DESIS Network

The peaceful war of times, places and interactions (and the DESIS Philosophy Talks)

by Ezio Manzini, Virginia Tassinari

The war of times, places and interactions has already been started. Everyday, millions of people challenge traditional ways of doing things and introduce new, different, and more sustainable behaviours. The common denominator of these initiatives is that the involved people compensate for a reduction in consumption (in goods and space) with an increase in something else that they consider more valuable. This “something else” is generally represented by the increase of their environment physical and social qualities. We can refer to them as sustainable qualities: qualities that ask for more sustainable behaviours in order to enjoy them.
A distributed design agency: a work in progress

by Ezio Manzini, Anna Meroni

Is DESIS a “distributed design research agency”? Not yet, but we are working on it! As a matter of fact, since the Meeting in Helsinki in May 2012, several steps have been taken in this direction. Some of them have produced results that are already visible and quantifiable. Others are still “under water” like inter-Labs discussion on possible initiatives (events and research programs) to be conceived and developed collaboratively. (....)

2011 DESIS symposium “Transformation Design for Public”

by Miaosen GongThe 2nd DESIS symposium “Transformation Design for Public” was successfully organized at Wuxi and Shanghai on Oct. 31st and Nov. 1st 2011. It’s co-organized by Jiangnan University, Tongji University and Politecnico di Milano, and endorsed by DESIS network and Cumulus. Prof. Ezio Manzini was invited to be keynoter and appointed as a Guest professor of both Jiangnan University and Tongji University.

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Master level program in Social and Collaborative Housing: Designing, planning and managing the contemporary housing

The program is organized by the POLI.design consortium and supported by the School of Design and the School of Civil Architecture, and by the Departments INDACO (Industrial Design, Arti, Comunicazione e Moda) and DPA (Progettazione

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DESIS Korea launched

A new DESIS local branch was initiated in South Korea. On November 23rd, 2011, DESIS Korea was officially launched at Seoul National University where initial members and partners gathered and celebrated its birth together. Professor Ezio Manzini joined the launching event to give an opening speech followed by brief introduction of the members and the parters on their current projects and interests. The participants include Seoul National University (SNU), Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Yonsei University, the Hope Institute (a social innovation think tank), Green Plus U (a NGO that promotes “Green Mind”), and Design Oneness Mission Center (DOMC).

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labs
Korea

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WORDS: chapters 4 and 5

Chapter 4: ELASTI-CITY

On a sustainable world the quality of: elasticity seems mandatory, along with joy and health; like in this case that our colleague Elif Küçüksayraçfrom ITU University in Istanbul shares in her view for this edition of Around the World in 80 Words.

Chapter 5: Love for Nippon

Even if nowadays mass media gives priority to new 'news', the Tsunami-episode in Japan hasn't vanished.
We don't know how the cooling of the reactor ended up or how is the Nation moving forward. What we do know is that efforts have made people 'happier'.

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