Izmo organizza un laboratorio di progettazione partecipata e autocostruzione all’interno del progetto Leonia, vincitore del bando Generazione Creativa, indetto dalla Compagnia di San Paolo.
Dal 18 maggio al 16 giugno, per 4 weekend (escluso quello del 2-3 giugno), nei giorni di venerdì e sabato i partecipanti progetteranno e realizzeranno una serie di installazioni al fine di riqualificare il quartiere di Porta Palazzo, a Torino. L’area d’intervento individuata in collaborazione con Circoscrizione 7 e The gate sarà la piazza antistante alla Caserma Cavalli – Ex Arsenale Borgo Dora (Piazza Borgo Dora – Torino). I partecipanti, a fronte di una lezione introduttiva in cui si presenteranno i risultati della fase di ricerca di Leonia, saranno accompagnati nella fase progettuale che si concluderà con la realizzazione di manufatti d’arredo urbano utili alla riqualificazione di piazza Borgo Dora.
La fase di autocostruzione sarà ospitata all’interno dell’Officina del Cecchi Point e saranno utilizzati i materiali forniti da Izmo (recuperati prima che siano considerati rifiuti) e dalle aziende associate all’Unione Industriale (sottoprodotti).
Il laboratorio è aperto ad ogni studente di grado e provenienza, a professionisti e ad ogni interessato ai temi della riqualificazione urbana, dell’autocostruzione e del design autoprodotto con utilizzo di “rifiuti”. Agli iscritti verranno forniti tutti i materiali e gli strumenti necessari alla realizzazione.

Izmo nasce nel 2006 a Torino e si occupa di processi partecipativi, sviluppo locale, architettura, design e nuovi media.
Il nome deriva dall’assonanza con l’istmo, una linea sottile di terra che unisce due territori: il nostro ambito di ricerca è infatti il territorio, luogo di relazioni tra individui e spazi, e la nostra mission è unire i territori tra di loro, i cittadini con il territorio e tra di loro attraverso interventi di riqualificazione urbana e installazioni; organizzazione di seminari, incontri e workshop; sviluppo di piattaforme Web collaborative. In tutti i casi, le attività e le azioni di Izmo provengono dalla lettura e dall’ascolto dei luoghi e dei cittadini interessati dagli interventi.

Per iscrizioni e info

Per iscriversi al laboratorio è necessario inviare la propria candidatura con CV allegato all’indirizzo: associazione@izmo.it entro il 16 maggio 2012.
Izmo – made to gather
FitzLab – Via Aosta, 8 – 10152 – Torino – Italy
associazione@izmo.it
Pasquale Onofrio: +39 340 5328632
Alessandro Grella: +39 328 4838858

Per maggiori informazioni si prega di consultare il programma all’indirizzo: http://leonia.izmo.it/Workshop_Leonia

On November 24, during the course of the Eindhoven Summit on Innovation in Cities organized by Living Labs Global and the City of Eindhoven, Cluster facilitated a visioning workshop entitled ‘Sustainable Tourism’. The visioning workshop program is part of Living Labs Global’s matchmaking activities, the purpose of which is not to produce a feasible solution on the spot, but rather to engage all parties involved in city-making in an intense brain-storming session on strategies to foster innovation in cities.

Visioning Workshops Eindhoven Summit on Service Innovation in Cities Living Labs Global

There were eight workshops in total, which covered the topics including health, transport, mobility, logistics, public services and tourism. Each workshop was attended by 10 – 13 participants, including city representatives, researchers, social entrepreneurs and service-oriented businesses.

Cluster chose the topic of Sustainable Tourism because of its relevance to the city of Turin. Turin’s transformation began in 2000, with the implementation of its first strategic plan, and has continued. The positive impact of these cultural and urbanistic changes has led to a growth spurt for the tourist industry over the last decade which needs to be addressed from a sustainability viewpoint.

The participants in the Sustainable Tourism workshop were: Federico De Giuli and Marcia Caines of Cluster, Ton Kooymans, director of Calllock Mobility; Thea Weijers, project manager for Carefree Living, Municipality of Hertogenbosch; Raymond Voogt, owner of Voogt Service Innovation; Irene Fritzen of Cetiex, representing the City of Caceres and Quirine Kroezen of Brainport Development.

Sustainable Tourism: the brief

Visioning Workshop 8 Sustainble Tourism. Photo courtesy Living Labs Global | Flickr album Living Labs Global

‘Sustainable Tourism’ is a very broad term which ranges from architecture to mobility, development to hospitality, and infrastructure to inclusive design. For the benefit of the two hour workshop in Eindhoven we decided to focus on connectivity and integration.

The aim of the Sustainable Tourism workshop was to spark discussion on the role of service innovation in connecting local communities and foreign visitors while lessening the impact on the natural environment and boosting the economy at the same time. We also set out to consider how to bridge the gap between citizen services and tourist services by integrating hospitality services e.g. hotels, restuarants and local/regional commercial activities, into existing city infrastructures such as transport systems, museums, conference centres and information networks.

Our group visioned solutions that deploy the sharing power of new technologies to create services designed to:

✪ facilitate face-to-face interactions between locals and tourists
✪ help people make conscious and responsible decisions
✪ celebrate local culture, heritage and traditions
✪ promote future health and wellbeing in cities and regions
✪ improve the local economy and create job opportunities
✪ overcome cultural barriers
✪ command respect for the natural environment

What is sustainability? What is tourism?
Ton Kooymans started off the session by addressing two simple ice-breaking questions: What is sustainability? What is tourism? The responses that emerged ranged from enogastronomy to pilgrimage tourism, and from community building to recycling for sustainability, and we then looked at ways to work these into innovative ideas for long-term, affordable and adaptive solutions for sustainable tourism in cities.

Connecting and integrating end-users, cities, locals and the natural environment

Ton Kooymans sketch of The Tourist Platform. Visioning Workshop 8:Sustainble Tourism. Photo courtesy Brainport Development

In our roundtable discussion we agreed that hospitality services in cities are often too self-contained and not an integral part of city or local life. Tourism services need to be more inclusive to benefit local communities and stimulate the local economy, for example by creating partnerships between city governments, hotels and local operators.

Raymond Voogt of Voogt Service Innovation pointed out that the tourism sector is highly suited to employing and training low-skilled workers on a city and regional level. He suggested that inclusive tourism services could combine promoting local heritage with tackling unemployment, thereby enhancing the skills of the local workforce and improving the socioeconomic situation of entire areas.

We shared ideas about how the end-user of new service solutions should be put at the front of the process, to ensure that new tourism services and policies are designed with a user-centered approach. Superior solutions have to meet everyone’s needs by offering choice, considering people’s diversity and providing flexibility.

Sustainable tourism must address climate change to reduce carbon emissions in cities and needs to apply high standards to provide solutions that are actionable within environmental limitations across all parties (hotels, tour operators, city governments, local communities, visitors, industry etc)

The Local Tourism Platform

Ton Kooymans sketch of points system. Visioning Workshop 8:Sustainble Tourism. Photo courtesy Brainport Development

The result of our group effort was a service tourism platform, a sort of local brand for tourism supplies and a gateway to the local people and culture. The main aim of the platform is to achieve the economic, environmental and social balance required to implement a manageable, clean and prosperous vision of tourism that promotes enjoyment for all.

Our local platform seeks to:

✪ Fulfill needs by offering choice and accommodating all users.
✪ Invest in the local marketplace
✪ Hire local staff and create job opportunities
✪ Offer high quality services at different price levels and ensure safety
✪ Create local supply chains and partnerships.
✪ Introduce an innovative incentive system to mitigate the effects of climate change
✪ Connect locals and tourists
✪ Improve the overall image and well-being of the city
✪ Use gamification for desired behaviours

Gamification and incentive systems for behaviour change

The local tourism service platform must play a key role in reducing carbon emissions in the city, and this requires action on a large-scale that has to involve citizens and visitors alike. We envisioned a system that elicits participation and social interaction through game playing and points systems.

For example, visitors who use public transport will gain points. These points could be used either for a discount in local restaurants, bars or shops or alternatively to reduce tourist tax, or for discounts on museum admission etc.
Visitors who require car hire or luxury services which have a higher environmental impact will pay more and not collect points. The same game-inspired system can be applied to various issues such as water use, waste reduction and energy saving.

To conclude, our platform aspires to provide visitors and citizens with superior service solutions for sustainable tourism, while also acting as a tool to connect people and enable them to act virtuously to benefit each other and the natural environment, to make cities healthier places to visit and live in.

The Eindhoven Summit on Service Innovation in cities is a one-day event organized by the city of Eindhoven and Living Labs Global, a non-profit organization committed to making cities worldwide cleaner, safer and smarter through service innovation. This brings businesses and cities together, with the aim of creating public/private partnerships and introducing new business models to improve the quality of life in an increasingly urban world.

photo courtesy Living Labs Global | Flickr album Living Labs Global

Hosted in Eindhoven, home to the consumer electronics giant Philips, the Summit took place in the iconic Evoluon building, which was commissioned by the city’s late and much-revered Frits Philips, aka “Meneer Frits”, who inaugurated the building as a educational centre for science and technology in 1966 to celebrate Philips’ 75th anniversary. The Evoluon has now been converted into a conference centre, and on November 24 the agenda of the summit alternated matchmaking activities and events on the themes of smart urban lighting and energy, e-health and smart living, and wellbeing in cities.

Evoluon, Eindhoven. Photo courtesy Living Labs Global | Flickr album Living Labs Global

Cluster participated in the Urban Lighting Session moderated by Prof. Elke den Ouden of the Technical University of Eindhoven, Netherlands and facilitated a visioning workshop on Sustainable Tourism (more about this later).

The urban lighting session: rethinking lighting in the public realm
The session on urban lighting was a parallel panel discussion moderated by Prof. Elke den Ouden of the Technical University of Eindhoven, (TUE) Netherlands, which included four presentations: “STRIJP-S: creating a public lighting experience” by Lorna Goulden of Philips Design; “Pushing the boundary of Urban Lighting“, Ellen de Vries, Het Lux Lab, Netherlands; “Integral Solutions for Urban Infrastructures”, Josep Maria Serra, Santa&Col, and “Sensor City Assen“, Jan Reitsma, Director, Stichting Sensor City.

Lorna Goulden – Smart Urban Lighting Session. Photo courtesy Living Labs Global | Flickr album Living Labs Global

Each of the speakers presented innovative projects which illustrated how Dutch companies, researchers, stakeholders and cities are making concentrated efforts to integrate modern-day technologies (predominately combinations of LED and Sensor technologies) to create adaptive lighting solutions in public space, in order to enhance the overall empirical quality of city lighting for citizens, improve urban safety, reduce energy consumption and evolve with change.

It was interesting to see how many aspects of city life involve lighting issues and can benefit from innovative lighting systems in the future. For example, Ellen de Vries demonstrated how sensor technology is able to identify ‘fear’ through a certain frequency and in response adapt the lighting in that particular safety hotspot.

Smart Urban Lighting Session. Photo courtesy Living Labs Global | Flickr album Living Labs Global

The city of Eindhoven itself has an ambitious urban development plan underway called ‘Strijp – S’, set to regenerate 66 acres of a former Philips industrial site into a creative location for work, rest and play. In particular, it will boast a fully integrated, partly open-source and completely programmable public lighting system. Leading the city project as creative director is Lorna Goulden of Philips Design.

The city of Assen is working towards becoming a Sensor City to facilitate all sorts of service developments which go beyond lighting, extending to soundscaping, e-health, mobility, and distributed energy, to name but a few.

The revelations of the various speakers were quite awe-inspiring and stirred up much discussion among attendees. As questions bounced from the floor the event soon became a lively debate, which was clearly dominated by issues related to data management, transparency, IP and public consensus: the grey areas.

Smart Urban Lighting Session. Credit Mindmixer.com. Image courtesy Living Labs Global | Flickr album Living Labs Global

As we scrabble to find new models for economic development and sustainable growth, it is evident that there are still issues – and not technological ones – impeding (or at least stalling) the innovation process in cities, and these problems call for solutions.

Everyone in the room agreed that cities need to take urgent action to respond to pressing problems and adapt to systemic change, but questions continue to be raised by key individuals within the public, private and civil sectors: Who owns the data? What happens if a solution doesn’t work? Who decides on behalf of the citizens? How to manage expectations? How can cities renew regulations for the implementation of new technologies if they don’t know where they will lead? What belongs to citizens in public space? When does the focus on technology prevail over people’s needs? How do we help people make conscious, informed decisions?

The Urban Lighting Session at the Eindhoven Summit on Service Innovation in Cities sparked interesting discussion and although some questions remained unanswered, it was a unique opportunity for city leaders, design experts and companies to exchange experiences and knowledge, exploring new approaches to urban lighting which are inclusive, sustainable and fulfill their promise.

More posts on the Eindhoven Summit for Service Innovation in Cities to follow.

Dan Burden on walkability and livability


Gil Penalosa on cities for everyone: 8 – 80 cities

Rob Adams on bigger and better cities

Naheed Nenshi on creating inclusive communities

Carol Coletta on innovation

(read original post on Yurbanism)

The year the award brings together 20 global cities commited to finding innovative solutions to pressing urban problems and hundreds of international technology and service solution providers (big and small) competing to provide a winning project that will do the job best.

The cities, Barcelona, Birmingham, Caceres, Cape Town, Coventry, Derry~Londonderry, Eindhoven, Fukuoka, Glasgow, Guadelajara, Hamburg, Lagos, Lavasa, Kristiansand, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Santiago de Chile and Terrassa, are searching for innovative solutions capable of tackling key challenges which range from social inclusion to sustainable transport, urban service automation to urban lighting, open data systems to smart living and healthcare.

The competition is divided in twenty Award Categories and the entries will be assessed by a jury of international experts against criteria such as climate and community impact, innovation, market relevance and ease of implementation.

International technology and service solution service providers will compete for twenty winning spots that will allow them to pilot their solutions in these cities and put their effectiveness to the test.

Entries are open until February 17 2011
Top 5 Showcases presentation by each partner city on March 5 2012.
The final Award winners and Award Ceremony May 2 2012 in Rio de Janeiro on the eve of the Rio Summit on Service Innovation in Cities.

www.twitter.com/livinglabsaward
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www.llga.org