Abstract:

Within the design literature, the discourse on relationality spans various perspectives, from relational aesthetics, to narrative and relational identity and storytelling, to relationality assuming indigenous and non-western meanings, intertwined with the concept of care and pluriverse, ultimately influencing the realm of design for social innovation. This paper positions itself within this broad discourse, with a specific aim to delineate the concept of relationality through a practice-based lens, spotlighting the relational experiments embedded in the “SMOTIES: Creative works with small and remote places” project. SMOTIES, funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union and engaging 10 different international partners, seeks to rejuvenate small and remote places through creative works: in Italy its activities focus on the town of Albugnano (Piedmont), confronting demographic decline and material and immaterial heritage loss, due to its geographical proximity to major cities. Led by the Polimi DESIS Lab, a laboratory from Politecnico di Milano, the four-year project aims to revitalize the area by engaging local actors towards envisioning future scenarios and taking short-term actions for the co-design of public spaces.

The relational experiments aimed at deepening the understanding about the local territory, intended both as situated place-based knowledge, and as a perception of the community’s internal dynamics, key elements for the success of a long-term regenerative effort through social innovation.

The relational approach, part of the SMOTIES activities, unfolded in three pivotal phases. Initially, the research phase gathered insights through 15 semi-structured interviews, mapping the web of local relational networks and the symbolic significance ascribed to each place. Following this, the sense-making phase translated these insights into practical tools for the research team, crafting a narrative map encapsulating local stories, identifying archetypes within social networks, and comparing current versus historical use of public spaces. The final phase, prototyping, ventures into the field to assess the relational practices' impact in fostering new social connections, deliberately amplifying local voices to challenge and invert the dynamics of knowledge and power often present in co-design workshops, where designers move into familiar practices, languages and tools.

Reflecting on the experiments conducted in the first half of 2023, this paper explores their influence on subsequent phases of the SMOTIES project. The deepened community relationship enabled by these practices spurred new reflections within the design team regarding the valorization of local knowledge forms, divergent from academic norms, and prompted a systemic perspective in the final design interventions. This approach, which incorporates local narratives into wayfinding elements, fosters a profound connection between tourists and residents, embedding the locals’ stories and memories.

Despite inherent limitations, these relational experiments demonstrate their potential to rethink co-design processes, advocating for a relational design framework rooted in care and pluriversality. This paper contributes a practical perspective towards defining relational design practices, showcasing their capacity to enrich social innovation efforts, positively impacting on critical success factors for such processes, and suggesting avenues for future research.

Keywords:

Relational Design, Local Narratives, Design for Social Innovation, Co-design, Public Places.