enabling systems.

bottom-up, top-down and peer-to-peer interactions

Ezio Manzini INDACO, Politecnico di Milano

backgroundissues.

scaling-up.

future challenges

> billions of people have to re-orient their behaviors

> mainstream ideas on economy and wellbeing have to be changed

> world-wide infrastructures have to be re-shaped

can creative communities and diffuse social enterprises cope with the scale of the future challenges?

can creative communities and diffuse social enterprises move from being active minorities towards becoming mainstream social and economical organisations?

creative community(bits of) theory.

typologies

> micro-enterprises. > active welfare services. > networks of active people. > participative local institution

creative communities (1)

locally embedded initiatives based on specific service ideas.

creative communities (2)

forms of social organisation based (mainly) on peer-to-peer relationships (collaborative services).

creative communities (3)

grassroots initiatives that take place thanks to bottom-up, top-down and peer-to-peer interactions and exchanges.

creative communities (4)

organisations capable to transform users resources in individual and social values.

creative communities (5)

considering the individual and social values they produce the functional/economic dimension blurs in the social, cultural, ethical and political ones .

enabling systems(bits of) theory.

> favourable contexts as enabling frameworks.

> planned interventions as enabling platforms and solutions.

enabling frameworks.

enabling frameworks: governance tools, infrastructures and public spaces that are conceived to facilitate and consolidate grass roots innovations and to make them more easily replicable.

enabling platforms and solutions.

enabling solution: the combination of products, services, knowledge, procedures that, in a given context, enable people to get a given result

enabling platforms: the combination of products, services, knowledge, procedures that enable people to get a set of (different, but in some ways similar) results

articulation

pre-condition generation(in the preparatory phase)

integration and support(in the operational phase)

scaling-up in the age of networks.

scaling-up and relational qualities.

empowering strategies.

enabling potential: it indicates the degree of implementation in the user’s capabilities. I.e. the implementation of the user’s, or of the user’s context, enabling

characteristics

enabling characteristics

1. Individuals and/or communities empowerment

cultural capabilities (skills and knowledge)

physical capabilities (material prostheses)

psychological drivers (cultural or ethical interests)

economical drivers (saving money or being paid) 

enabling characteristics

2. Context conditions improvement

accessibility (reducing physical or psychological barriers)

time to do it (making more efficient the proposed activity, or liberating time in other activities)

space where to do it (reducing the needed space, or liberating other spaces, or creating new spaces)

enabling characteristics

3. Systemic issues development

organizational opportunity (to support the system organization)

network building (to support the connection between different actors)

community building (to support the building of new forms of communities)

critical mass generation (to involve the necessary number of participants)

replication strategies.

replication:

> accessibility> scale> tools

franchising, formats and other replication toolkits.

what to do.

policy makers…

new governance tools…

… to generate enabling platforms as favorable contexts for grass roots initiative and their evolution in lasting organizations

(possible) enabling policies:

> develop tolerant environment > improve accessibility to technologies > attract creative people > take seriously the subsidiarity principle

companies…

new market possibilities…

… specific enabling solutions that, conceived and tested in a specific context, can be used in other different ones.

research institutes…

new bodies of knowledge…

… to answer to social innovation demands, to reinforce open and peer-to-peer models and to link them with the most advanced scientific results.

(possible) lines of research:

> social innovation motivations > creative communities economics > P2P organizational models> implicit and explicit demands for enabling technologies > products, services and infrastructure for enabling solutions

design implications.

enabling systems and designing networks.

designers and designing networks.

step 1

to focus on promising cases and on the services ideas on which they are based.

to develop (participative) design tools to understand case and community specificities and their relationships with the social and physical environment.

step 2

to recognize the main qualities, difficulties and (possible) in-efficiencies.

to develop (conceptual and practical) design tools to analyze and evaluate complex systems.

step 3

to co-conceive and co-develop specific enabling solutions/platforms.

on the basis of the step 2, to design systems to reduce difficulties and inefficiencies (and, at the same time, to maintain the original qualities).

step 3plus

to conceive and develop new products and services to improve the first generation of enabling solutions/platforms.

what can designers do ? (to promote grass roots innovations)

1. to observe and give more visibility to the promising signals that the society is

emitting.

(to tune the “antennas” and to develop “filters”)

SustEveryday Triennale di Milano…

…“solutions basket”

Scenarios des Possibles PASS Brussels…

… “DIY-user research”

projection des 18 video-scénarios

Clavier de balance fruits et légumes à 18 touches.En appuyant sur un bouton, le video-scénario correspondant est projeté en grand avec son commentaire sonore.

2. ZONE DE CAS EXISTANTS

1. ZONE DE PRÉSENTATION DES SCÉNARIOS

3. ZONE INTERVIEWS VISITEURS

Un projecteur diapositives montre les cas existants sur lesquels s'appuient les vidéo-scénarios.

Un écran présente en continue les réactions de visiteurs dans les précédentes présentations des vidéo-scénarios (Triennale en 2003 et PASS en 2004).Les visiteurs du Centre Pompidou peuvent interagir et laisser à leur tour des remarques, suggestions, commentaires…

Sustainable Everyday Project Beaubourg Paris…

…“narratives repositories”

2. to generate a set of

orienting tools.

(to design scenarios as tools to feed the social conversation on the future)

visions, scenarios and catalyzing activities

visions: ways of doing in a possible, sustainable everyday life.

co-housing. groups of houses where people share some services, offer mutual help and develop commonly decided projects

extended home. neighborhood services that substitute the traditional domestic ones, promoting socialization and, potentially, a higher economic and environmental efficiency

Extended HomePARTY PLACE

Exceptional non-daily activities are easy to externalise as organising parties or large family meeting for which the house is not adapted because of a lack of space…

household entrepreneurship.services based on an extended use of the same capabilities that are needed for the normal domestic activities.

service club. places where “clubs of amateurs” organize different kinds of activities (practical, cultural, political initiatives)

elective communities. circles of citizens who choose to create networks in order to achieve different results (mutual help, goods exchange, collective purchases, …)

producer-consumer networks. they permit direct consumer-consumer and consumer-producer relationships

3. to propose new concepts

of enabling solutions.

(to give concrete ideas on what it could be possible to do)

(enabling products) multi-user washing machines, eg. the co-housing washing system

New community housing MULTI-USER LAUNDRY

The most diffused pattern is the sharing of equipments that like multi-users laundries are developed to facilitate collective use.

(enabling products) multi-user toolkits, eg. the do-it-yourself club

(enabling product and services) products and agencies supporting users in complex activities, eg. the energy club

Service ClubENERGY CLUB

Starting from amateur clubs background, they tends to maturates in offering professional services such as energy clubs with a clear offer of services to their members…

(enabling product and services) software and devices for shared use of cars, eg. the car sharing systems

(enabling products and services) devices for alternative mobility, eg. the car-pooling club

(enabling places and services) neighbourhood workshops for do-it-yourself activities eg. the wood atelier

Service ClubWOOD ATELIER

No clear distinction is made between users and providers since as in furniture workshop tyros are due to become progressively trainers…

Service ClubSECOND HAND FASHION ATELIER

Whatever is the motivation, the passion and enthusiasm of members ground the service such as for example sewing ateliers developing their own fashion styles from second hand clothes …

(enabling places and services) neighbourhood workshops for tailoring, eg. the fashion atelier

Producers & Consumers Networks REGIONAL MARKETS

Direct links with consumers are based on raising awareness on local production as with local TV shopping channels giving visibility to all what is available in a region…

(enabling services) communication systems to support local initiatives, eg. the neighbourhood TV

4. to design new sustainable

solutions.

(to make the most promising cases more effective and accessible)

"If you are not able to prepare your meals, you can't live on your own…"

Note: the idea is to set the scene with images showing La Fiambrera solution but with a phrase quoting the original CoU…

Rubi social services:"we try to keep as much

as possible elderly at their home"

Note: this image should change with one characteristic from Rubi social services…

"if you want fresh food, you have to come to the market !"

Employees choose menus and order shopping

SME

Catering Provider

Smart System

Catering prepares menus for SME’s and elderly

Catering delivers: meals for elderly into coolbox; picks up shopping

Catering enters different menus into the smart system

Local market

Elderly take their meals home

Social Services

Social services indicates numbers and specific needs for menus

Home

Local market prepares shopping packs

Local market enters product list and recieves food shopping orders

La FiambreraNote: some adjustments could be done to make it nicer…

Eurest cook

Marketstall

Delivery vandriver

Rubi socialservice

Smart systemoperator

a specific example.

the cohousing.it initiative in Milano

focaliziation …

common garden

common terrace

mrs. Smith home

John & Paul home

workshop

kindergaten

children’s roomBrown’s family home

Mary & Martha home

collective

dinning room

collective kitchen

laundry

car sharing

market

New residential models

nuovi modelli residenziali

observations …

enquires …

understanding of the problems…

shared visions

activation

planning

realization

solutionsdefinition

Co-designmeeting

COHOUSING _ THE CO-DESIGN PROCESS

group builiding

Finding the place

services desing

COHOUSING _ THE CO-DESIGN PROCESS

steps and difficulties

an enabling platform with three elements …

1. large community of interest2. real estate experts team3. facilitators and designers team (with specific facilitation tools)

……4. communication and special initiatives

COHOUSING IN ITALIA

www.cohousing.it

COHOUSING IN ITALIA

COHOUSING IN ITALIA _ LA COMMUNITY

ELECTIVE COMMUNITIES

Elective Communities are informal circles of citizens choosing to form social networks in order to provide each other mutual help, exchange goods or organise collective purchases…

specific co-deign tools

a community of interest of 3000 people, 4 on-going project in the first 6 months, several other in discussion …

If you give a man a fish, he will have a single meal. If you teach him how to fish, he will eat all his life. Kwan-Tzu

Thank you!

more on:

www.sustainable-everyday.net