This is a CTP of initiative: DESIS - POLIMI DESIS Lab Italy (Italy)
The future Polimi DESIS Lab contributed (as a key actor) to develop the project Cohousing.it. Today, it is a company (called Cohousing.it). In 2005 the Polimi DESIS Lab was called “research unit DIS – Design and Innovation for Sustainability”, based in the Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. This was an important CTP because it was the first project in which the theories about design for social innovation were practised, giving rise to a company.
This was the first project where (EMUDE) had mainly used design skills to give visibility to social innovation cases.
Co-housing.it was the first initiative designing a service based on a social innovation case (co-housing). It showcased how to use design skills for the consolidation and replication of a social innovation case or idea. Cohousing.it was defined as an enabling solution (in the terminology adopted) which means it is a solution that enables an idea for social innovation to spread.
Politecnico di Milano also developed with other actors, the co-design process and tools that were to be used to define the characteristics of the future cohousing condominiums. They were used in a series of workshops with future users and architects in order to define the characteristics of these condominiums.
The company Cohousing.it had its beginnings with a survey done in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano (DIS research unit, the future POLIMI DESIS Lab). The survey ABITOMILANO investigated the interest of the Italian society in cohousing practices and was answered by 600 people. The survey was followed by an event, with the same name (ABITOMILANO) that gathered all those interested in cohousing. The idea of the event was to divulge the idea that COHOUSING, as a social innovation, would be suitable for a larger audience in Italian society and that it was not restricted to special social innovators. This is the main research and design activity of the POLIMI DESIS Lab about social innovation.
In the ABITOMILANO event, the first groups of interested future members of cohousing condominiums were defined and the first co-designing processes were set up. A community and a dedicated company was created to continue this initial process and to develop – with future users – new cohousing communities in Italy, called cohousing.it , It marked the starting point for the company COhousing.it.
From the first event in Milan, the cohousing.it community connected about 3,500 people in a few months, and since then interest has grown again and has spread throughout Italy. Cohousing.it is now a company that develops cohousing condominiums in Italy.
2003 – Exhibition Sustainable Everyday: Scenarios of Urban Living. The exhibition presented a panorama of proposals and scenarios on what everyday life could be like in a sustainable metropolis. It dealt with the future of “dwelling”, but it did not focus on new ways in which technology could redefine traditional functions, but rather centred on the new “living strategies” that were emerging, becoming possible and, for some at least, are desirable today. These living strategies resulted from social system, rather than from technological innovation. The exhibition presented new visions and possible futures derived from emergent forms of social innovation.
2004-2006 Project Emerging Users Demands for Sustainable solutions (EMUDE). The project placed its focus on social innovation as a driver for technological and system innovation. At the base of its activities EMUDE explored the hypothesis that creative communities, and the promising cases they generate, could at the same time both anticipate a possible future, and offer concrete indications as to how technological, production and market innovation could be orientated from now on. It included:
- the identification of cases of social innovation geared towards sustainability;
- evaluation, selection and bringing the most promising cases to light;
- clarification of the demand for products, services and solutions that they gave rise to;
- visualisation, communication and dissemination of these cases and their possible implications by means of technological trends, scenarios and roadmaps.
2008 - Master in “Social and Collaborative Housing”. The Polimi DESIS Lab participated in the development of the Master in “Social and Collaborative Housing” with Fondazione Housing Sociale and other actors. A number of projects and initiatives were developed to support the creation of housing communities. The Polimi DESIS Lab brought its service design skills and tools to the Master`s program and related initiatives, which included those inherited from the development of the project Cohousing.it
No contestation was perceived in the development of the Cohousing.it project itself. However, the idea that social innovation ideas could be replicated through the development of enabling solutions* was criticized in 2005:
“There was no one who put a spoke in wheel, but I can say that when we started to talk about co-housing related things, in some international meeting, there was someone who said, not speaking specifically of the project co-housing.it but about the possibility to create enabling solutions, that we would lose the character, nature and the sense of the original communities. This is something that we had not heard much, because we had all evolved together, and we did not have people with us who really opposed us”.
“Indeed, very often those who participate in the initial part, when the innovation is being developed, later become obstacles to any changes in the innovation, because they are so fond of it as it was in its heroic phase”.
(*) Enabling solution is defined as a system that provides cognitive, technical and organisational instruments so as to enable individuals and/or communities to achieve a result, using their skills and abilities to the best advantage and, at the same time, to regenerate the quality of living contexts, in which they happen to live (Jégou, F. and Manzini, E. 2008. Collaborative Services: Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability. Milan: Edizioni Polidesign).
The project Co-Housing.it was understood as a CTP when developed, because it was the first application of the design for social innovation theories in the development of a project. This project started the activities of the Polimi DESIS Lab, using the design for social innovation approach in the housing sector.
However, the importance of the Cohousing.it as a CTP was better perceived over the years. The Polimi DESIS Lab (and at first, the DIS research unit) were involved, and still are, in a number of projects and initiatives to support the creation of co-housing communities, developing specific processes and tools for the design and delivery of these initiatives, with a particular focus on community building and co-design of the shared services required by these condominiums.
From project Cohousing.it, much has been learned about how design can work to promote social innovation. Particularly, from how the development of a single enabling solution (that allows social innovation to spread), a social innovation idea can get diffused.
The project (www.cohousing.it) is still running. It was the first one, but the co-housing model spread in Milan and in Italy, generating demands for new professionals and new services and products for this specific typology of housing.
Other co-housing initiatives were developed in Italy, and new consultancies were founded to operate in the same field as the “Housing Lab” (http://housinglab.wordpress.com/) that was founded in 2014 by former students from Politecnico di Milano and that continue to be related to the Polimi DESIS Lab.
The influence of Politecnico di Milano on professors and students was extended to the field of social housing. The Fondazione Housing Sociale (http://www.fhs.it/) also started to operate using cohousing principles and approaches, influenced by professors related to the DIS Lab (the future Polimi DESIS Lab).
The Polimi DESIS Lab participated in the development of the Master`s in “Social and Collaborative Housing” (2008 – on going), with Fondazione Housing Sociale and other actors. A number of projects and initiatives were developed to support the creation of housing communities. The Polimi DESIS Lab brought its service design skills and tools to the Master`s program and related initiatives.. (http://www.polidesign.net/housing)
Now, 7 years later, the co-housing concept is diffused and it is growing in Italy, as observed in the “Experiment Days Fair” (http://www.experimentdays-milano.it/) which took place in 2014 in Milano. The fair presented modalities of self-organized and collaborative living, including co-housing and was organized with the participation of former PhD candidates from the Polimi DESIS Lab.
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