ideas of possible local project
Envisioning can produce different visual outputs to communicate with different stakeholders
(from visual storyboard that tell a story to the stakeholders to small scale experiments that,
by the means of functioning prototypes make the envisioned solution real and experiential for
stakeholders).
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
16
SYSTEMIZING
In short...
Systemizing corresponds to a series of design activities oriented towards organising
synergies and multiplication effects between the different single projects or elements of the
project. The synergies targeted range from a communication framework giving visibility to a
series of Local Projects form the same region to the development of exchanges,
collaborations and partnerships liking the single projects into an active network on the
territory. Systemizing process consist in clustering local projects with similar patterns,
recognizing potential relationships between them, activating connections and organizing
collaboration. The result is the constitution of a Framework Project describing the most
promising synergies in a vision to support local development and a related strategy to
implement this vision.
More...
A system of Local Projects
What are the main characteristics/aspects/dimensions of the activity?
A Framework Project is based on a number of Local Projects with a certain level of interlinkage between each other. The nature of the links may be of different nature
In DOTT07 the different Local Project on food, energy, transport... develop in parallel with a
low level of synergy between them. At the Framework Project level they represents a
panorama of main need area in the North-East England region and demonstrate how design
can involve and support each of these areas. But on the field, each Local Project has little to
do with the other. The DOTT07 project act as a main glue between them, activating them
through a series of common engaging activities such as performances, installations, awards,
challenges... and wrapping them in a same communication push through the project website,
the final festival... enhancing the overall visibility of DOTT07.
In Feeding Milan the Local Projects belong essentially to two categories: short food
distribution and local tourism. The Framework Project doesn't focus a complete panorama of
the regional activities or need areas. But the subgroup of Local Projects considered shows
strong linkage between them. Actors and resources are connected so that they generate
synergies and, through collaboration they share risk and experience. This higher level of
synergy is based on a vision (a rural-urban area where agriculture flourishes feeding the city
and, at the same time, offers citizens opportunities for a multiplicity of farming and nature
related activities) and a related strategy ('zero mile food and tourism') to implement this
vision.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
17
Searching for synergies...
How to start/develop/disseminate it?
The core of the systemizing activity consists in searching for more consistent and powerful
synergies within an existing local context.
The first step is contained in the INVESTIGATING activity in order to explore and identify
local potential. In the Amplify project, a systematic mapping of all promising social initiatives
is undertaken in NY Lower East Side. A clustering process among all the cases collected
shows a structure based on 4 thematic areas of healthy food, connected elderly,
neighbourhood socialisation and local cultural heritage. The very fact of projecting this
structure and recognizing groups of initiatives relating to the same goal raise potential
connection, collaboration and synergies.
An activation of these thematic areas (giving them more visibility promoting the Amplify
exhibition, supporting individual public design commission projects in DOTT07 or organising
a political platform of workshops, seminars, meeting among stakeholders in Feeding Milan)
can enhance their synergetic potential and reinforce them.
The systemizing activity is based on a mix of promoting bottom-up spontaneous adherence
between Local Projects and projecting top-down design visions to start connections that are
not likely to emerge by themselves. Malmö Social Innovation Living Lab promotes an openended structure that’s flexible enough to allow new collaborations to emerge. Cases that can
be aligned get the opportunity to increase. Other cases decrease (until a new opportunity
emerge). Connections may arise not only between cases themselves but also with private
companies, public institutions or other close Framework Projects. Balancing a loose
approach with a design driven process is important to leave the time to unexpected
synergies to emerge and reveal stronger adherences than a first design envisioning activity
would have pointed.
Looking for an acupuncture effect...
What are the expected results/outputs/benefits?
The result of systemizing activity should lead to a highest possible level of synergy between
the Local Projects. In the Sustainable Periurban in Nord-Pas-de-Calais tentative Framework
Project the challenge is to identify synergies with a potential to produce a systemic effect
beyond the improvement of the single cases considered. The strategy follows the metaphor
of acupuncture which is based on a low number of local points to activate particular flows of
energy between them and obtain a systemic relief in the whole body.
Feeding Milan focuses only the food system but builds on a series of cultural leverage points
in Italy such as the increased interest in revitalizing traditional food quality, the developed
practice of agro-tourism hosted by local farms or the promotion of the rich cultural and
architectural and landscape heritage. The expected results of this Framework Project is
therefore likely to go beyond a new food and tourism network and achieve the revitalisation
of the Parco Sud subpart of the region, improving the perception of the whole periurban
areas, pointing virtuous circles of relationship with the nearby city of Milan and potentially
prompting other developments in side sectors.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
18
The 'zero miles food and tourism' strategy emerges as a pattern of Framework Project. It's
value is recognized beyond the case of Feeding Milan and was proposed by the design
teams as a systemizing approach in the farming island of Chong-Ming nearby Shanghai or
for the sustainable periurban around Lille.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
19
ENABLING
In short...
Enabling is a set of design activities aiming at developing the capacity and ability of project
participants to actively participate in the process and in implementing the solution (cocreation). In some cases physical toolkits or digital platforms are developed to help
participants to map and visualise existing promising initiatives to be included in the
framework programme, in this way amplifying the exploratory capacity of the initial design
team (see crowdsourcing). In other examples enabling activities consist mainly in knowledge
transfer and sharing sessions among various stakeholders; these processes can be provided
as capacity building exercises (see training on Film making in DOTT07) or developed as
more mutual learning processes to visualise knowledge which is relevant for potential project
collaborations. Finally enabling kits are also developed as a way to support people to further
implement and test the solution once ideated, acting as prototypes or real social platforms.
More...
A platform to amplify change processes
What are the main characteristics/aspects/dimensions of the activity?
Considering the scale of intervention of Framework Programmes, enabling activities have
generally the aim to amplify its research, collaboration and implementation capacity,
therefore also increasing its potential legacy. When projects use design schools as main
actors for change, design and investigation toolkits are developed to enable students to
conduct the research activities and to create comparable outcomes.
As an example in Amplify, Parsons’ students under the supervision of the design firm IDEO
are currently designing a series of toolkits aiming at disseminating examples of collaborative
services in the Lower East Side. The toolkits will be available for download at the project
website and should encourage individuals, local non-profits and policy-makers in the
adoption of solutions that promote sustainable lifestyles in the Lower East Side.
Enable activities can also be oriented toward creating the capacity and skills of project
participants to become active co-designers. In this case designers might organise training
sessions, visualise research outcomes or engage in knowledge sharing conversations.
In Feeding Milano for example the research team built visualizations aiming to enable
stakeholders to participate to the design process. Also to enhance their capacity and attitude
towards envisioning solutions as useful tool in design collaborations. In DOTT07 a design
studio, Thinkpublic, organised a skills share day on video making with BBC for project
participants, this to enable them to generate video interviews to be elaborated in a film for the
design team.
Finally enabling activities can be oriented toward providing the platforms and tools for people
to implement the ideas and start collaborating in new ways. In Feeding Milano and NeWu
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
20
this translated into a series of digital services that worked as a connecting system through all
the Framework Programme. In other examples they can be small prototypes, like a paper liftshare toolkit in Move Me project in DOTT07, that the communities can adopt and adapt to
their needs and shape their activities.
Create, Test and Diffuse
- How to start/develop/disseminate it?
Enabling activities and toolkits can be designed by a group of design teachers or
professionals as the project progresses. In general toolkits are actually designed and
improved after some initial testing phase. For example in Nord-pas-de-Calais Sustainable
Periurban a toolkit for participants in the Territoires ed Résidence was progressively
developed through an iterative learning process capitalising on the experiences of the first 5
residences. The toolkit was then presented as a Resident Guide based on a series of pages
posted online for a shared use and upgrade between all the participants to the Territoires en
Résidences programme. Hard copies in forms of a booklet or separate deck of cards to
facilitate personalisation of the methodology were given to each new resident teams. The
Resident Guide was based on 3 sections: a general overview of a residence defining the
approach and main features; a chronological narration of a typical residences process; a
toolbox with compulsory tools, favourite and other ones.
This iterative and refining process is also evident in the Amplify research with the support of
a design company IDEO. Also Thinkpublic within DOTT07 formalised their engagement
process, developing toolkits and process mapping for NHS to be implemented and diffused
as innovation processes.
In other cases the enabling capability is demonstrated mainly in the capacity of design teams
to adapt their tools and language depending on the kind of audience and participants.
Enabling is also not only a matter of providing knowledge and tools, but also create spaces
and occasions for people to share their experiences, resources and needs. This is an
ongoing learning process that should be better formalised for designers to learn the right
skills and approaches to enhance these kinds of conversations.
Wider and Lasting Legacy and People Empowerment
- What are the expected results/outputs/benefits?
Enabling activities are generally developed to enhance participation, amplify research
capacities and create a wide and lasting legacy in the territory. This requires the capacity to
adapt tools to the ability of project participants, to verify that they are meaningful and to
constantly refine their effectiveness. When projects work ideas and innovation approaches
last beyond the initiative. In some cases this is reflected in a wider adoption of the tools to
replicate similar change initiatives (see the toolkits of Nord-pas-de-Calais Sustainable
Periurban or Ampify) or by the transfer of skills in working environments (see DOTT07
Alzheimer project) or by the adoption of digital services or prototypes to implement the
solutions.
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
21
COMMUNICATING
In short
Communicating is the process of disseminating a project and making its results visible and
desirable. The process of communicating in the SEEK cases collection aims basically at:
design the brand and images of a project (Framework Projects or Local Projects); to design
the correspondent communication tools, to make coherent the communication of each Local
Projects with the communication developed for the Framework one.
In Framework Projects communicating is a transversal activity that undergoes to all of the
Local Projects. This corresponds to the idea that the brand of a local project, its image, tools,
channels, messages and values has to be coherent with those of the others and that they
has to be defined in terms of the Framework project brand, image and values.
Communicating also play the role of making visible the links among local projects (supporting
the emergence of the framework level), it represents the glue of the Framework Projects.
More...
In the design projects collected from SEEK the idea that communicating is an activity
devoted to disseminate can be further elaborated in terms of the need that a project has to
be communicated at all of the external audiences that it can serve and the need to
communicate and engage all of the direct stakeholders of the project. This with different level
of granularity depending on the project stages.
In general all of the projects collected in SEEK implement a series of action devoted to
develop the project brand and image and another set devoted to stimulate the stakeholders
participation in the project
For instance in Chong Ming Island as well as in Feeding Milano communicating has been
represented in different workshops as one of the line on which design will work to develop
the Chong Ming Island and the Parco Sud identity and to find ways to communicate it. For
both these framework project communication held a strategic role: discovering values,
building identity on values, and communicating the identity. Then for Chong Ming a series of
light tools has been developed to communicate with end users only for the purpose of the
workshop. In Feeding Milano, the most advanced framework project with 2 different local
projects implemented, communicating is also mining to establish all of the possible
connection and channels to support people participation to the project not only in the design
phase (new letter, web site and tools that explain how to become a partner of the project…).
Malmo Social Innovation Living Labs, on the other side, is a Framework Project where, as
first action, a huge amount of communication has been devoted to stimulate people direct
participation in the project, to obtain the direct involvement of the end users more then to
promote it. At the moment, the project is in an advanced phase of development and
communication is taking the form of a strategic tool to engage a larger number of stakeholder
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
22
from end users to municipality, civil servant, private companies…But the project still lack of a
brand and image that communicate its identity and represent its value.
In DOTT07 communicating as been mainly devoted to connect (engage) and share methods
and results among the different initiatives on the territory.
A brand and a project identity has been elaborated at the level of framework but most of the
local projects on the territory had their own blog to track project progress, support trust and
transparency.
Communicating in LES represents the most innovative example. In this case both the need
to communicate the project image and that of communicate and engage end users and
stakeholder has been satisfied with the design of innovative communication tools a san
exhibition of the project first results that has been designed to peruse three different goal:
-
Communicating to the city the project: its existence, its values and identity
-
Communicating with end users and stakeholders that by visiting the exhibition could
directly express their ideas, needs, beliefs
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
23
Orientation guidelines
From the transversal analysis of the different cases documented, a series of tentative
guidelines have been outlined. They should not be intended as compulsory directions to
follow but more as promising characteristics of Framework Projects and Local Projects that
are likely to play a key role in their in their successful development.
They are presented hereafter as a series of orientations that emerged from the sample
analysed and appears as the most differentiating from mainstream local development
approaches. These orientation guidelines should be also understood as an attempt to focus
a main cluster of design activities and a core process towards the engagement of
framework/local projects.
The tentative orientation guidelines for each of the seven clusters of design activities:
LEADING
• Start with a design team, taking the initiative to set a tentative framework/local project by
both involving local stakeholders and shaping with them a draft future vision...
• Organise project-oriented investigation, where field analysis, rather than an end is a mean
to inspire new ideas and projects and an occasion to engage participation...
• Promote envisioning, simulation, experimentation, quick prototyping... that is more likely to
create convergence in a complex and heterogeneous stake holders environment, ...
INVESTIGATING
• Map the social assets of the place, promising in terms of sustainable living which means to
track often invisible and heterogeneous resources, to localise where they are situated one
form another, to represent them on the same support in order to create an overall picture of
the local potentials...
• Observe in-depth, take time to open the dialogue, take pictures and show them to the
populations observed, raise trust, use the investigation process as an occasion to team with
local stakeholders and to involve them...
• Involve large team such as design classes in order to get sufficient investigation capacities,
to give visibility to enough promising initiatives and to transfigure the mainstream perception
of the place...
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
24
FACILITATING
• Use participatory approaches and co-design processes to engage strategic conversation
between stakeholders, to build trust, mutual understanding and convergence...
• Bridge the gaps within a large and heterogeneous social fabric using project visions as
brokering process to overcome language, cultural and professional divide...
• Increase exchange, mutual learning, collective engagement towards acknowledgement of a
shared agenda, common interests and potential partnerships...
ENVISIONING
• Promote collective projection processes that focusing a shared desirable future situation,
facilitate the agreement on a back-casting process to reach it...
• Materialise the vision through visualisation and possibly simulation process to make it
accessible and tangible for the various populations involved and enhance its convergence
building power...
• Anticipate breakthrough solutions and strategies even providing at start only tentative or
fuzzy visions to familiarise with unexpected discontinuities and assess potential stakeholders
adhesion...
SYSTEMIZING
• Promote the emergence of a systemic vision where the inter-linkage between the single
local projects multiplies their value and strength...
• Focus on synergies, partnerships that are likely to have the strongest transformation effect
with the lightest requested effort...
• Balance a loose approach following stakeholders intuitions with a design driven projection
of possible partnerships to combine spontaneous bottom-up reticulation and top-down
structuration of the system...
ENABLING
• Transfer the skills and tools used for the launch phases of the framework/local projects to
all the stakeholders involved so that they will be able to carry on the development process
autonomously...
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
25
• Develop collaborative approaches into collective learning, knowledge transfer and capacity
building to enhance diffused skilled to take action...
• Provide all possible useful supports in an accessible, integrated and ready to use form
(toolkit, platform...) to facilitate appropriation and usability...
COMMUNIATING
• Consider the framework/local project as a self-standing entity with its own corporate identity
facilitating its dissemination, making its values more explicit and increasing its
recognisability...
• Dedicate time and effort to explain intentions, report progress in attractive ways, multiply
the different media to improve outreach and facilitate deployment...
• Ensure coherence and readability between framework project and local projects levels;
D 6.1 _ Framing the Enabling Kit approach _ PERL _ September 2010
26