67 research outputs found

    Material mutualisms

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    The chapter is about some projects developed by students during the Public Space Design Studio 2021/2022, led by professor Federica Dal Falco with PhD student Carmen Rotondi (Design Bachelor Degree course, Sapienza University of Rome). The text introduces the following projects in their materiality and shows how transferring design approaches to materials in public space design can be a proper didactic and innovation strategy that stimulates holistic thinking and applications of meaning. In fact, in the process of materializing a space's project, referring both to the surfaces (horizontal and vertical) and to the objects that populate an area, students are involved in an iterative exercise of analysis and synthesis aimed at capturing the different aspects of a context, to identify the relationships and to concretize a symbiotic composition. Therefore, the choice of materials with which to shape the project generates catalysis in the innovation process through the re-evaluation and enhancement of mutualism between the space and the broader context in which it is inserted: from the urban fabric to the nature of the place, to its history and communities; from local challenges to the broader concepts of sustainability, inclusion and accessibility; from the symbolic and semantic aspects to the languages ​​you want to communicate and the experiences you want to generate

    Sinergie in 4D. Nuovi protocolli ibridi di bio-fabbricazione

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    L’idea di ricerca proposta intende cogliere le potenzialità e le sfide offerte dalla contemporanea era bio-digitale caratterizzata da cambiamenti tecnici e culturali che, spostando l’asse su una dimensione ibrida a cavallo tra natura e artificio, influiscono fortemente sulla pratica del design. Il progetto si pone proprio tra queste due “culture progettuali” e indaga le potenzialità che una futura interazione e integrazione con e tra processi digitali e biologici ha in termini produttivi, espressivi e progettuali. Per fare ciò, verrà messo a punto un processo di bio-stampa, ispirato a quello attualmente utilizzato in ingegneria tissutale, che prevede la progettazione algoritmica e la produzione additiva di una struttura temporanea in materiale organico, capace di supportare la crescita cellulare di una specie vivente, che colonizzando la struttura sottostante dà all’artefatta nuova identità materica. Si generano in questo modo, nuovi protocolli ibridi di bio-fabbricazione che aggiungono una quarta dimensione, data dall’azione della materia biologica, capace di modificare nel tempo fisicità e caratteristiche del prodotto finale, nonché di influenzare fortemente il processo progettuale del designer

    Design 2030. Thinking, Tinkering, Thinkering

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    The iconographic collection aims to explore the eclectic production ways that arise from the dynamism of these phenomena, giving voice to a design that gives rise to collective processes rather than products and new forms of constructive interaction not only between people with other people but also between people, new technologies and the same matter. Consumers are no longer the endpoint of the process, but an integral part of it, they transform and benefit from adaptive evolutionary systems rather than artifacts. Applied to research, the new approach reevaluates experimentation itself as a cross-disciplinary ground for acquiring new knowledge, exploring the new, prefiguring the future. The results are complex scenarios and solutions, often with substantial social value, very close to the issues of public utility, such as equity, well-being and health

    Oltre le frontiere

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    Racconto che, attraverso un'accurata raccolta iconografica, si addentra negli scenari contemporanei in cui il pensiero progettuale si contamina di volta in volta con le diverse scienze, sia le più classiche cosiddette “dure”, come la matematica, la biologia, la chimica; sia le più avanzate, fluide e interdisciplinari, come la robotica, le biotecnologie e le scienze mediche, mettendo in mostra concretizzazioni tecniche ed espressive che, come in un gioco ricorsivo, oscillano al di qua e al di là delle frontiere ibride. Il vivente diventa riferimento, materia prima e modello per artefatti innovativi, in grado di fronteggiare le sfide odierne, come sostenibilità, salute e personalizzazione, ma anche di cambiare il modo di percepire la realtà e prefigurare il futuro

    Beyond borders

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    Story-telling that, through an iconographic collection, goes into the contemporary scenarios in which the design thinking is in turn contaminated with the different Sciences, from the most traditional, so-called “hard” ones – like math, biology, chemistry –, to the most advanced, fluid and interdisciplinary ones – like robotics, biotechnology and medical science –, showing technical and expressive entities that, like a recursive effect, sway on both sides of the hybrid borders. The living becomes inspiration, raw material and model for innovative artifacts, able to face contemporary issues, like sustainability, healthcare and customization, as well as to change our way to perceive reality and foreshadow the future

    Bio-visioni del futuro. Tra sparizione dei confini e bio-intelligenza / Bio-visions of the Future. Between fading borders and bio-intelligence

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    Oggi, le nuove tecnologie legate alla manipolazione del vivente stanno diventando sempre più diffuse, accessibili ed economiche, dando vita ad una Rivoluzione biologica in cui i designer sembrano esserne i protagonisti. Con l’avvento della biologia sintetica infatti, le scienze della vita abbandonano il carattere prevalentemente descrittivo, per trasformarsi in una disciplina ingegneristica, sviluppando strumenti (hardware e software), interessi e modi di lavorare che avvicinano, come mai prima d’ora, l’ambito scientifico a quello progettuale. A legare ancor di più queste sfere apparentemente opposte, è un cambio di paradigma dovuto al dissolversi del confine che finora separava naturale e artificiale, e che ci porta a vedere il mondo come un organismo, una grande entità complessa, in cui anche naturale e artificiale sono strettamente interrelati dai fili di un’ecologia ibrida. Di conseguenza, gli scienziati si rivolgono ai designer per le loro capacità immaginative ed interpretative della realtà; mentre i designer si rivolgono ai biologi per adempiere al meglio al loro ruolo di agenti del cambiamento, tra gli avanzamenti da cogliere e la vita delle persone a cui trasmetterli al meglio. L’articolo racconta questa trasformazione attraverso diversi esempi, focalizzandosi soprattutto sull’identità in divenire dei prodotti che ne verranno fuori. Essi infatti, saranno caratterizzati da una peculiarità: la bio-intelligenza. In essi la natura non verrà usata né come riferimento formale, né come ispirazione per il progetto, né come materia prima inerte, ma come materia viva, biologicamente attiva. Ciò sarà un aspetto fondamentale che i designer dovranno considerare, perché i prodotti del futuro saranno vivi, in grado crescere, interagire ed adattarsi, stravolgendo il modo stesso di esistere nel mondo e di rapportarsi con chi li usa.Today, the new technologies dealing with living matter manipulation are becoming increasingly widespread, accessible and economical, giving rise to a Biological Revolution in which designers seem to be the protagonists. In fact, with the advent of synthetic biology, life sciences leave the predominantly descriptive character to become an engineering discipline, developing tools (hardware and software), interests and ways of working that brings together, as never before, science to design. To bind these apparently opposite spheres even more, is a change of paradigm due to the dissolving of the boundary until now between natural and artificial, and which leads us to see the world as an organism, a huge complex entity, in which they are closely interrelated by the threads of a hybrid ecology. Consequently, scientists turn to designers for their imaginative and interpretative abilities of reality; in contrast, designers turn to biologists to best fulfill their role as agents of change, between the advances to grasp and the lives of people to who return them. The article explains this transformation through several examples, focusing above all on the evolving identity of the products that will emerge. They will be characterized by a peculiarity: the bio- intelligence. In them, nature will be used neither as a formal reference, nor as inspiration for the project, nor as an inert raw material, but as a living, biologically active matter. This will be a fundamental aspect that designers will have to consider because the products of the future will be alive, able to grow, interact and adapt, distorting the very way of existing in the world and of relating with those who use them

    Attestato Targa Giovani XXVI Edizione Premio Compasso d'Oro ADI

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    Sinapsi è un prodotto per atleti non vedenti, che inspirato al meccanismo dell'ecolocalizzazione dei chirotteri, mira a dare loro la possibilità di svolgere una gara di corsa autonomamente senza l'aiuto di una guida, ma ancor di più permette loro di esplorare l'ambiente circostante con il suono, dando l'opportunità al cervello di sviluppare una rappresentazione del mondo basata su esso, che diverrà il senso dominante e assicurerà un feedback costante in ogni cosa essi faranno. Il progetto nasce a seguito di numerose ricerche scientifiche che spaziano dai meccanismi del nostro cervello, come la cognizione spaziale o il controllo motorio; ai comportamenti dei pipistrelli, al processamento degli echi, alle affordances. Altri aspetti, come la facile fruibilità del prodotto; la flessibilità d'uso, l'hardware necessario sono stati ugualmente studiati, il tutto con l'obiettivo di rendere il consumatore attivo rispetto alla tecnologia, la quale si limita a fornire gli strumenti per sviluppare nuove capacità proprie

    How the informed relations between physical, digital and biological dimensions are changing the design practice, as well as the sustainability paradigm

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    In the “century of biotechnology”, a new form of “bio-digital industry” is emerging in which, thanks to increasingly sophisticated and digitized technologies that allow engineering and production on a biological quantum scale, it is possible to analyze and reproduce the generative, chemical, physical, and molecular processes underlying natural mechanisms. Inheriting methodologies and technologies from biological fabrication, bio-digital practices foster a new material-based biological paradigm that, bringing biomimicry to a material level, allows designers to observe substances and logic used by nature for assembling and structuring its materials, developing more sustainable and strategic ways for artifice manufacturing, as well as replicating complex, tailored, and emergent biological qualities. The paper aims to describe the new hybrid manufacturing techniques, demonstrating how the transition from form-based to material-based approaches also leads to the change of logic and conceptual frameworks in design practices, allowing greater alignment with the paradigms of biological growth. In particular, the focus is on informed relations between physical, digital, and biological dimensions, allowing interaction, development, and mutual empowerment between entities and disciplines belonging to them. Such a correlative strategy can help design to apply systemic thinking, from the scale of the material to that of the product and the process, paving the way to sustainable scenarios, not simply to reduce the human impact on the ecosystem but to enhance nature through original cooperation and integration forms between humans, biology, and machines

    The Sound of Sustainability. Biomaterials and new sensory frontiers.

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    Sound is every day inescapable part of our perceptual experience and, interacting with other senses, contributes to what we call synesthetic experience. The paper investigates the possibilities that design research can provide in this area in terms of "sensory enhancement" and the construction of a "memory identity," with a focus on those offered by new biomaterials. Peanut Butteria Stick, drum sticks made from peanut shells waste, highlights how, through a methodology of Material Driven Design and Material Tinkering, the "sensoaesthetic" qualities of new materials can open up new "worlds of senses" and how new biomaterials, in addition to driving the development of a new sensitivity toward the acceptance of the sincere identity of matter, can help communicate a new ethical consciousness, transforming "sustainability into "responsibility", a dimension that involves us all. This opens to a new field of experimentation for Design: Designing sound and defining a new sensory architecture

    Hylocene: an exploratory pathway among the "today's materials"

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    The paper presents Hylocene, the (physical and virtual) material library of the Sapienza University of Rome, based at the research infrastructure for innovation SAPeri&Co. This material library diverges from the others whose primary objective is to facilitate the access and exchange of information relating to the materials between producers and potential users and their dissemination and application in innovative products. Instead, Hylocene aims to leave space for more fluid research, which stimulates rather than informs and which specific target are designers and planners in general. Hylocene is, in fact, a material library that aims to encourage and inspire new synaesthesia of thought, activating new connections through the use of specific algorithms and a system of tags and clouds, capable of opening up to the complexity of the present in original and unique ways, with particular attention to the challenge of sustainability
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