Friday, 16 July 2021

Pilot project presentations: FULCRUM – Research Centre for Material Culture in Transit

All times are CEST

Speakers meeting link: https://bit.ly/36uVRwF | Meeting attendants: Facebook live at https://www.facebook.com/designscapesproject/

17:30-17:45 Welcome and introduction
(Ilaria Tosoni & Talita Medina, Politecnico di Milano)
17:45-18:15 Presentation of the pilot project
(Francesca Gattello & Zeno Franchini, Marginal Studio)
18:15-18:30 Q&A and Discussion (*)
18:30 End

(*) Other winners of the Designscapes call with similar thematic orientation will be invited to contribute

Ilaria Tosoni, planner, post- doc researcher, Doctor of Science in Civil Engineering from the Institute for Spatial and Landscape development, ETH Zurich. Researcher at DAStU, Politecnico di Milano, has been collaborating on several EU funded projects by the HORIZON2020 program such as Open4Citizens, DESIGNSCAPES and MESOC. Her research focus is on transition and innovation processes in urban environments.

Talita Medina, graduated in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Brazil. Architect, with studies at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona in Urban Design and Urban and Territorial Planning. She was adjunct professor at DAStU – Politecnico di Milano – of the New Urban Scapes Town Planning Lab and Town Planning Design Workshop. Carry out professional and research activities on the subject of innovation in multiscalar urban transformation projects.

Francesca Gattello, graduated in Design at Politecnico of Milan, is a social designer, Third Sector entrepreneur, and post-master researcher for the Sylff Association (Japan), the Istituto di Formazione Politica “Pedro Arrupe” (Italy), and the Royal Institute of Art (Sweden). Her work focuses on material culture in the Mediterranean areas and she is engaged in the development of practices aimed at urban innovation in marginalised contexts. Since 2016 in Palermo he has been conducting fieldwork on the constitution of a network of workshops for social inclusion.

Zeno Franchini, graduated in Industrial Design at Politecnico of Milan with a Master in Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, is co-founder of Marginal and LOTS (Libero Osservatorio Territoriale Sud), He is visiting professor at MADE Program, Siracusa, and post-master researcher at the Royal Institute of Art (Sweden). His work focuses on participatory design practices, material culture and community self-construction. Since 2016 in Palermo he has been conducting fieldwork on the constitution of a network of workshops for social inclusion.

FULCRUM emphasizes the embedded value of crafting know-how and the potential of bringing together the motivation of European newcomers and centuries-old techniques that characterize local manufacture.

FULCRUM developed a design process that reimagines objects’ manufacture in an urban environment, as well as bridging between Sicilian culture and the migrants’ one through a co-design production cycle, mingling migrants’ and local heritage, and an Archive of knowledge that collects natural materials and techniques used in crafts worldwide.

Reconstructing the process of creation of material culture means to value migrations as a regenerative phenomenon and create innovative development models for peripheral territories. Through this process, we are outlining a design production alternative and reframe functions and interaction with crafts, which are otherwise threatened to disappear on an urban level.

FULCRUM collects and archives knowledge about materials and techniques that are barely even mentioned in design literature and that could be applied in the context of Palermo Palermo as a reference and an inspiration for boosting the development of new enterprises. The experimental furniture is the tangible result of the methodology we applied, based on social interaction and driven by design thinking, which creates a multilayered process reclaiming the materiality of the outcome, both to reach a wider audience and to gain an autonomous economical dimension over time.

An Archive of sustainable techniques and materials was realized as the first draft of an open collaborative database, a repository that spans from engineering information to ethno-anthropological meanings.

The successful realization of high-quality design prototypes is the core aim of FULCRUM: they represent the inputs of migrants and asylum seekers who participated in the project, they show the possibility for traditional crafts to renovate themselves and they suggest the role that design thinking must-have in this process of social inclusion. The participants were able to have an income from the creative activity in FULCRUM allowing them to inquire about the possibility of undertaking these professions or even start their own enterprise.

The objects produced were envisioned to create a community space and show-room, a place for the public to visit, to host events, and commission further productions. Creating a convivial environment and an open workshop in Palermo has a great social relevance: allowing equality in interactions based on cultural exchange and becoming a landmark for both migrant communities and creative ones.

FULCRUM aims to create a network of centers that can welcome and catalyze the know-how from marginalized cultures and can express their potential and dignity, design productions giving shapes to material culture, and making possible the transfer of knowledge.