Let us make it possible
The idea for S.S. Patroni Square
World of Complexities
After Elena’s attempt to talk with other people of the neighborhood about the possible future of the S.S Patroni Square, the idea had had some effects on the other members in the family, even on her husband Angelo, who was the one that would spend less time in the square because of his job. The kids even mentioned their mother’s idea to their friends, like in a casual way though.
A couple of days later from the first interactions with the neighbors, Elena is trying to find if there is an association inside the community to help her put her ideas on the table. She organizes all the information she got from her previous researches, with the help of her son, Edoardo, she got more solid information about the social and demographic composition of the Lorenteggio neighborhood, historical data, and other stuff that would help her to build a strong storyline and express her desire to other people.
She admits to herself she feels a bit overwhelmed and scared about how to carry on with the project, but she knows she genuinely wants to do this for her family and the neighborhood she grew up in.
Suddenly, the phone rings, in the other part of the line there is Arianna, who is an architect that lives in the area and is willing to help. She tells Elena that she can summarize and translate all the ideas and information in a graphic way to engage the attention of the community. From her point of view, Arianna knows more precisely the steps that must be considered with a project like this one, she explains that sometimes the same idea can be interesting for a specific group that conforms the whole neighborhood but for other ones can be inadequate, so they have to find an idea shared by all the groups. Elena immediately thinks about one of the neighbors that seems to dislike kids and always complains about the Youth Club, and she feels nervous again. What if he or some other people reject the proposal? She shakes her hand in the air, to ride of the negative thoughts, and tells herself that they will find more and more people to help her shape the project into reality.
Later that evening, Adele and Elena are waiting for the others to arrive home, they always try to have dinner together, but since Edoardo started university sometimes it is not possible, also there are days in which is difficult for Angelo to arrive home in time because of the transport problems, or the typical traffic issues that big cities like Milan have. It is in this moment that Elena realizes the complexity even of her own family and the way almost instinctive they have “designed” their own method to manage their complexity, there must be a way to deal with the Lorenteggio’s one.
An Entertaining Way to Interact: the Co-Design
During the following days the family, along with Arianna’s help, develop the graphic material to interact and know more opinions and feedbacks about the ideas for the Square, they would need at least a small group conformed by people with a different background to give their point of view. Previously, Arianna has explained that this type of interaction with the possible users is called Co-Design and it is helpful to get a more personalized and critic perspective.
Edoardo and Sofia are excited specially with this part of the process, for them it is quite amazing the fact that both their dreams have been the inspiration for a possible real project. They do their best with their creativity to come up and create the games to help the participants understand and be critic with the proposals. They feel very excited.
For the participants, they count with five people; three friends of Edoardo, that are college students just like him, then a young woman that divides her time between a job and the motherhood. And the last participant is a friend of Angelo from a long time ago, a middle-aged man. For all of them the plan to change the use of S.S Patroni square seemed attractive and they easily accepted to help.
After a busy day doing the Co-Design session, that was such a success, Angelo is helping to compilate all the results and answers from their friends. The family discover the things that all these people have in common and then try to balance the things in which they do not agree.
Starting from this point, Elena is trying to define a new concept for the proposal, the good thing is that she can mix the previous ones now that she has a more complete panorama of the necessities of the community. S.S Patroni Square must be a kinetic space where dynamism and a vibrant environment can be at the same time a relaxing breath from the daily life, where either adults and children can develop different activities. She imagines Sofia playing happily and dreaming awake thanks to colorful and playful floor patterns. Now she knows that the community is up to have an urban garden area, and spaces to offer diverse workshops and physical activity like yoga. Even though the participants were not so excited about having performances in the square, they were pleased to the idea of having every now and then a relaxing music session.
The phone rings again, and the sound gets Elena out of her wandering mind, picks up the phone and this time the voice in the other side of the line is a man who represents the formal urban association of Lorenteggio district, and congrats Elena and her family for their initiative with the S.S Patroni Square and tells her that he is looking forward to know how the proposal goes, because probably in the future the association can help her to make it real.
Elena gets chills again, but this time the reason is not fear: it is excitement and happiness.
TEAM 4
Angelica Almogabar, Tugba Dilmen, Giulia Mauri, Licia Rocca, Camilla Valori
