Design Research on Temporary Homes by A A D R

Design Research on Temporary Homes

Temporary Homes focuses on questions of home, identity, and modes of inhabitation in relationship to asylum seekers and political refugees in Milan, Italy. The design research takes into account people’s complex and diverse cultural backgrounds and individual needs and aims to connect so-called “reception centres“ in Italy to the wider urban and social context. Projects address issues of temporary residence, multi-cultural co-habitation, the need for privacy and interpersonal relationships, in order to develop more hospitable and welcoming design proposals. Dr Agnese Rebaglio is a designer, researcher and Assistant Professor at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. Rebaglio is a member of the Design for Hospitable City research team (DHOC), which develops interiors and urban spaces that create hospitable environments through innovative services and models of re-using abandoned spaces in the contemporary city. Dr Elena E. Giunta is a designer, art-therapist and research fellow at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. As a member of GIDE (Group of International Design Education) and co-coordinator of the International Master “Urban Interior Design“ her research focuses on the specific implications of intangible assets arising from places and artifacts. Endorsements: “This book is a significant contribution to refugee studies, reflecting on the importance of psychosocial and spatial dimensions to promote social inclusion and citizenship. It is an excellent example of innovative cooperation between design and the social sciences.“ Paolo Inghilleri, Professor of Social Psychology, Leader of Environmental and Cultural Heritage dept, Università Statale di Milano.

“A highly interesting Design Research project on supportive environments, drawing attention to the importance of quality of, and belonging to space.“

ISBN 978-3-88778-444-7 AADR publishes innovative artistic, creative and historical research in art, architecture, design and related fields. www.aadr.info

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Giunta, E. & Rebaglio, A. (eds.)

Luisa Collina, Full Professor, Design School, Politecnico di Milano.

EDITED BY ELENA GIUNTA AND AGNESE REBAGLIO

Design Research on Temporary Homes Hospitable Places for Homeless, Immigrants and Refugees

Design research on Temporary Homes

Elena Enrica Giunta, Agnese Rebaglio

Design research on Temporary Homes Hospitable Places for Homeless, Immigrants and Refugees

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic information is available on the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de Cover Image: Front Cover, The Free scenario, 2013 © Elena E.Giunta Elena Enrica Giunta, Agnese Rebaglio Design research on Temporary Homes Hospitable Places for Homeless, Immigrants and Refugees

© Copyright 2014 by Authors and Spurbuchverlag ISBN 978-3-88778-444-7 Publication © by Spurbuchverlag 1. print run 2014 Am Eichenhügel 4, 96148 Baunach, Germany All rights reserved. No part of the work must in any mode (print, photocopy, microfilm, CD or any other process) be reproduced nor – by application of electronic systems – processed, manifolded nor broadcast without approval of the copyright holder. AADR – Art, Architecture and Design Research publishes research with an emphasis on the relationship between critical theory and creative practice AADR Curatorial Editor: Dr Rochus Urban Hinkel, Stockholm Production: pth-mediaberatung GmbH, Würzburg Layout: Anna Maria Stefani Cover Design: Monika Glück For further information on Spurbuchverlag and AADR visit www.aadr.info / www.spurbuch.de.

Luciano Crespi Prelude: New rituals of contemporary inhabiting p.9

Nicola Rainisio

â&#x20AC;&#x153;These places do not understand us.â&#x20AC;? Environmental Psychology of the Refugee Centres p. 72

Agnese Rebaglio, Elena E. Giunta DeCA research: theoretical framework p.13

Manuela Celi, Simone Fanciullacci, Chiara Moreschi Cosy objects: instant products for the reorganization of spaces and function p.90

Agnese Rebaglio

Elena E. Giunta

Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places p.20

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Ithacaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the Globalized era p.32

Elena Caratti

Giulia Gerosa, Elena E. Giunta

References p.133

Design for hospitable interiors: open-ended design solution for welcoming diversity p. 118

Credits p. 140

Communication Design for Refugee Women. A research project for the Sammartini Polyfunctional Centre in Milan p. 104

Agnese Rebaglio, Daniela Petrillo Defining scenario for a new perspective about reception sites p.52

Prelude: New rituals of contemporary inhabiting Luciano CrespiI

The highly topical subject of this book raises a question. Hospitality towards refugees is one specific and important responsibility in the broader context of public policies framed to support â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fragileâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; categories of users. But to what extent does it stand on its own when evaluating possible solutions regarding the nature and quality of the environments to be created for reception of refugees? Or, to be more specific, can the needs of political refugees influence the design culture to such an extent that they become regarded as a theme with its own characteristics and not part of the more general question of new modes of inhabiting public property in the contemporary world? To attempt to answer this we must isolate some aspects of the subject itself. First of all, it should be emphasized that we are referring to furnished housing designed for a population with no income and who are to be accommodated for a limited time. This is the most delicate aspect, but it also represents the most exciting challenge for the designers, as it forces us to think about ways of inclusion not so much on a

I Full Professor of the Design School, Politecnico di Milano, DESIGN Dept. Coordinator of the Interior Design Course and of the Urban Interior design Master.

neighbourhood scale, as is generally the case, as at the level of the so-called ‘primary’ space, i.e. the environments that serve as repositories of the rituals of daily life. This also has applications for other types of users who, in greater metropolitan concentrations, represent a large segment of the demand for public housing: unemployed youth, non-resident students with no income, separated parents with children, migrants, elderly people living alone, and so on – a population which, if we exclude the economic condition it shares in common, is characterised by vastly different cultures, lifestyles and religious beliefs. The status of political refugee adds to all this the suffering caused by violent and forced uprooting from the place of origin, experiences which dictate that they receive special attention (as is clearly brought out by contributions from other disciplines in this collection). The twin risks the project runs in these cases is to overrate the peculiarity of a specific family of users (the corollaries of which impact mostly on areas outside its own sphere of competence, such as management and social inclusion), and to generalise and typify them and in that light to seek standard solutions. I am put in mind of a very readable short essay written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1840, entitled “The Philosophy of Furniture”, which is rich in both witty observations and obvious generalisations, such as the ways in which the different populations of the world like to furnish their homes, e.g. that Italians excel in colour and marble, the Spanish in curtains and the English in garden furniture.II Typification, standardisation and following rules to the letter were the obsession of the last century, reaching a point of crisis when first the existence and then the value of ‘diversity’ began to be acknowledged. The clearest note of warning on the subject has been sounded by art critic Nicolas Bourriaud: “What postmodernism calls hybridisation involves grafting onto the trunk of a popular culture that which has become uniform markers of ‘specificity’ – features, usually caricatured, of a distinctive ethnic, national, or other cultural identity”.III This, according to Bourriaud, must be resisted by deploying the cultural model of creolisation, a process elucidated by Antillean writer Édouard Glissant, which represents a new way of understanding cultural identity at a time when globalisation is steadily pursuing its uprooting agenda. Creolisation is

II Cf.Edgar Allan Poe, The Philosophy of Furniture, Palermo: Torri del Vento, 2011. III Nicolas Bourriaud, The Radicant, New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2009, p.20.

0. Prelude: New rituals of contemporary inhabiting

achieved not by setting one fixed root against another, “a mythologised ‘origin’ against an integrating and homogenizing ‘soil’”,IV but by laying the foundations for a radicantV art, which acknowledges the emerging presence of the immigrant, the exile, the tourist, and the urban wanderer as the dominant figures of contemporary culture and recognises “the inhabitant par excellence of this imagination of spatial precariousness as an expert in shedding his affinities”VI. The purpose is to set in motion “circuits and experimentations” rather than permanent systems and installations, to be established between “the identity and the learning of the Other”. In addition to its documentation and research, the book describes three different possible ‘environmental’ scenarios, three different perspectives, in an attempt to give character to the places, preserving also their diversities. This represents an important and original contribution, regarding which we may add two considerations. The first concerns changes in the rituals regarding how the house is used, and the symbolic meaning that these rituals take on in different cultures. This concept of rituals is best described by Carla Pasquinelli in her book La vertigine dell’ordine,VII which views the furnishing of a home as “a cosmogonic act” geared to establishing an order capable of regulating the lives of its inhabitants. At the same time, however, it reveals the irreversibility of the process of the “slow desecration of space” and its “polysemic multiplication”, which the idea of home strives to resist through the adoption by its inhabitants of various stratagems. Therefore, just as the field of contemporary art is regarded by artists primarily as a storehouse full of materials to be manipulated, rather than an opportunity to “embark on the heroic quest for the unexplored and the sublime”, so that of the designing of spaces dedicated to accommodating these “modern-day nomads” should be capable of abandoning all nomenclatures, rules and spatial types associated with rituals that no longer exist, and replace them with culture strategies such as those outlined in the text. I would

IV Ibid., p.21. V To Bourriaud the radicant was an “organism that grows its roots and adds new ones as it advances”, and therefore to be radicant means “translating ideas, transcoding images, transplanting behaviors” (ibid., p.22). VI Ibid., p.51. VII Carla Pasquinelli, La vertigine dell’ordine: Il rapporto tra sé e la casa. Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2004.

add, however, that we must not overlook the most authoritative and innovative experiences in this particular sphere of design, those of Castiglioni, Sottsass, Mendini, Joe Colombo, etc., onto which fragments from the context may be grafted. Here flexibility is only relevant to a certain degree. More than sliding panels or other devices that have been introduced experimentally a thousand times and with poor results, we need to study how art today creates worlds, just as a DJ or a web surfer does, and allow users themselves the opportunity to contribute to the act of furnishing, thus helping to create a sense of belonging. We might describe this as a sort of design of the ‘unfinished’, to be completed with the aid of the world of ‘little things’, the philosophy of which Francesca Rigotti has illustrated so excellentlyVIII. The second consideration regards the question of size. Clearly, since we are dealing with the no-fee (or nearly so) public sector, the choice should be geared towards low-cost housing and, therefore, a reduced floor area per inhabitant. Here, however, we must completely revise the concept of existenz minimum developed by the Modernist Movement, and replace it with that advocated by Alessandro Mendini, i.e. the existenz maximumIX - a space which, even when resources are scarce, is still capable of expressing the symbolic values and sensory qualities that help make a place hospitable, through the use of interior design’s own means: materials, light and colour. Recent experiences such as the experiments carried out by Philippe Rahm on the ‘meteorological’ character of spaces, and others not so recent, such as those of Ugo la Pietra dealing with the disequilibrating character of space and the breaking down of the boundary between private and public and interior and exterior, force interior design to explore more profoundly the theme of the relationship between man and space.

VIII Cf. Francesca Rigotti, Nuova filosofia delle piccole cose, Novara: Interlinea, 2013. IX Cf. Alessandro Mendini (ed.), Existenz maximum: giovani presenze del design fra i mistico e lo spaziale, Florence: Tipolito Press 80, 1990.

DeCA research: theoretical framework Agnese Rebaglio, Elena Enrica GiuntaI

Design and living in transit This book deals with one of the crucial issues of the XXI century society, namely the need to design places and cities that are hospitable and welcoming, that are able to respond to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;in transitâ&#x20AC;? lifestyle behavior of people and populations, moving across the borders of countries. In Europe, and especially in Italy, this type of migration has assumed the characteristics of humanitarian emergencies following the intensification of international economic and political tensions that grow unabatedly. These pose new challenges for projects for the city, firstly for administrators who need to define meaningful political agendas, and secondly for designers who are called to equip themselves with new skills or, rather, to apply them to new settings. In particular, the book focuses on the design of places of temporary hospitality to refugees, people who had to forcibly migrate from their countries of origin and were protected by international regulations. They all bring

I *Agnese Rebaglio, PhD, assistant professor at Design dept. Politecnico di Milano; Elena EnricaGiunta, PhD, research fellow at Design dept. Politecnico di Milano.

with them, besides the different individual biographies, a similar experience of escape, of having overcome geographical and cultural barriers and boundaries, and live a particular situation in which “the space of living becomes a limbo that mediates the transition from one state/State to another, which leads to the acquisition of another status, that of an asylum seeker”II. This particular condition of temporary living often happens in specially designed structures, collective living facilities that assume the role of the first “haven” for the refugee, a first home, albeit transient. This book explores the potential and the role of design in planning reception sites capable of being mediators of positive changes for those who live there. It is based on the belief that the place of hospitality, beyond just the functional and relational aspects, also plays a strong symbolic role that could favor the process of recovering one’s self and cultural values, along with the development of the first forms of attachment and territoriality functional to a progressive cultural integration. The design culture, which traditionally aims at designing habitable places, here confronts complex needs which result from a particular condition of transitional, collective, multicultural living. A few years ago, Alain de Botton investigated the value of architecture in determining the happiness of its users defending the fundamental idea that our identity is inextricably linked to the places where we live and changes with themIII. With this awareness, and while not aspiring to provide “recipes” that are universally valid, the book offers reflections on the identity of places that are chosen as reception sites and shelter asylum seekers and refugees. On the one hand, the book is an addition to the large pool of literature that reflects on the social role of design. In an increasingly strained market, many parties have investigated the value of social innovation, namely, that “refers to innovative activities and services that are motivated by the goal of meeting a social need and that are predominantly diffused through organizations whose primary purposes are social”IV. It is often promoted by multiple civil society actors themselves, amongst whom the designer increasingly plays an active role; social innovation is also generated starting from small changes promoted by the design and transformation of portions of spaces and cities, such as some of those proposed in this book that, as

II Calloni, Marras, Serughetti (2012) Chiedo asilo. [I ask for aylum] Milan: Egea. p. XI. III De Botton, A. (2007) The architecture of happiness. London: Penguin. IV Mulgan, G. (2006) The Process of Social Innovation, in Innovations. MIT Press Journal, Spring 2006, Vol. 1, No. 2, Pages 145-162 Posted Online June 20, 2006.

1. DeCA research: theoretical framework

with fertile seeds, become exemplary and replicable, assuming an important large scale role. On the other hand, the book could refer to what is defined as design activism: “Design activism has emerged in recent years as a term to denote creative practices that invoke social, political and environmental agency. Typically, it distances itself from commercial or mainstream public policy-driven approaches. Instead, it embraces marginal, non-profit or politically engaged design theories, articulations and actions. Arguably, ´design activism´ is a response to particular contemporary conditions of geo-political change, social conditions, economic practices and environmental challenges. It nonetheless inherits a rich history that goes back as long as design itself”V. The task of action-research conducted by the authors of the book is one that seeks to bring the themes of reception sites to the attention of planners and administrative managers, not only for their ability to respond to urgent basic needs, but also for their potential to help positively shape the temporary stay of the people “in transit”.

A design research process: an overview The book is the result of an action-research led by the authors, catching an explicit request made by local institutionsVI; it has been funded by the Politecnico of Milan “5x1000 Young Researchers” projectVII.

V Design History Society Annual Conference: Design Activism and Social Change, Barcelona 2011, http://www.historiadeldisseny.org/congres/index.html. VI The first contacts with the Department for Social Politics and Health Services of the Municipality of Milan were established in 2011. The so-called North African emergency was already in progress and the collective shelters (multifunctional centres) were operating. The initial research application shared with the administration concerned precisely the possibility of further improving the environmental quality of these centres, the services of which have in any case always obtained excellent feedback from the users. VII Several projects conducted by the Politecnico of Milan were funded by the 5x1000 of the income tax. The funds have principally been allocated to projects conducted by young researchers and projects closely linked to social or environmental issues.

xxThe purpose of the research, the results of which are presented in this book, was to meet the need for dwellings of a different quality in the collective structures, which serve as temporary housing for asylum seekers and political refugees in the city of MilanVIII. The chief purpose of the research was then to generate, through the use of specific design instruments, reflections, suggestions and solutions capable of meeting the manifold needs for temporary living, as a primary and at the same time cultural need. The work should be a research-action within a very specific context, but becomes emblematic for other contexts with similar characteristics: the need for places that favour cultural and social integration, the question of a dwelling which is collective but at the same time personal, the question of the form of houses that are not homes, but which resemble them for a defined, quite short period of time. The acronym that has been chosen to name the research project, DeCA – Design Culture Accoglienza (Design Culture Hospitality), indicates precisely this ample field of interest; the relationship between the project and the inhabited environment, which has its cultural implications and is hospitable to the extent to which it can meet the expressed and tacit needs of the individual and the community. Specifically, the research project has focused on Centri Polifunzionali (CP or multifunctional centres) or in other words shelters aimed at providing temporary housing and at helping the occupants regain an existential stability and independence, while respecting their personal and cultural peculiarities. The multifunctional centres in the city of Milan have been offering since 2011 about 300 bedspaces. It is a matter of collective facilities managed on behalf of the Municipality of Milan by a consortium of social cooperatives, funded by a national fund created especially for critical situations in metropolitan areas which will – unless extended

VIII See http://www.serviziocentrale.it/ On the basis of the experience of decentralized and networked shelters, realized between 1999 and 2000 by non-governmental associations and organizations, in 2001 the Ministry of the Interior - Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) and the UN High Commission for Refugees signed an agreement for the realization of a “National Asylum Programme”. The result was the first public system for housing of asylum seekers and refugees, scattered across the entire Italian territory, with the participation of central and local institutions, named “SPRAR”.

1. DeCA research: theoretical framework

TEST

WORKSHOP 3

WORKSHOP 2

WORKSHOP 1

SCENARIO DESIGN

SOCIAL OPERATOR WORKSHOP

GUESTS WORKSHOP QUESTIONNAIRE

MILAN CENTRES ANALYSIS

THEORETICAL FRAMES

BEST PRACTICES MAPPING

MILAN DATA MAPPING

– remain in existence until 2015 (emergency funds of the Ministry of the Interior, resources from the Civil Defence)IX. They provide temporary shelter for a period of 8+2 months (12 in the case of women and minors) in facilities with rooms and shared bathrooms and living rooms, guidance by specialized educators who provide aid and services to favour integration (Italian language teaching, job seeking, legal assistance).

Figure 1: The research process.

The DeCA research project, backed by the Department for Social Politics and Health Services of the Municipality of Milan, has set itself the goal of identifying scenarios of orientation and transformation of the CPs and to formulate design proposals, also on a small scale. The research project has been based on multidisciplinary cooperation; it has been coordinated by the DHOC or Design for Hospitable Cities

IX This fund supplements and reinforces the “SPRAR” network in some Italian metropolises which are exposed to large flows and thus greater emergencies.

Research Unit of the Design Dept. of the Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with other research units at the Design Dept. and the Institute for Cultural and Environmental Heritages of the University of Milan, and with young professional designers. Also final users and social workers responsible for the service have been involved through focused initiatives (focus groups, workshops). The project as a whole has constantly liaised with the Department for Adults in Difficulty of the Municipality of Milan. Through its contributions the text illustrates the consistency of the reflections formulated during the three main research phases. The first, named â&#x20AC;&#x153;Post Occupancy Evaluationâ&#x20AC;?, has on the one side been dedicated to the definition of the research questions and the theoretical arguments on the basis of which temporary and cross-cultural shelters are designed (see chapter 2), and on the other side the documentation of national and international experiences performed by governmental institutions as well as by associations and local social operators, and to direct knowledge and analysis of the local context of reference (see chapters 3 and 5). Specifically, the observations have focused on two main areas: an analysis of documental sources has made it possible to understand and gauge the dimension of the context of reference (mapping of national and international cases of projects for secondary shelters; mapping and registration of international cases which are heterogeneous from a disciplinary point of view â&#x20AC;&#x201C; of projects and works associated with the subject of hospitality, temporary shelters and protection of refugees); an analysis in the field conducted in cooperation with social workers and environmental psychologists has made it possible to obtain qualitative data on the users in order to define the cultural and personal traits of the relevant subjects (by means of focus groups, workshops, a questionnaire compiled with the direct participation of the occupants, direct data collection and environmental analysis of all CPs and formulation of a comparative synthesis, as well as focus groups and observation diaries kept in collaboration with the social workers). This phase has been concluded with the definition of transformation scenarios that are possible and desirable for the current context, developed in a narrative and figurative form (see chapter 4).

1. DeCA research: theoretical framework

The second phase, which may be defined “Pro-Occupational Evaluation”, or “Design Scenario and First Concepts”, has been aimed at the design of the sites dedicated to refugees for the city of Milan, through initiatives based on design and participative planning. Three different workshops have been set up on the basis of the scenarios defined in the previous phase, focused on the furniture design, communication design and interior design (see chapters 6, 7, 8). The workshops aimed at formulating practical proposals for the transformation of specific places, according to the identified paths, have involved young professional designers, PhD and graduate students. In the third and final phase a pilot project has been realised testing the results of the workshop on the design of communicative artefacts in the only CP for women in the city. A full set of internal signs, specifically designed for the women and children who live in the shelter, has thus been produced and installed (see chapter 7). All the projects which have been developed were exhibited within the context of the Fuori Salone of Milan 2014X. The purpose of the exhibition has been to call the attention of the design community to the subject of the design of social facilities, but also to that of cross-cultural and perhaps cross-disciplinary design, as represented by this project.

X DeCA _ Design Culture Accoglienza c/o @DOTUDESIGN, via San Vittore 49, Milan, 8-13 April 2014.

Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places Agnese RebaglioI

Project focusing on relationships, spaces and services Designing environments, artefacts and services aimed at guaranteeing comfort and protection is in the DNA of traditional Italian design, which has always placed the relationship with the human being, the end user of the project, at the centre of its research and output. As Achille Castiglioni was in the habit of warning his Industrial Design students, “a good project is born not of an ambition to leave your mark but of a desire to create an exchange, however small, with the unknown person who will use the object you design”. It is also worth remembering Carlo de Carli’s idea of “primary space”, according to which every architectural and spatial project is based on “that space permeated with life lived [which] is born in every effort to relate and open up to oneself and to others”II. A research co-ordinated by a group of Interior Design researchers at the Politecnico di MilanoIII, focusing on new concepts of space, objects and visual artefacts for

I Agnese Rebaglio, PhD, assistant professor at Design dept. Politecnico di Milano. II Ottolini, De Carli, Architettura. III The research is supported by the Department of Social and Health Services of the Municipality of Milan, with the collaboration of the care services (Farsi Prossimo Consortium); it is coordinated by the Research Unit of Interior design of DESIGN Dept. (PoliMi), with interdisciplinary contributions coming from the Research Unit of Advanced Design (DESIGN), Communication Design (DESIGN), the Cultural Heritage and Environment Dept. (UniMi)

temporary collective reception structures for political refugees in the city of Milan, sets as its central issue the relationship between the individual who arrives with multiple needs and demands and the built environment which offers a complex, well-structured but at times fragile solution. The spaces designed as a temporary home for these refugees may nevertheless form part of a delicate process of bridging the gap, by adopting clear yet non-prescriptive approaches tailored to the immediate situation which take into account clashes between the ways in which the space is conceived, perceived and used. The research dealing with the design of collective and temporary reception spaces has been consolidated and extensively tested in the traditions of architecture and interior design. Historically, academic research has mainly developed around two fundamental themes: emergency intervention; and collective residence for specific purposes..It is only in recent times that the acquisition and consolidation of internationally recognised basic rights has prompted European countries to equip themselves with emergency care centres close to borders as well as reception structures specifically for asylum seekers and political refugees, places where in their few months’ stay they may begin the process of social reintegrationIV. These structures present important challenges to the design. If designers are to select the best instruments, methods and forms through which to conceive new kinds of spaces for refugee accommodation in a foreign country, they must first identify and consider the many social, psychological, cultural and political implications that this special “inhabiting” has. It requires the designer to match his own skills with disciplines able to read and decode the variety of needs that such a mode of living engenders in order to design appropriate and effective places: a home that is not a home, but which is capable of being so for a short time, responding to a wide variety of cultural needs.

IV The Council of Europe, under its treaty Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted in 1950), is the body empowered to promote the defence of human rights within the member States. Together with the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights it promotes and guarantees respect of the commitments established by the Convention. Over the years the theme of the rights of political refugees has become central, and collaboration with the UNHCR has resulted in the drafting of supranational documents and measures to guarantee the safeguarding of the right to asylum. While the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 established once and for all the importance of the protection of refugees’ rights in the European Union, each member State maintains a high level of independence in managing its own reception system, since each has different standards. See Calloni, Marras and Serughetti, Chiedo asilo.

2. Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places

In this sense, design is called upon to bring innovation (its ultimate purpose) to a complex social system. Indirectly affecting this system are global forces (historical, social and economic) capable of provoking mass movements of populations across continents. International policies have been developed on various levels to deal with such situations, but these remain only partially effective. The repercussions of these macroscopic phenomena on a local scale create social situations that activate solutions through local regulations and initiatives of public–private collaboration in the social sector. The obligation to envisage and provide services and devise places of reception for political refugees in the major cities necessitates the adoption of innovative relationship models, in which the subjects (public and private) providing the service, those who use the service (asylum seekers and refugees) and those who live and operate in the context in which the refugees are integrated (local citizens) can meet and exchange. The system may be created within a global dynamic, but it is closely connected with a local, open context shared by multiple subjects. Obviously, the innovation of this system is first and foremost a social innovation, which involves a general idea of welfare and a welcoming society, albeit in a political context that is forced to cope with increasingly scarce resources. This is a long-term process which must nevertheless also be able to provide immediate solutions. It is a process that can be promoted by top-down actions, but which is able to make use of the bottom-up type forms of participation created by the “network society” in which we are immersed – as long as it takes into account the fruitful relationships between the voluntary sector and government agencies; as long as it considers greater inclusion and reception as an added value for the whole society; and as long as it develops spontaneous and self-organising good practices. A second level of innovation concerns the designing of places suitable for hosting these communities – protected places capable of offering comfort, guidance and help in starting again: hope, basically. How might design respond to the cultural diversities implied in this state of living? How might design comprehend the environmental-psychological concept of place-identity (Proshansky, 1978) in temporary places? How might design, starting from a social condition of dis-location and dis-placement (Papadopoulos, 2002), re-place a new location, a new place? Based on these needs, a line of research was developed to focus on generating new concepts for the space, objects and visual artefacts that today make up the reception

centres for political refugees in the city of Milan, to allow them to cater more adequately to the demands referred to above. Focussing the research on the Milan case has made it possible to have a vertical view of a complex urban situation, but it also provides a more horizontal, universal observation of and reflections on the design of spaces with similar characteristics.

Mediterranean, Italy, Milan Milan is an interesting case, as it is part of an Italian context with characteristics that are unique in Europe. The geographical location of Italy has inevitably made it over the years a landing-place for millions of people who cross the Mediterranean in search of a new life in Europe. The policies adopted in Italy to care for asylum seekers have often failed to ensure all seekers services that meet the stipulations of the international agreements. The situation has been largely characterized by a reactive emergency policy, without any systemic perspective, and locations such as disused schools and mobile homes were chosen randomly to meet the exigencies of finding temporary accommodation for asylum seekers. Moreover, the difficulties were compounded by a set of international restrictions making it difficult for political refugees landing (for these geographical reasons) in Italy to move on, such as the Dublin Convention of 1990, and by a limited shouldering of responsibility by the European Community. In fact, although the Italian government has unquestionably made enormous effortsV, so far the management of reception centres has risked contributing to a vicious circle of fragility, in which the most vulnerable are accommodated in the most unsupportive residential environments. The national regulation concerning reception of asylum seekers in Italy establishes a “System of Protection for Asylum Seekers and Refugees” (Sistema di protezione per richiedenti asilo e rifugiati, or SPRAR) and, in addition, a system of “multi-functional centres” consisting of structures and processes that provide temporary accommodation (up to ten months) and supports for social inclusion (such as

V One of the most important operations is “Mare Nostrum“, the military and humanitarian action in the southern Mediterranean Sea that began on 18 October 2013 to tackle the humanitarian emergency underway in the Strait of Sicily, caused by a critical inflow of immigrants.

2. Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places

Italian language teaching, job searching, legal assistance)VI. These are collective residences with shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms and common living rooms and lunchrooms. The centres are managed by service providers that accommodate guests and help them with their stay and the beginning of a new phase of life. Living there puts in place a set of situations that have to deal with the issues of temporary residence, multicultural co-habitation, the need for both privacy and space for interpersonal relationships and connection to the wider urban and social context. Living there mainly relates with a extended meaning of “inhabiting” and “house” and is an important phase for the rebuilding of the own personal identity.

Designing a house that is not a home Starting from the three main elements of living (Canter& Lee, 1974; Vitta, 2008) – bodies, spaces and objects – we can explore how the physical qualities of space enhance cultural integration. The three basic elements have to be broadened out into a wider concept of hospitable capability, informed by contributions from social and psychological sciences (Giunta, 2012): bodies&privacy vs collective spaces; spaces&attachment vs temporariness; objects&personalization vs standardization. This approach aims to satisfy the need for places which are able to include and open to cultural diversities, in order to outline models for an interior design characterized by a humanities-centred approach. Where design aims to provide answers for spaces with a marked semantic content, such as living spaces, it has to use tools capable of interpreting the desires, needs and aspirations of those who inhabit such spaces, and has to translate them into a full set of elements that determine the design of the environment. The design of living spaces relates to the wide range of meanings associated with “man’s being-in-theworld”. The ancestral ownership of a place, the act of settling, are closely connected with the self-determination of being (Golinelli, 2008), with identification or the

VI Following the intensification of the North African emergency of 2011, temporarily in addition to the setting up of the SPRAR network, a Plan was established for the reception of immigrants and assigned to the Civil Defence. In addition to this a special temporary agreement was made for the purpose of strengthening the reception systems of four leading Italian cities, including Milan, with collective reception centres and guidance procedures for the reintegration of refugees.

recognition of belonging to a certain place that one establishes a privileged relationship with and through which one “orients” oneself to the rest of the world (Norberg-Schulz, 1984). The constructed universe, from urban areas to squares and public buildings as well as homes and private rooms, is itself a manifestation and a determinant of the quality of this relationship. In particular, the home shape has assumed over time specific connotations closely linked to socio-cultural (as well as geo-climatic and technological) factors. Many observers of Western culture see contemporary nomadic living as a trait that clearly influences design processes for the forms of houses. The acquired awareness “that “belonging” and “identity” are to a large extent negotiable and revocable” (Bauman, 2003), makes a new type of “transitory” bond with the inhabited place possible: “a place is appropriated only in the present time dimension; it shares the characteristic of a meteoric presence that at any moment could take itself elsewhere” (R. Tomassini and P. Volonterio 1995). For the interior design of temporary housing, on the other hand, the massive migratory phenomena that have intensified over the last two decades pose the challenge of integrating culturally diverse housing models. In relation to this context, the paradigms of the approach to interior design seem to be changing, and the design process now deals with temporariness, hospitableness and cross-culturality.

Temporariness The built space can be designed (or re-designed) according to the concept of “fitting out”, seen as a “temporary settlement practice”. The interior design process always starts with the person and the recognition of their needs (material and immaterial): the project always develops, regardless of the scale, from this unit of reference. Thinking in terms of “fitting out” means imagining the space as a “device” with an adaptive habit, in other words well suited to accepting all events that might happen there: “prepared, ready”; reversible in its material elements and structural organization; temporary in terms of both constructive and symbolic nature; highly communicative.

2. Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places

Designing a space that meets these requirements means overcoming the defining categories of traditional architecture (interior space; margins; equipment/furniture), and considering new elements for articulating the furnished environmentVII: • diaphragms - a separation between dichotomies that from time to time assume a different weight in one direction: internal/external; public/ private; collective/individual; open/closed; defined/undefined. The border often becomes itself an inhabited place, emphasizing the temporary nature of contemporary settlement, but also the role intended for designs in fitting out “open” situations (Desideri, 2002). From a metaphorical perspective it is also the place where the separation between non-homogeneous elements becomes tension towards a breakdown of the boundaries in the urban landscape, of suburbs pressing the city, of those geographical, political and social borders that still articulate the “globalized” world (Augé, 2007; Clement, 2005). • frames - the term allows us to identify those components most related to the design of soft variables (as defined by the primary design): surface treatments, luminous atmospheres, background sounds and smells; and including the marginal devices such as WIFI connection areas or interactive tools. The design of soft variables enhances the material structure of space by incorporating/overlapping intangible enclaves that influence relational dynamics, since they define potentials of use and/or specific functions. • catalyst objects - these are the tools that initiate the action/interaction and acquire sense within this connotative use. A link between the practice of fitting out a stage set and the daily experience of every individual in the use of “things” emerges in the research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1981). Similarly, Paolo Inghilleri (2003) observes that “individuals use objects and live in spaces, highlighting the complex relationship between individual well-being and connection with a territorially localized system of goods (i.e. between individual and socio-cultural development)”. This is similar to saying that the systems of objects globally tend to be a tool for the action of communicating. The stage prop is thus a “thing” that becomes a “sign”.

VII This paragraph is by E.E. Giunta; an earlier version appeared in Giunta, Rebaglio, and Ruffa, Expanding Interior Design through Humanities.

Design for hospitablenessVIII In their book Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri identify the new barbarians as those global nomads who are propelled to migrate by wars, dictatorial regimes, and dreams pursued by the rich countries of the world. These barbarian-migrants constitute a powerful multitude, capable of transforming territories politically without taking root in them, resisting territorialization. The multitude establishes a new relationship with the built environment, interpreting it as a place for the satisfaction of transitory needs, a place in which to sleep, relax, take a break. “The multitude-refugees or even ravers”, writes Jennifer Allen (2002), “does not inhabit architecture, but pushes it to the limits of existence, treating the constructed space as a temporary second skin barely distinguishable from the basic functions of the body”. The multitude poses a challenge to the design of inhabited places, which is that of fuelling the ability to make hospitable places. This challenge is widely taken up by contemporary artistic practices, able to act as paradigmatic incubators of processes of use that link the fragment with complexity, with the aim of building a sense of belonging to the community and places (Crespi, 2008). By way of example, the work of Atelier van Lieshout (AVL) investigates the deepest and most complex aspects of a space designed for the multitude. In capsules for sleeping (Mini Capsule Side Entrance and Maxi Capsule Luxus, 2002), there emerges a kind of architecture able to integrate seemingly irreconcilable aspects: on one hand the lack of roots, brutal functionality, resistance, minimum size, flexibility, expansiveness; on the other hand the attempt to create a hospitable place, able to make people sleep but also dream, able to stand between the excessively bare room in which one feels non-human and the superfurnished room in which one feels like an intruder. “As a unit to house people, the capsules of the AVL are paradigmatic examples of situations in which you find migrants living in limbo, somewhere between full citizenship and death” (Allen, 2002). Since 2000, the Wurmkos collective has been mounting, in various versions and locations, the installation Tana (“den”), a relational environment (Bordone, 2006) that becomes in the artistic process a temporarily available space with a significant aesthetic content. This temporary space is presented as a workshop which generates

VIII This paragraph is by F. Ruffa; an earlier version appeared in Giunta, Rebaglio, and Ruffa, Expanding Interior Design through Humanities.

2. Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places

an excess of drawings and texts that accumulate on the walls, added by participants who bring with them difficulties (diseases, mental disabilities, etc.). The abundance of works produced stimulates the perception of a tight relationship with the hardships and privations of the subjects. The installation seems to show the materialization of the hidden surplus that has been well described by Frederic Rahola (2006). Individuals “out of place”, without belonging and in excess with respect to any territory and economic system, may occupy equally provisional places. Rahola cites Bauman and speaks of non-static human off-casts within the mental confines of society and thus territorialized within new confines, new monitorable centres, at once temporary (due to the provisional nature of the guests) and permanent (since they exist indefinitely). We perceive the sense of people in excess, of an excess which it is necessary to heal and eliminate with appropriate antidotes. In Wurmkos this excess finally has its own support, its own materialization, and emerges with all its energy from the limits in which it had been confined. It is now free and interacts, creating a place of relation. In this sense, the den of Wurmkos becomes a point of reference for the relational qualities of that hospitable environment that design aspires to build.

Towards a cross-cultural design approach “In all its manifestations, design is the DNA of a society […] It is a kind of language, and a mirror of cultural and emotional values”IX. Culture and emotion as narrated by design: “Design has become the language through which we give form to those objects and with which we model the messages they carry in them. The role of the more sophisticated designers, as well as solving formal and functional problems, is that of narrator”X. Thus we are plunged in a great narrative flow, of which we are at once receivers, observers and, above all, protagonistsXI, in which design helps to give form and innovate, to “incarnate” meaning in artefacts, spaces and behaviour. We might say that in this meaning, design, understood as project-oriented thought and practice geared ultimately to creating instruments of mediation, is itself also a metaartefact which builds and determines our experience in the world (in the same way

IX Sudjic, Il linguaggio delle cose, p. 34. X Ibid., p. 12. XI See Anolli, La sfida della mente multiculturale.

that language does). This role is much more interesting when it is called into play in the comparison/ encounter between different cultures and when the project is geared to people of a different culture and must ‘narrate’ a story that has to be understood and related to in many languages. In relations between individuals of different cultures we find different communication situations which can be characterized as: intra-cultural, when people belong to the same culture; inter-cultural (or cross-cultural), when people of different cultures engage in mutual attempts to know each other; meta-cultural, when people recognize the general meaning and variability of culture, rather than specifically know each other’s cultural environments. Here “cross-cultural” is intended as an approach behind design, or as a specific design thinking applied to cultural diversity. If we assume the narrative value of design, and his ability to express the cultural traits of the environment in which it is developed, becomes an interesting challenge to develop design languages that enable knowledge and dialogue with other cultures. There are many experiences in this sense,notably in the field of the design of digital interfaces where have been extensively investigated the effectiveness of communication via non-typographical/calligraphic elements (e.g. icons, formal structures, colours, patterns), both in terms of comprehensibility and semantic consistency. If the interiors are an interface that needs to communicate to culturally different consumers, they must also equip themselves with a significant iconography for each culture, taking into account the different ways of habiting and living spaces, of managing privacy and the boundary between the public and private. Bodies, objects, spaces, temporariness, hospitableness, cross-culturality: the combination of these elements poses new and great challenges that call for innovative and sustainable processes in which designers must collaborate with social communities in multi-level projects. Between privacy and collective space there are all the possible spatial configurations that manage the meeting and interaction between the individuals who live in the space. The formal nature (structure, materials and finishes) of space and its overall configuration prove to be fundamental for an effective perception: in the interaction with the system of spaces it is essential that the individual perceives her/himself as capable, that the environment and its functions are readable, that it is functional and sufficiently modifiable (Altman, 1980). Containers and systems of objects must be able to respond, over time, to the inwardlooking needs for isolation, intimacy, protection, as well as to those outward-looking needs for socialization, sharing, co-management, and integration.

2. Designing for temporary, collective, cross-cultural hospitable places

New kinds of design parameters have to be taken into account: the degree of structuration of the space’s physical component; participation, that is, the scope for the user to intervene in the process of signification of the place; and the information that could be added to the places through new media technologiesXII. From this emerges the importance of ethical-design awareness, as well as aestheticdesign awareness,by the designer that can contribute to the construction of the relationship between man and his artificial environment and its representations. It is necessary to manage the project with an eye to the fallout (in terms of wellbeing/ill-being) that affective and emotional investment in the space/object system can generate. A project for interiors can thus be understood as the configuration of artificial habitats: the tension underlying this type of project is to give a material form and containers to relational configurations within the spaces that will always be in the making. The product-space makes way for the process-space, a sort of “expedient” that is completed, both physically and especially in terms of sense, through individual creativity and mechanisms of appropriation.

XII Iaconesi and Persico, Il societing e la co-creazione della città, p. 137.

Design Research on Temporary Homes

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Giunta, E. & Rebaglio, A. (eds.)

Luisa Collina, Full Professor, Design School, Politecnico di Milano.

EDITED BY ELENA GIUNTA AND AGNESE REBAGLIO

Design Research on Temporary Homes Hospitable Places for Homeless, Immigrants and Refugees