Spazio Ara / Co-Design Process by Alessandra Sara Cutroneo

THE FUTURE OF APERITIVO

INDEX INTRO

A history of aperitivo and our design direction

CO-DESIGNING THE APERITIVO OF 2030

PROCESS ADOPTED

I. A FIRST OVERVIEW ON THE TOPIC OF FOOD

Mercato della Terra The interview

Key findings and insights

II. EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES OF EXPERIENCE AROUND FOOD

13 14 15 16

INTRO

Boundary object

Tools, steps and objectives

Performance of the session

19 20

1ST USER CO-DESIGN SESSION

Details

Key findings, insights and common points of discussion

2ND USER CO-DESIGN SESSION

Details

Key findings, insights and common points of discussion

EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF THE FIRST TWO CO-DESIGN SESSION

III. GAINING A BETTER OVERVIEW ON THE TOPIC OF APERITIVO EXPERIENCE

Interview @MAG Cafè Milan

MAG Cafè

The interview

Key findings and insights

32 33 34

VI. DEFINING THE FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN FOR OUR SERVICE

3rd co-design session with food experts

Intro

Boundary object

Tools, Steps and objectives

Performance

Effectiveness evaluation of the session

42 44

DEFINITION AND VALIDATION 4th co-design session with users (but also design experts)

Intro

Boundary object

Tools, Steps and objectives

Performance

Key findings and insights

Effectiveness evaluation of the session

48 50 53 55

CONCEPT DEFINITION

CONCEPT JOURNEY

NEXT STEPS

V. CONCRETISING OUR FINDINGS, MOVING TOWARDS THE FINAL CONCEPT

Key findings and insights

INTRO

INTRO History of aperitivo and our design direction

Aperitivo is an extremely important part of the Milanese everyday life, providing locals and visitors with opportunities to relax, socialise and discover Italian culture in a pleasurable way. The activity was originally created around a cocktail mix with a special alcoholic beverage intended to “open the taste” (from Latin, “aperire”) for dinner, traditionally accompanied with a selection of appetizers. It is interesting to point out that those were originally created with leftovers from lunch preparation, taking advantage of these resources to create new value for the consumers of bars and restaurants. However, the traditional aperitivo experience started shifting, in the last decade, towards providing an endless variety of food served on a buffet, which is included in the price of the drink. Visitors in Milan and part of the locals started using the occasion to have their dinner at a cheaper price instead and thus fostering the social and environmental unsustainable habit of having a so-called all you can eat experience: unhealthy food is often being served, and the idea of “being fulfilled” has been substituted by the one of “being full”. Furthermore, with the buffet a large amount of food is wasted, and the original purpose of the aperitivo – the one

of re-using sources – has been driven in the exact opposite direction. If we talk about 2030, this habit will be impossible to sustain on an environmental level (and not only): ‘’The modern food system has many challenges - it is hugely wasteful, degrades nature, and causes many people to be unhealthy, through both its consumption and production. The consequences are significant. A recent report published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that for every dollar spent on food, society pays the equivalent of two dollars in health, environmental, and economic costs.’’ Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2019 Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that the values and identity of the original aperitivo – such as the social, relaxing and gathering aspects of it – are still alive. Keeping this in mind, our design direction aimed at finding a way to re-imagine the aperitivo of the future: how might we foster a shift towards a more sustainable, responsible and collaborative way of doing aperitivo, still preserving its meaningfulness, cultural values and identity?

HOW MIGHT WE FOSTER A SHIFT TOWARDS A MORE SUSTAINABLE, RESPONSIBLE AND COLLABORATIVE WAY OF DOING APERITIVO, STILL PRESERVING ITS MEANINGFULNESS, CULTURAL VALUES AND IDENTITY? In 2014 the Municipality of Milan partnered with Fondazione Cariplo to promote and implement a comprehensive local food strategy: the Milan Food Policy. The act sets to promote the sustainability of the food system, raise awareness and fight against waste and last but not least understand how food is grown, prepared and delivered so that the supply chain can be re-designed in a more ethical and fair direction. Building on the grounds of the Milan Food Policy of 2020 and the vision of the MilanoSesto Next City, we identified opportunities to innovate in the direction of re-imagining the aperitivo taking advantage of food waste, raising awareness and providing bigger social impact for the emerging neighbourhood. We realised the design direction was hybrid itself, trying to identify opportunities in two different areas interlinked between each other – the ones of food and experience – and aimed at tackling different issues in such areas, touching themes such as the environment, social and cultural habits and more.

CO-DESIGNING THE APERITIVO OF 2030

PROCESS ADOPTED

While working on the idea of aperitivo of the future, we realised two main aspects were involved – the one of food and the one of experience. For this reason, our process resulted in an interconnected and gradual implementation of these two macroareas, which eventually blended in order to define the final concept. The interviews and co-design sessions we run mainly focused on only one area at a time, to eventually link them together as a single idea during the last co-design session.

I. A FIRST OVERVIEW ON THE THEME OF FOOD Itinerant interview and guided field research @ Mercato della Terra, Fabbrica del Vapore Mercato della Terra Mercato della terra is a Slow Food Italia initiative which takes place twice a month inside Fabbrica del Vapore, aiming to bring the metropolitan reality closer to the one of the countryside. Key figures of the market are more than 40 farmers and producers from Parco Agricolo Sud Milano and not only, which have the possibility to sell their local products (km <40). Moreover, the market offers the possibility to attend food laboratories and events of show cooking, all under the Slow Food Presidia.

AIM Gain a better understanding around the topic of food in general and food waste in particular.

WITH Maurizio Parenti

The interview The interview took place in the form of an “experiential tour”, guided by members and trustees of Slow Food Italia: in the first place, we had the possibility to taste the food, touch it, and talk to the farmers; this helped us get a general understanding of the Slow Food vision and philosophy. In the meanwhile, questions have been asked, in order to better shape the problem we were trying to solve in our initial design direction – the one of food waste.

KEY FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS

THE TOPIC OF FOOD WASTE CONSTITUTES A MACRO-AREA WHICH INCLUDES SEVERAL SMALLER AREAS To go on with the process and have a better, more valuable and effective starting point food-wise, we realised we should have focused on the opportunity to seek for raw materials, discarding the option of re-using cooked food: laws and regulations around processed food are extremely strict and cannot be modified, touching themes such as hygiene, transparency, trackability and more.

USING SCRAPS AND DISCARDED PARTS FROM VEGETABLES AND FRUITS An opportunity to use elements that are usually cut-out and discarded from raw materials – such as leaves, stems, stalks, peels and inflorescences – has been highlighted and pointed out: in the majority of cases, vegetables and fruits are not effectively used. Moreover, these usually discarded parts are actually the ones with more nutrients and vitamins. OUTCOME OF THE INTERVIEW An opportunity to better shape our vision around food to bring on in our process of concept definition.

II. EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES OF EXPERIENCE AROUND FOOD 1st and 2nd user co-design sessions Intro Having gained a general vision around the food aspect of our concept, we wanted to investigate the different possibilities of experience that could have been linked to it. For this reason, we ran two identical user co-design sessions with people belonging to different age ranges: 20-30 years old for the first one, over 35 for the second one. We tried to find a balance between already-given options (especially around activities which might be related to learning, community and socialisation aspects) and the possibilities of users to express themselves. Our goal was to get different opinions, ideas and insights on the same topic, trying to cover the whole spectrum of possibilities.

AIM Explore how the experience around our food vision might take place.

METHODOLOGY Explorative; step-by-step and option-based; investigate and identify users’ needs and preferences.

II.

Boundary object Wooden market box containing different vegetables and fruits and their respective stems, peels, or usually discarded parts, plus a context sign with our design direction written on it.

Steps

Tools

Objectives

WARM-UP

aperitivo ID, jar, pen, “L’aperitivo che mi piace fare...” cards (when, where, with who, what kind of food and activities);

(ca 15 mins) introduce ourselves, MilanoSesto project and our design direction, break the ice, understand what is the participants’ favourite aperitivo experience now;

DISRUPTION

boundary object;

(5 mins) create context, introduce our vision around food, raise awareness, provoke thinking;

INDIVIDUAL GENERATION

board, 7 types of prompt cards and respective blank cards (activities, extra activities, time, location, method of payment and access, what is it and how does it work, people involved)

(ca 1 hour) let participants generate individual perspectives, explore different possibilities and create an individual scenario of how their aperitivo experience might change in the future;

COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION AND WRAP-UP

scenario definition card.

(ca 1 hour) let participants openly discuss and share personal visions and scenarios, then try to generate a common vision around the future experience of aperitivo, keeping in mind the principles of sustainability, responsibility and collaboration.

II.

PERFORMANCE OF THE SESSION Warm-up phase

During the first phase, we firstly introduced ourselves, the MilanoSesto project and our design direction. This was followed by an ice-breaker activity, in which we asked them to fill their Aperitivo ID in order to introduce themselves to each other and enable the conversation; the card was later glued on a wooden stick and put in their personal jar. After this initial activity, they had to fill their “L’aperitivo che mi piace fare…” cards, describing their favourite place, time, food and people regarding their aperitivo experience now. Lastly, they had to openly discuss with the other participants each one of their cards, and put them in their personal jars as well.

II.

Disruption phase

In this short phase we introduced thought-provoking “what if…?” questions regarding the topic of food: we addressed the issue of unsustainability of the aperitivo as it is right now and pointed out the need to find innovative ways of re-thinking it; through this and our boundary object, we eventually introduced our “food vision”. In order to let participants start transforming their “scenario cocktail”, we let them pick one discarded element each from the box and put in in their jars.

II.

Individual scenario generation phase

This has been the longest phase of the co-design session, in which we asked every participant to shape an individual vision and scenario of how the aperitivo experience should be like in 2030. Each participant had been previously provided with a set of 7 different prompts cards decks (used step by step in order not to be an overwhelming activity) that had to be selected in order to start shaping a possible scenario. Once all the categories had been uncovered and introduced, they had the possibility to discard, select, or write their own suggestions on blank cards. Eventually, they all created a scenario, made out of cards, on the board we provided to each of them. Then, they had to summarise their scenario in a few words, explaining why they built it like that, and stick that card behind their Aperitivo ID.

II.

Collaborative phase and wrap-up

During this last activity, participants were asked to introduce their own scenario and selection of cards, generating an open discussion around different topics. Later, we asked them to put their personal “aperitivo jars” inside the boundary object, symbolising the gradual transformation of aperitivo. To conclude, we asked them to wrap-up what they learnt from this co-design session, encouraging reflection and collaboration on how to make the aperitivo more sustainable, responsible and collaborative: we gave them another card on which to write a summary of their thoughts and key common points brought up during the session, and this card was glued behind the sign present in the boundary object.

1st CO-DESIGN SESSION

Participants

Veronica, 23, designer;

Chiara, 24, digital marketer;

Ilaria, 24, environmental engineer; Corrado, 28, programmer.

Duration

ca 2 hours and a half.

Location

private living room, Milan.

II.

KEY FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS THE APERITIVO EXPERIENCE OF TODAY The four participants showed different ways of intending aperitivo, especially regarding the topic of food: some of them actually admitted to like aperitivo because it’s an easier, low-committal and cheaper way of having dinner (even if they often don’t like what they eat), while others were more keen on aperitivo as a way to end the “working day”, having a cocktail and a small amount of food before dinner. In general, they see aperitivo as a moment of relax, fun, socialisation and intimacy to spend with a few friends.

THE APERITIVO EXPERIENCE OF TOMORROW: POINTS OF DISCUSSION Activities and experience The aperitivo should be a “pit stop” at the end of the working day, which allows the possibility to relax and socialise with a few friends or boyfriend and girlfriend, as a kind of intimate moment; on the other side, aperitivo might be a moment to be organised during the weekend, as an easier and less-committal gathering point for everyone. Concerning the learning and civic aspect, they all agreed aperitivo should be carefree and not a moment which may include stress and commitment; concerning this, they would rather have an experience of “indirect learning”, which can happen through tasting and experience. Quality over quantity All four participants agreed on preferring a small amount of food and a great cocktail, rather than the opposite. For this reason, they would like to have, for the Aperitivo of 2030, experts such as mixologists, chefs and nutritionists: in this way, they quality as well as transparency would be guaranteed. To enhance this aspect, they also pointed out the importance of farmers, which may be key figures in explaining the journey of food and teaching interesting elements about it.

II.

Ways of accessing A long discussion has been held around the possibility of booking the service/place making the latter more exclusive, to preserve a relaxing and stress-free environment or keep a free entry for everyone. Moreover, an interesting point brought up by one of them, and then collaboratively discussed, was the possibility of booking food or raw materials, generating possibilities for insights and reflections. In the end, they balanced the two options and agreed on the possibility of keeping both. The importance of a good location Some of them pointed out the importance of a good location, expressing preferences towards places that well balance old and new; infact, a few of them selected places such as “historical building” or “industrial site” as favourite choices. This made us think about the potential MilanoSesto could have from this point of view, concerning the huge heritage originating from Area Falck. Methods of payment In general, they were keen on traditional ways of payment, but were also interested in the possibilities of receiving incentives if a sustainable lifestyle is being followed, raising questions around the topics of trackability, psychology of reward and privacy. Scalability They all agreed on our idea being firstly a physical place in MilanoSesto, that could for sure be scalable and maybe transformed into an itinerant event, discussing topics such as the idea of mystery or surprise, sense of belonging, engagement.

2nd CO-DESIGN SESSION

Participants

Alessio, 41, cook;

Elena, 44, baby sitter;

Raffaella, 44, telecommunication operator; Simone, 48, cook.

Duration

ca 2 hours and a half.

Location

Al Tempio d’Oro restaurant, Milan.

II.

KEY FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS THE APERITIVO EXPERIENCE OF TODAY The four participants showed similar ways of intending aperitivo, except for some minor details. Concerning the eating and drinking side of it, they all agreed on preferring a buffet-based aperitivo, where to experiment with different kinds of food, that anyway have to be of good quality (ethnic or homemade food, platters of cheese and cold cuts, etc.); this has to be accompanied by craft beer, a glass of wine or a regular cocktail. Just like the first group, they agreed on aperitivo as a moment of relax and socialisation, evasion from stress, work and worries. For some of them, the location has to be close to home, while for other ones should be a gathering point in the city, able to bridge together friends coming from different places.

THE APERITIVO EXPERIENCE OF TOMORROW: POINTS OF DISCUSSION Activities and experience Just like the participants from the previous group, the aperitivo should be a moment which allows to relax and relieve from stress, but is also an opportunity for socialisation: either to meet friends that might be hard to see during the week, or to have a nice conversation with a friend after a day spent working. Concerning the learning aspect, they also agreed on the aperitivo being a moment of low-commitment activities, where learning may possibly be included, but in a light way. Also, they were interested in the possibility of creating value for the community or special groups like immigrants, refugees or elderly.

II.

Quality over quantity, but not too much All four participants agreed on the need of having great food to eat, but they were not sure whether the food should be less. In any case, they thought the presence of great chefs or people related to the field of food and agriculture might enhance the quality of the experience. Ways of accessing For all of them, they idea of the place being exclusive is not to be considered, rather agreeing on the place being completely inclusive and free to get in. One person kept the option open for a membership card, such as the one of cultural associations (ARCI, etc.). Communal and green spaces All of them agreed on the location as a green space or indoor space where the community can meet; for some of them, it’s a friction point the need to go to a place which is not nearby home. Methods of payment In general, they really liked the possibility of “baratto” as a payment method, but also the idea of donations to non-profit organisations. Scalability As the previous group, they all agreed on our idea being firstly a physical place in MilanoSesto, that could be scalable in the future.

EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF THE FIRST TWO CO-DESIGN SESSIONS We can say the first co-design has been really successful: people were concentrated, but also engaged and entertained by the possibility of interacting with the different tools provided; the colour palette and the step-by-step methodology encouraged creativity and curiosity. The diverse background of the participants of this co-design fostered a broader vision on the topic, generating a discussion formed by different points of views. Also, the location proved to be effective, because people were at ease, concentrated and free from distractions. A suggestion that was pointed out was the lack of a visual introduction to the project of MilanoSesto, in order to let people envision a possible future around a project they have never heard about. For this reason, we let them see some images from the official websites, and we did the same at the beginning of the following co-design session. Content-wise, the second co-design session has been less successful than the first one: we realised it is not advisable to have participants that not only already know each other, but also belong to the same kind of environment and share the same visions; this indirectly pushed the discussion towards a common filtered view, not allowing a richer and more diverse perspective on the topic discussed. For this reason, our goal of gaining an understanding of the whole spectrum of possibility might have been compromised and not effectively achieved. If we had the chance to run this co-design session again, we would choose participants with different backgrounds and belonging to different environments. Concerning the location, it unfortunately proved ineffective: the light was very subdued, making it hard for the participants to read what was written on the cards; in addition to this, the place was noisy and chaotic, not allowing the participants to properly concentrate. Nevertheless, it was good to see the tool was anyway clear and understood by everyone: they were all engaged, curious and entertained. Overall, we think the co-design session had been well structured and proved effective in balancing already-given options and the possibility of expressing personal opinions, especially considering the fact it was mainly targeted for people outside the world of design, which are not used to brainstorm or come up with creative solutions. The boundary object resulted to be very transformable, eye-catching and context-framing.

II.

OUTCOME From these two sessions, we collected insights and ideas, that helped us reframe and generate a general vision around the aperitivo experience, to move towards a more refined version of it.

III. GAINING A BETTER OVERVIEW ON THE TOPIC OF APERITIVO EXPERIENCE Interview @MAG Cafè Milan MAG Cafè MAG Cafè is a bar on Navigli, which is open from the morning till the evening, offering both breakfast and aperitivo. Its vision focuses on quality, with mixologists specialised in innovative cocktails, storytelling and brand identity. It’s part of a chain of places in Milan (Backdoor43, 1930 Speakeasy, Barba and Iter), all of them sharing the same vision. The attractiveness of these places lays in their identity, which is kind of mysterious, surprising and engaging.

III.

AIM Gain a better understanding around the topic of aperitivo experience in general and especially on how to create “hype”, sense of belonging and trust for the client.

WITH Carlo Dall’Asta.

The interview The interview took place in the form of an informal discussion; it started with an investigation on future trends and scenarios linked to aperitivo in Milan, going on highlighting the importance of quality, good location and valuable staff, in order to establish trust and create a memorable and pleasurable experience for the user. Moreover, the role of marketing was also addressed, as an essential element of a successful user engagement. To conclude, he briefly explained how logistic works for a bar.

III.

KEY FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY According to him, in the future people will be more and more interested in the quality and trackability of the food they are eating, rather than in buffet-based experiences. Bars (and not only) will have to offer simple menus and follow the future trend of minimalism: people prefer to have a limited high-quality choice, rather than law-quality quantity. BEING 100% ZERO WASTE A bar must always be coherent with its vision and philosophy, in order to convey transparency and generate trustability in the client; for this reason, according to him we have to be zero waste in everything we do, if we want to attract people. In any case, the experience must be relaxing, keeping it as a “pit stop” for people: we can’t force learning moments if our idea is to create a multitargeted service or place. THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION People are attracted to unexpected events and limited editions; for this reason, it is essential for a bar to communicate with its customers finding innovative ways of doing it. He claimed a very effective method is the one of “guerrilla marketing”, which combines the unexpected with the exclusive. Building onto the idea of having limited spaces means people will be attracted by the suspense and mystery around the experience they could live inside it. OUTCOME OF THE INTERVIEW An opportunity to have a better understanding of the pillars needed to create a pleasurable and memorable experience and build clients’ trustability.

IV. DEFINING THE FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN FOR OUR SERVICE 3rd c food experts co-design session Intro

AIM

After the first two co-design sessions and interviews, we were able to better envision the users’ needs, reframing and defining a first draft of “experience concept”, taking into account the insights gained. After this brainstorming phase, it was essential to run another co-design session to better define the food journey related to our idea, clarifying doubts and evaluating the feasibility of it. For this reason, we ran this co-design session with experts, members of Slow Food Italia, with whom we analysed and discussed the topics of the future of agriculture, possible suppliers for our service, logistics and scalability, but also recipes and opportunities involving discarded raw materials. In order to do so, we identified the things we wanted and needed to find out, and we shaped the session to find answers to these questions.

Understand the direction in which Slow Food Italia and other sustainable alternatives to industrial agriculture are going to evolve in the near future; find out the details around the food chain in Milan “from the ground to the table”; propose our vision and ask for feedbacks from the experts in each phase of our supply chain; understand the food journey of the service, identifying the main service actors and evaluating the feasible, scalable and logistic aspects of it.

METHODOLOGY Open discussion based on a guided flow; investigative; step-by-step based; collaborative and common-view based in the creation of the journey. 35

3rd CO-DESIGN SESSION

Participants

Francesco Corretto, Slow Food Italia trustee, Maurizio Parenti, chef and events organiser of Slow Food Italia,

Herion Talelli, chef and member of Slow Food Italia, owner of Osteria del Biliardo;

Duration

ca 1 hour and 10 mins

Location

Osteria del Biliardo, Milan

IV.

Boundary object Board game inspired food journey map, showing the main steps of it. During the process, it had been used to guide the flow of the conversation, in the form of a visual interview, where pop-up objects were used to envision the journey and questions printed on stickers were gradually sticked on the board.

Steps

Tools

Objectives

WARM-UP

double-sided sign with our vision printed on one side and description of our first draft concept on the other side; boundary object

(10 mins) introduce ourselves, MilanoSesto project and our design direction

COLLABORATIVE JOURNEY

boundary object; pop-up objects (a discarded fennel stem, suppliers box, logistic box, MilanoSesto box, food transformation box, partnership boxes), post-its, pen, questions stickers, questions cards board

(50 mins) openly discuss about possibilities for the food part of our initial concept, give our opinions and define a better framed and clearer food journey, writing it down on post its;

SUM-UP

synthetic and structured food journey map on second board, questions cards

(10 mins) summarise key findings, cluster them on the second board to end up with a first draft of the food supply chain of our service

IV.

PERFORMANCE OF THE SESSION Warm-up phase

During this phase, we firstly introduced ourselves, the MilanoSesto project and our design direction. After that, we shared with them our first concept draft about food and experience, informing them on what their role would have been during the session.

IV.

Collaborative journey

This phase of the session was run in the form of a visual interview. We guided the flow, but let them talk freely in order for them to express their opinions. We visually showed the journey of food using a discarded fennel stem and pop-up objects representing the different steps, sticking questions on the board while the journey was progressing and listening to their answers. Also, the most important things were written on post-its and sticked on the board next to the respective question.

IV.

Sum-up phase

After the collaborative discussion, its key points had been summarised and written on the questions card, which had later been pinned on the second board, in order to have a final overview of the topics discussed and the possible food journey of our service.

IV.

KEY FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS

Suppliers Concerning the suppliers, the experts shared their vision of re-using raw materials deriving from the local farmers markets, obtaining them after the end of the market day (usually lunch time) and re-using them for the aperitivo preparation. Also, they advised us on only focus on seasonal products and to establish a relationship of trust with our suppliers, in order to guarantee quantity, quality and continuity. They saw the potential in this kind of situation, since for these providers it would be an incentive to “get rid” of their discarded materials, which otherwise they would have to pay for.

Logistic From a logistic point of view, they imagined the possibility of introducing a social and collaborative aspect in this phase of the supply chain (picking up raw materials and transporting them to MilanoSesto): they suggested us to take into consideration the possibility of partnering with non-profit organisations or job allocation centres, in order to establish a mutually beneficial situation in giving people who need a job the possibility to work with us. They weren’t too much afraid of the possibility of using sustainable means of transport, since we are talking about 2030. Hygienic norms and regulations were also discussed in order to clarify our doubts, but also economical and managerial aspects of the supply chain, making us aware of what we should take into consideration in the next steps of the project.

IV.

Processing and transformation of food According to them, the most suitable professionals for our service are young people who just finished attending cooking school or are still attending it. They thought the key elements we should focus on are creativity, curiosity and will to experiment – elements that are, for them, more evident in young people rather than in established and renowned professionals. Concerning recipes, they believe the field of raw materials offers a huge variety of possibilities, making it a field full of opportunities; the only thing we need is a person willing to experiment with them. They also better explained us what fermentation and composting are and how they work.

Food consumption To attract the consumer, we should focus on the hybrid aspect of our service, including the social, collaborative, environmental and experiential aspects of it. Of course, everything will have to be perfectly narrated through a good storytelling and heritage.

Scalability Concerning the scalability of our project, they discouraged us from taking the direction of the itinerant event: managing logistics and suppliers (and not only) would be too hard and complicated. For this reason, they strongly suggested us to become a physical place at first, establish it as a functioning and renowned “hub” and only then consider the possibility of escalating the project on a wider scale.

EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION OF THE SESSION

This third co-design session provided us with extremely useful information regarding the management of short supply chain of food in Milan, practices to reduce food waste, future of agriculture and possible way of fostering a stronger social impact and value for other stakeholders. The tool turned out to be effective from the point of view of the visual communication and clarity of it: each one of the participants claimed it was easy to understand the path and build a discussion around it in an engaging and entertaining way. Nevertheless, the conversation went on as a “stream of consciousness”, with them jumping from one step of the journey to another and not interacting that much with the tools themselves: for this reason, the role of the facilitators proved essential in writing down everything that was being said and fixing it on the board. Also, the discussion shifted from a facilitating co-design session, to a more active one in which we took part in the conversation giving our opinions.

OUTCOME From these two sessions, we collected insights and ideas, that helped us reframe and generate a general vision around the aperitivo experience, to move towards a more refined version of it.

V. CONCRETISING OUR FINDINGS, MOVING TOWARDS THE FINAL CONCEPT DEFINITION AND VALIDATION 4th co-design session with users (but also design experts) Intro At this point, the food and experience aspects of our service were more or less at the same level of detail; for this reason, we gathered and collated all the information and insights gained during the process, and through a step-by-step methodology we tried to identify the key points of our service: what had to either be consolidated, discarded, built upon or clarified. In the end, we tried to generate a final detailed draft of our service, which needed to be tested, evaluated and implemented. This last co-design session proved fundamental to consolidate the concept journey, thanks to three young professionals working in the design field. The session worked as a validation workshop focused on the analysis of a basic service blueprint, to enable a conversation around its possible implementation. Moreover, it helped us identify the next steps to take into consideration while developing the concept – such as the managerial side of it.

AIM Draft concept validation; ask for opinions, info and feedbacks; concept implementation, final concept definition

METHODOLOGY Open discussion based on a guided flow, investigative, step-by-step based, collaborative and common-view based in the creation of the journey.

4th CO-DESIGN SESSION

Participants

Ferdinando Esposito, 27, designer; Gianvito Fanelli, 28, designer; Martina Rossi, 29, designer.

Duration

ca 2 hours.

Location

Feltrinelli RED @Piazza Gae Aulenti, Milano.

Boundary object 1

Service blueprint map divided into “before, during and after” steps. Used during the process to guide the flow of the conversation, in the form of a visual open discussion, where steps cards were gradually placed on the map and used to envision the journey. The steps were aimed to be moved, selected or removed by participants in order to build the final service blueprint.

Wooden market box from the first co-design session to create context, including a double-sided sign with our vision and first draft concept written on it.

Steps

Tools

Objectives

WARM-UP

aperitivo ID, pen, boundary object 2

(10 mins) introduce ourselves, MilanoSesto project and our design direction, ice-breaker activity

COLLABORATIVE JOURNEY

boundary object 1, post-its, pen, steps cards, new ideas cards, questions stickers

(1 hour and 30 mins) presentation of the initial service blueprint with steps cards gradually being introduced and put on the board; open discussion with selection, moving, adding and discarding of the steps cards; writing down key elements on post-its and new ideas cards;

SUM-UP

boundary object 1

(20 mins) summarise key findings reconstructing and concretising the entire blueprint map; marking the key points that need to be implemented

PERFORMANCE OF THE SESSION

Warm-up phase

During this phase we firstly introduced ourselves, the MilanoSesto project and our design direction. After that, we asked the participants to fill their Aperitivo ID as an ice-breaker activity to introduce themselves, in order to get ready for the teamwork activity.

Collaborative journey

This phase of the session was run in the form of a visual open discussion: we guided the flow, but let them talk freely in order for them to express their opinions. The facilitators explained each step of the blueprint using the cards gradually, in order to not overwhelm the participants and guide them to the end; after the explanation of the whole blueprint, participants started asking questions to get a broader and clearer understanding of the journey. At this point, a very active and engaging discussion began, with the three designers sharing their ideas, moving cards on the map, finding new steps of the journey and removing some unnecessary ones. Later on, we used questions stickers and sticked them on the board, to attract the participants’ attention on the areas we had more doubts about, to let them help us finding possible solutions. In the beginning, facilitators just played the role of “active listeners” writing down on post-its what was being said, gradually taking part of the collective brainstorming when new solutions and possibilities were being explored. In general, the most important things were written on post-its and ideas cards and sticked on the map, both from facilitators and participants.

Sum-up phase

After analysing together all the steps in a chronological order, making the last changes and writing many thought-provoking post-its, the participants together with the facilitators verbally summarised and consolidated the blueprint steps, then fixing them on the map with tape.

KEY FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS

Before According to them, we should really focus our attention on the logistic and suppliers aspects, taking into consideration the management of the food supply chain. For this reason, they suggested technological aids we didn’t think about – such as smart scales, algorithms and apps – generating interesting insights and discussion. At the same time, the booking system we proposed has been modified and implemented thanks to them. They all agreed on the extreme importance of mapping and observing local markets in Milan and nearby, to envision and get a concrete understanding of the quantity of food actually wasted. For this reason, we also need to determine the quantitative elements of our service: revenues, costs, number of seats in our place in MilanoSesto, daily quantities of raw materials, etc. In this way, we could apply the previously defined logistic system not only in MilanoSesto, but also “sell” the service to other places in Milan from a scalability point of view; consequently, our MilanoSesto physical place could be used as a main hub and tangible “show room” of our service in action. In addition to this, they helped us solving the problem of the vacant space in the morning, in which it might be possible to attend cooking classes which follow the same philosophy and help people use discarded food in the right way – both for cooking schools students, visitors, residents and more.

During Concerning the during part they suggested us to better reflect the zero-waste philosophy of our service also in the during part, when clients attend aperitivo. For this reason, an excellent brand identity and heritage has to be built, while the place has to perfectly tell the story of food from the beginning until the end, giving the customer a strong and clear idea of what our vision and mission are. Also here, technology can be extremely useful. Concerning the learning aspect of the experience, they agreed on it not being “direct and imposed”, but rather indirect and filtered through a process of gamification.

After They helped us understand what kind of “souvenir” could be left to the customer at the end of aperitivo, and they liked the idea of giving them the possibility to collect recipes of what they ate and drank at our place on an app, to create a sense of belonging and reward. In addition to this, they agreed the idea of creating fermented food and compost with additional discarded foods might be a good idea, also suggesting we could sell what we produce as km 0 products in our MilanoSesto place.

EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION OF THE SESSION

This co-design session really helped us open our eyes on our service and pushed us to concretise it and find meaning in it. Moreover, it really made us aware of our gaps, which had been later discussed and implemented – such as how to use the space in the morning and what could the “after” part be consisting of. The tool – which has been designed also keeping in mind the participants’ background in design, making them a different group of users from the previous ones – proved to be effective. The step-by-step methodology and the cards turned out to be easy to understand and follow, balancing visual and written aspects. Once again, of extreme importance was the collaboration between facilitators and participants, which both interacted with the tools in an engaging way, going from verbally brainstorming phases to more “physical” ones moving cards and writing thing.

OUTCOME Validation and implementation of our ideas, first defined and better framed version our concept.

CONCEPT DEFINITION

CONCEPT DEFINITION It’s an hybrid service and space which takes care of collecting discarded raw materials from Sesto San Giovanni local markets and nearby areas; the raw materials are then transported to its space in MilanoSesto, in order to transform them into innovative, zero-waste and ever-changing cocktails and dishes, offering a new and alternative experience of aperitivo.

NEXT STEPS

NEXT STEPS THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE Push ourselves to speculate around innovative ways of developing the service, using technology as an useful aid and keeping in mind the first assignment of the project, in order to generate a concept coherent with the future scenario we are envisioning.

FROM QUALITATIVE TO QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH Conduct a second phase of field research, desk research, observation and user engagement to find an answer to all the quantitative aspects of our service: revenues, costs, number of seats in our place in MilanoSesto, daily quantities of raw materials discarded and being thrown away, number of suppliers and actors involved, feasibility etc.

BUILD A STRONG BRAND IDENTITY AND STORYTELLING In order to communicate our service, branding, marketing and storytelling will play a major role: we need to build a heritage, understand what our vision and mission are and be able to transmit and reflect all of our values from the “before” part to the actual experience of aperitivo, giving the customer also a clear idea of our journey.

COLLATING INFORMATION AND INSIGHTS Qualitative and quantitative aspects should be combined through another phase of brainstorming and discussion, to gain an overall understanding of what the service is and how the service works, in a way that it is cohesive, coherent and logical.

Group 2: Alessandra Cutroneo, Maya Ivanova, Margherita Stanga, Lina Xu Assignment 4 Master of Product Service System Design | PSSD Final Studio 1 | A.Y. 2019/20 Proff. Anna Meroni, Daniela Selloni, Stefania Broadbent, Elena Perondi Tutors: Martina Rossi, Matteo Mariani, Luca Molinari

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Spazio Ara / Co-Design Process

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CONCEPT DEFINITION