Co-design tools in 'place' development projects: an ongoing research case

This paper presents a glimpse of an ongoing research project on sustainable "place" development. It focuses on the importance of using a co-design approach with the community, and on some experimental tools used in the design process. It will introduce the notion of design for "place" development applied in a research case called Feeding Milan, a framework project about sustainable periurban agriculture. It will describe the case's regional context, its underlying motives and the drivers of the adopted strategy. Then the paper will investigate the design communities involved and will provide a description of the co-design approach and of the tools used. The aim is to point out how Service Design may improve the quality of life in so called rururban areas, by involving local communities in targeted steps of the solution development process so that they are part of it, as well as of the context, in order to support agricultural activities and shorten up the food chain.