Design and visualization. Diagrammatic tools for complexity

international summer school

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international summer school

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1

con trib u to r s

Phillip Anzalone, Andrea Bairati, Alessandro Balbo, Silvia Barbero, Luigi Bistagnino, Marco Bozzola, Mario Buono, Cristian Campagnaro,Valter Cavallaro, Clara Ceppa, Fiammetta Costa, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Clara De Andrés, Loredana Di Nunzio, Franco Fassio, Caterina Fiorentino, Veronica Gallio, Paola Gambaro, Cesare Griffa, Martí Guixé, Laszlo Herczegh, Massimo Infunti, Peter Kisch, Giuseppe Lotti, Michele Lagomarsino, Eleonora Lupo, Andrea Marchiò, Marco Mazzola, Anna Meroni, Murat Mirata, Alfonso Morone, Hyojin Nam, Christian Nold, Lekshmy Parameswaran, Claudia Pasquero, Rebecca Pera, Gianni Pesce, Giulia Pils, Marco Poletto, Alessandra Rasetti, Donato Ricci, Francesca Rizzo, Maximiliano Romero, Peter Di Sabatino, Daniela Sangiorgi, Gaia Scagnetti, Paolo Scoglio, Lidia Signori, Elizabeth Sikiaridi, Giulia Simeone, Alessandra Spagnoli, Paolo Tamborrini, Caterina Tiazzoldi, Raffaella Trocchianesi, Carlo Vannicola, Rosanna Veneziano, Junior Venturi, Beatrice Villari, Frans Vogelaar, Paola Zini.

index

themes and projects

workshops

Connected Places

Active welfare

by Ezi o Manzi ni

...............................................................................................................................................................

ed i ted by L ek s h my Pa ram eswaran, Laszl o He r cze gh and Fi am m e t ta Co sta

7

Design and territory: two scales of synergic projects

ed i ted by Pa o l o C i uc care l l i , D o nato R i cci

9

...............................................................................................................................................................

57

Food networks

One School: six themes, a common design project

ed i ted by A nna Mero n i , G i ul i a S i m e o ne

by El eo no ra Lu p o, Cristian Cam p ag n aro

...............................................................................................................................................................

31

Complexity maps

by Fl av i ano Cel asch i, Clau d io G e rm ak

...............................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................................

11

...............................................................................................................................................................

72

Multi-mobility ed i ted by Reb ec c a Pera

the event ...............................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................................

83

21

Open and safe places ed i ted by Ma r c o B o z zo l a

...............................................................................................................................................................

project leaders and local clients ...............................................................................................................................................................

25

98

Symbiotic production ed i ted by C r i s t i a n C am p agnaro , Pe te r Ki sch

...............................................................................................................................................................

114

design studio Prototyping the city ed i ted by C a ter i na Tiazzo l di

...............................................................................................................................................................

131

i. context

Connecting the visible and the invisible In the last two decades Information Visualisation has emerged as one of the most important techniques for managing data in our present knowledge society, due to its ability to make the complex – accessible, the invisible – visible, and the intangible – palpable. Traditional forms of mapping and representation of cities seem to be inadequate in representing urban space as a living organism. The complexity of city flows (both tangibles and intangibles) require subtle tools that can visualise complex phenomena without breaking them up, tools that depict qualities of a system which would otherwise not be perceptible and collective visions capable of defining and structuring the spaces where we interact.

In this way, the new language of diagrams and maps can be seen as a liminal interface between knowledge and experience, rather than a mere description of reality. This new language constructs visual models that connect the physical realm of cities and buildings with the invisible world of communication, social networks and human activity. The potential of this new language is to create a shared visual vocabulary that goes beyond just representing systems but also enables the pinpointing of critical pivot points that allow interventions into the system.

The Complexity maps workshop had three broad aims. First, the development of an appropriate way of gathering local information in a consensual way with local stake holders. Second, to produce visualisations that could create new insights into the local dynamics of the site. Third, the creation of new methodological models for the Information Visualisation discipline as a whole.

fi g. 1 C o mpl ex i ty ma ps wo r k s h o p, a d a pted fro m Sc a g ne t t i , R i cci , Ci uccare l l i , Baul e , 2007

link to

link to

signs of space. interpreting the complexity of territories (pdf).

design and visualization. diagrammatic tools for complexity (pdf).

by gaia scagnetti

by donato ricci 58

ii.theme

Visions through perceptions Urban policies involve different administrative bodies which are often not co-ordinated and deal with a wide remit from environmental policy to infrastructure, from social integration to public security. The institutional role of the Urban Center Metropolitano of Turin, is to ease the interaction and the decision making process between these different city administration entities, through building scenarios of the future transformation of Turin. The Urban Center were designated as the workshop local client for this project and suggested the target site, Stura Park, in the northern periphery of Turin as one of the last large empty sites in Turin and a location where they predict intense future change (ďŹ g. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). In collaboration with the local government they had been creating strategic plans for Stura Park which included a Golf Course and the building of two nearby Metro stops (ďŹ g. 7).

Despite these plans, the Urban Centre had little local knowledge of the site and no contact with local people or organisations. In addition, the Urban Centre had some doubts about the proposal of a Golf Course and wished to gain a much better understanding of local opinions and interactions of local actors.

The aim of the workshop was to identify people’s thoughts, issues and desires and to see how visualisation could be integrated in political and cultural process, providing new elements for a strategic vision of the future transformations of the target area.

fi g. 2

f i g. 5

fi g. 3

link to

intervention area: northern torino the confluence of the po and stura di lanzo rivers (pdf). by teaching staff

fi g. 4

f i g. 6 59

fi g. 7 S tu ra Par k: p rese n t are a m ap an d f u tu re st ra tegi c pl a n

60

Project brief 1. Represent local people’s perception; 2. Create a tool for discussing future change; 3. Develop a methodological critique of the Urban Centre’s current approaches to local sites.

Stura Park is an unmanaged and overgrown postindustrial wasteland bounded by the bank of the river Stura on one side and conduit roads that lead towards the centre of Turin in one direction and Milan in the other (fig. 8).

What few people seemed to know or acknowledge before proposing this target site for the project, was that the Stura Park is considered by researchers to be the biggest heroin distribution ‘centre’ in Europe.

fi g. 8 61

iii. process

Design Ethnography + Analytical Urbanism & Information Design The conceptual approach of this workshop used ActorNetwork Theory as articulated by John Law and Bruno Latour, translated into a practical form.

The method tried to analyse the project area as a complex entity constituted by the relationship between people (a range of competing actors with different interests), material (places, objects and flows)

and semiotic entities (ideas and concepts). By seeking connections, analysing relations and describing the systems, the students perceived the area as an intertwined network and assumed to collect the points of view of many actors particularly and citizens.

The students worked in small groups on five topics, strongly linked with the other Summer School workshops design themes, trying to answer and questioning to the following issues:

_Mobility – Where do people want to get to and how do we get there? How is mobility affecting the local sense of place and quality of life? _History and Future – What is this place? What are the current ideas about the history and future of this place? What do local people think will happen? _People – Who lives there and where and why do they meet? Who are the different groups of people who use and/or own this place? _Security and Insecurity – What does security or insecurity means in the local context? What are the local fears and dangers? _Environment – How are the local people engaged with their surroundings? What effect does the environment have?

The week long workshop was split into two phases.

In the first part, local people were interviewed and data collected on the project site in Turin, while the second part was focused on synthesizing, analysing and visualising the information collected (fig. 9).

fi g. 9 the wo rk sh op we e k p rocess 62

Design Ethnography: looking as an outsider, thinking as an insider The first three days were spent interviewing more than 100 local people, considering them as experts on the local context. A large number and variety of stakeholders were interviewed (local government, environmental agency, area planners, local shopkeepers, residents, gardeners, drug addicts) (fig. 10, 11, 12): but students were well-aware that quality shall be preferred over quantity. Moreover, the students reflected on their own thoughts and perceptions since they, as outsiders, could perceive the area as a “whole”. fi g. 10

In addition tests of soil and water quality were taken from the target area since there were some concerns about possible environmental pollution.

fi g. 11

f i g. 12

63

Analytical Urbanism and Information Design: looking for patterns to narrate a meaningful story The second phase started with the analysis of the huge amount of data collected (fig. 13, 14, 15, 16). Different qualitative approaches, such as Discourse Analysis, were introduced to sieve and cluster information.

Local and national newspaper databases were analysed, as well as some background demographic reports. The key activity was finding patterns and connections between official data and the ones collected on field. At this stage the initial findings were shared among the student groups and a large number of common issues emerged from the different starting themes.

fi g. 13

f i g. 15

fi g. 14

f i g. 16

This part of the work explored how to visualise and communicate the findings: from a descriptive and analytic understanding of the forces that shape the local context, to developing a visual narrative that uncovers the local urban and political reality.

64

iv. results

A design system for local informational empowerment Each project group developed their own map with its own results:

Mobility group

This group analyses the usage of the park from the 1950’s when Fiat workers first settled into the area. The behaviour of people in the area (coming and going, staying in the park, passing through) is influenced by current and historic flows in the area and have shaped how the

park is used today (industry, former leisure activity).

This group’s conclusion is that the current usage of the park has been entirely determined by a series of external factors that also suggest its future usage dynamics.

Participants: Ivan Bursztyn, Maura Corvace, Elkind Evgeniya, Veronica Filice, Yong Kim, Marc Osswald, Ji Min Seo. link to

mobility group (pdf).

65

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The concept of change was the starting for this group.

It revealed the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uniqueness through the following phases: connection, disconnection and reconnection.

The groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion was that a top-down urban design approach has created the present local problems.

Before this external intervention the local actors were

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able to maintain an equilibrium. In particular the social elements like the illegal allotments kept the connections between the local actors alive. However, the area shows powerful bottom up local groups which could be further explored and considered as a resource for the reconnection of this space.

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Participants: Alica Horvathova, Federica Messina, Andrew Ridge, Gaia Scagnetti, Giuseppe Vaccaro, Tom Tassilo Ziora. link to

history/future group (pdf).

66

People group

The main conclusion of this group is that the locked loops of local government policy and money perpetuate a situation of local abandonment which feeds illegal activities as well as social and political exclusion. To illustrate the cyclical nature of the local context, this group chose the physical format of an unrolled Mobius strip as their design format.

Graphically, the scale of connections between the Italian population to the micro Stura Park community is represented as a series of stops on an underground line. Each metro stop contains statistical & visual evidence, media reports, and personal narrative that supports the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s argument.

Participants: Davide Durante, Paolo Roberto Fusaro, Julia Holczinger, Gabriele Muracchioli, Karin Ransberger, Eva Schiendzielorz, Fabio Vignolo. link to

people group (pdf).

67

Security/Insecurity group

Many issues emerged from the research: the relationship between the drug buyers, drug, legal and illegal gypsy camps and prostitution. The visualisation allows us to see the change in perceived local safety from 2003 to 2008. Personal stories and quotes suggest activities that could

help to improve the feeling of safety in the area.

The central conclusion of this group was that the removal of the drug users from the city centre to the Stura Park which coincided with the 2006 Olympics in Turin changed the perception of safety in the local area.

Participants: Lucia Garnero, Marcos Lins Langenbach, Gabriele Musella, AndrĂŠ Pottes De Souza, Matteo Tangi, Rosa Elina Te Velde. link to

security/insecurity group (pdf).

68

Environment group

Env i ro nment gro u p A

This group combined physical pollution testing with qualitative analysis of the stakeholders’ perception of the local environment.

These methods lead them to conceptualise the site as a space where the local actors of government administration, media as well as local citizens are in conflict.

The main conclusion of this group was that the fear triggered by the media representation of the area as “Drug Park” overshadows all the local environmental issues such as the new allotments where people are growing food in possibly heavily polluted soil.

Participants group A: Beatrice Lerma, Luca Masud, Francesca Vargiu.

Participants group B: Hanna Kim, Hyebin Park. link to

environment group a (pdf). environment group b (pdf).

69

CO

Conclusion

mmunity mplex mmunication opertion

CO means that do something together

We started spreading our ideas based on the geographical characteristics of the target area.

Because of the river, the area is divided into two parts, central city and suburb. It also represents administration as the external force and people who live there as the internal force. The area is a crossing area where those two forces meet, so this area is not belonging to any of them.

Media is carrying the information between them like the bridges which are located the both sides of the area.

People, Administration, and Media are the main three actors those can make some movement on this area.

Focusing on the three main actors, many elements which we got from our research are assembled into a map.

Audience who use this map will experience three steps of recognition. They stand with some distance from the maps.

At first, they can easily pick up the main 3 actors’ relationships.

Next, when they step forward a little bit, they can skim the 10 main causes which blocking their communication.

Third step, they step forward again to get more detailed information.

After they get enough information, the final step is stepping backward to have overview of many obstacles overlapped by y their relationships.

Therefore, the environmental issue is hidden, so it is har hard to get information and aware about the problem. So th that’s why this area is still abandoned and the situation is ge getting worse and worse.

The shape of the map looks like a honeycomb. om Bees are a good example to show how society works. rks The structure is really as complex as ou our project, ‘Complexity Maps’. The elements, actors are all li linked.

Our message is that just one part solve the complirt cannot c cated problems, obviously. Furthermore, one part doesn’t rth work, the whole system will st stop.

Blocked by stones

Ruined building Blocked by fences No enter sign

No will to get more information

Young people moved to central city

Come back only to sleep

Far from the center

Obstacles People

dont

“The area is abandoned”

Isolated area

use the area

Who lives here

emission

Connected to own cultural background Connected to Emerging generational Solid elements Topic difference in the air

Security issues

no.3 M(34) “There is no problem out of the park”

“The real pollution is unsecurity”

Junkies

no. 4 M(60)

no.1 W (30)

3 running junkies

“The 1st problem is deliquency”

Who doesnt live here

junkie entering into the park

no.2 M(30) “The 1st problem is security” no. 5 W(30)

Drug dealers

“The real pollution is unsecurity”

junkie with a dog entering into the park

Throw the drugs no.1 W (30) “The 1st problem is security” into the river

Nomads (gypsy)

PEOPLE GET INFORMATION ABOUT THE PARK FROM MEDIA Air

Do not well connected

cant use the area

no.7 M(60)

PEOPLE

Gardener

“There is no security in the park ”

People

NO USE OF THE AREA

no.3 M(34) “The area is abandoned”

Far from the center

AIR POLLUTION

Pieces of broken cars

Trash

Indiffirence

Young people

In conclusion, it is betterr tthat the communities related to many problems communicate with each other to get an un agreement to solve the he problems. If the community members cooperate, the system of society will work in a proper s

Ruined building

No enter sign

Used injection

Passive attitude

There is another GOOD PARK

No water supply &waste system

SECURTY ISSUES> ENVIRONMEMT Security : ISSUES short term,

pollute the water

“Non EU people make noise in the night”

no. 5 W(30)

“The 1st problem is drug”

no.1 W (30) no.1 W (30) “The 1st problem is security”

no.7 M(60) “The 1st problem is security”

no.6 W(50)

indivisual Environment: long term, collective

Difficulty “Lack of information interrupt to recogni pollution”

“The 3rd problem are nomad, gypsy” no.2 M(30)

ea”

Lack of facilities The Place has already been polluted

Also workshop members threw their trash

Media resonance

SOIL POLLUTION

Media only says what people want to know

Rubish The area near to the river Dangerous rubish

MEDIA

Toxic park

Liquid

Not well connected

Untamed area

NO CONSIDER Far from REQUALIFICATION OFthe center THE AREA AS AURGENT It is not URBAN CENTER

attractive No Clear Division of Reponsibility The investment in this area are less profitable than those in other places

LOCAL ADMINISTRAION

ADMINISTRATION M GOVERMEMT

Energy

ONLY FOCUS ON THE SECURITY ISSUES

Polluted Sutura park

Boundary Asbetos Copper

It called °TOXIC PARK° by newspapers

Untamed area

CROSSING AREA

Factory

Lack of synergy

TRANSITION AREA “The area is no man’s land ”

NO COMMUNICATION BETWEEN ACTORS

No mentions about goverment Central city vs Surburb Residence vs Factories

no.3 M(34)

Too fragmented management

The analysis reveal that the river is not so polluted There was a plan Contrasting but Interest Make nomads delayed move into No control the area 2006 OLYMPICS from central city

Complex system

RIVER&WATER POLLUTION

Experiment - pH test - NH3/NH4 - NO3

Alkaline Reaction

The workshop highlighted a unique series of complex local dynamics which began with the urban readjustments related to the Turin Olympics that have turned the Park into what is today known as the European capital of heroin dealing. Interestingly, after the workshop, none of the students thought that there were any external political or design interventions that could improve the local situations but that the local community had to be supported in creating their own solutions to these issues. In fact all the groups identified that since the 1960’s external interventions had been disrupting a local equilibrium between the different actors.

MEDIA

Starting with the central concept of the local network of experts, the Community Mapping project revealed the dynamics behind the physical location of Stura Park and made these dynamics visible and discussable.

The workshop articulated a new concept of Embedded Design, which formulates a vision of the designer that becomes literally embedded with the social and political microcosm, he or she deals with. The designer needs to identify with the local context through full mental, bodily and emotional involvement. The designer’s role shifts to becoming a local expert who, just like other local experts, is involved in problem identification, communication and problem intervention. A new role for the design discipline seems to emerge: the possibility to intervene at the informational level into the dynamic of a local system and to create empowering knowledge resources that enable collaboration between institutions, organisations and citizens.

Env i ro nment gro u p B 70

teaching staff

students

project leader

Davide Durante

Marcos Lins Langenbach

Christian Nold

Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

Designer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Designer, UK

Paolo Roberto Fusaro

Gabriele Musella

Industrial Design ISIA, Roma, Italy

Communication design/New media, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Julia Holczinger

André Souza Pottes De Souza

Industrial Design ISIA, Roma, Italy

Gabriele Muracchioli

Visual Communication, Senac Centro Universitário, São Paulo, Brazil

metadesign leader

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA

Matteo Tangi

Paolo Ciuccarelli

Karin Ransberger

Industrial Design, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Associate Professor, INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Master Science in Ecodesign, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Rosa Elina Te Velde

Eva Schiendzielorz

Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

Alica Horvathova

Fabio Vignolo

Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia

Faculty of Architecture, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Federica Messina

Ivan Bursztyn

IAAD Istituto d’Arte Applicata e Design, Torino, Italy

Production Engineering of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Andrew Ridge

project leader assistant

Jim Sergers City Mine(d), Brussels, Barcelona and London

metadesign leader assistants

Donato Ricci PhD candidate in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication, INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Gaia Scagnetti

Maura Corvace

Bachelor of Design, Landscape Architecture, Rmit University, Melbourne, Australia

PhD INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Graphic and Virtual Design, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Giuseppe Vaccaro Faculty of Architecture, Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy

local client

Evgeniya Elkind Graphic and Virtual Design, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Tom Tassilo Ziora

Veronica Filice

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

Scuola Italiana Design, Padova, Italy

Beatrice Lerma

Yong Kim

Politecnico di Torino SCUDO – DIPRADI, Italy

Interaction Design Lab, Graduate School of Techno Design, Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea

Luca Masud

Marc Osswald

Francesca Vargiu

University of Applied Sciences and Design Schwabisch Gmund, Germany

Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Ji Min Seo

Seoul National University, South Korea

Antonio De Rossi Urban Center Metropolitano, City of Torino, Italy

International Design School for Advanced Studies, Seoul, South Korea

Communication Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Hanna Kim Hyebin Park Seoul National University, South Korea

Lucia Garnero Industrial Design, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

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Places, identities and sustainable development International Summer school

Design and visualization. Diagrammatic tools for complexity.

Donato Ricci Politecnico di Milano (ITALY) - INDACO Department. Ph.D. Candidate, donato.ricci@mail.polimi.it It has been argued by Dosi, that when acting within Complex Systems two kinds of difficulties could emerge: the knowledge-gap, the erroneous representation of the reality, and the problem solving-gap, the distance between the problem to be faced and the tools provided to solveit. A key aspect of this argumentation have to be underlined: it is necessary to face the unpredictability of the system evolution starting from the impossibility to reach an exhaustive knowledge of the system in which one operates. In this framework, when design is addressing complexity, its visualization capability could prove to be able to reduce these gaps. This is possible thanks to its communicative ability but also for its in born critical skill of projection towards a possible scenario within a recognisable and workable frame. It seems that, when the discipline of Communication Design integrates a systemic approach with the competences of designers in visualization and representation, it can cope with dense situations, providing effective artefacts - diagrams, primarily making profit from the richness of complexity. Diagrams from this viewpoint could help designer to think clearly on complex problems, revealing the system elements features and their relations. The aim of diagrams is not only to gather extensive knowledge about a system, but to synthesize it in a goaloriented way in order to be able to produce manageable changes in the system itself. Typical design visualization extents, modifies and integrates the descriptive and prescriptive specificity of linear tools. Referring to diagrams as visual narration they could be studied and interpreted to generate new meta-data to find opportunities for changes and development of complex social system. They acquire a generative potential while they become comprehensive writing systems that could facilitate design interventions.

Verbal and visual languages

Due to its linear nature, text tends to describe events and realities through discrete and ordered elements: since the origins of scientific thought, text has been the preferred tool as the extensive use of the syllogism demonstrate. Even if non-verbal notational devices as diagrams have been used since long time, systems theory started to question the adequacy of linear tools for the study of Complex Systems only in the 1950s: since then it have been clear that text is not enough to describe reality not only in the scientific context but also in disciplines like design. Much of systems and complexity theory starts from the assumption that some phenomena can only be analysed as a single corpus and that, therefore, the connections between the elements are more important than the nature of the individual elements themselves. Alongside discourse and text, the model should be a mode of representation that does not divide or analyse the elements separately but studies them in an interconnected and indivisible manner. Image thus could assume a role of primary importance: able to describe elements as a whole without dividing them, it becomes an irreplaceable instrument for depicting qualities of systems otherwise difficult to interpret.

Referring to the Design discipline all forms of visualisation and representation share the same purpose : communicate knowledge and explicit the intentions that drive the design team and its work.

The theme of complexity adds a further level of critical discussion which can be summarised in three macro areas of analysis: ď Ź the prevalence of qualitative and intangible features in the knowledge spaces and in the design environments; ď Ź the conduction of research processes that define an open knowledge; ď Ź the reconfiguration of the design environment as a constellationbased organisation, where the work of the single actor is replaced by the involvement of a heterogeneous system of agents.

As regards this last point, it can be added that diagrams, understood as communication artefacts to construct shared strategies and to prefigure the impact of design decisions, possess an enormous potential for the improvement of design processes thanks to the possibilities of involving all Complexity maps

Designing connected places

Places, identities and sustainable development International Summer school the stakeholders, overcoming any barriers created by specialist knowledge and language. This definition of diagram includes all those artefacts (maps, scenarios, charts, storyboards, etc.) featured by a revealing capacity, a diagrammatic attitude finalized to the act of design. Diagrams from this viewpoint could help designer to clearly shape complex problems, they are media between what is known about a system, and what the system is; they could display not only quantitative data but also ideas, concepts, frames, schemes, viewpoints, perspectives and values of the system observer.

Diagrams and maps Diagrams are usually considered as graphics tools. However, the Greek etymology of the term διάγραμμα, from DIÀ through and GRÀMMA sign, opens up an extremely broad field of possibilities. In the Gilles Deleuze sense of an abstract machine, the diagram goes beyond its mere material nature and representation to become an operational conceptual tool. It is both a tool of interpretation and of design, able to weave significant relations between reality, its interpretation and the directions of its transformation.

The monograph issue #23 of ANY magazine represents a first nucleus of theoretical speculation about diagram reflections. Even if strictly interconnected with an architectural viewpoint these reflections could easily extended and dropped in a wider context related to the representation of reality and to design actions in complex environment. Four diagrams characteristics are enlightened:  Condensation – diagrams and the realm of tangible designed world are related by their capacity to cope with the elaboration of huge amount of data and variables. They are also able to treat and communicate data and variables in a effective way;  Bridging – diagram could express relation between polychrome information often non homogeneous suggesting unexpected description of phenomena;  Proliferation – diagrams as dialogue enabler that could generate diverse way of thinking about problems and could become storytelling devices.  An- exactitude - The creation of a diagram is a partial and never

exhaustive description of the environment. It is a narration in which inevitably a choice of what will be represented is made: it is a political stance. Each representation of reality and therefore each diagram are intentionally structured and thus arbitrary, an-exact and incomplete.

These features show the political nature of these narrations and the principle of responsibility designers should be aware of. A further conceptualisation about the relationship between visual representation and knowledge construction is offered by Luis Marin. In Della Rappresentazione, he suggests that deconstructing the sense of a visualisation, a description of what is represented could be obtained as well as a description about who created it.

In other word we can describe the “socio-technical” networks that have produced them. In this way, three levels of reading a map emerge:  the object represented;  the person who represented it and why;  the implicit reasoning that, in terms of economic, political, social and cultural interests, have led to the construction of a given map.

Maps clearly belong to the category of diagrammatic instruments, partly because of the evolution and semantic transfer that the term has undergone over the years.

The first terminological definition of map dates back to the 18th century and states that «a map is the morphological representation of the earth or part of it on a plane» This definition strictly related with the technological observation capability of the time, reveals its limitations due to the past century’s progress in territorial exploration. Maps are not and cannot be – either in geography or as a survey instrument that has been transferred to other theoretical or professional disciplines – a faithful and impartial transcription of the object that is represented.

A second definition states that maps are a simplified vision of space. In this case the focus is no longer the earth but space, widening the concept of space to the «anthropological space» of Levy: «What is anthropological space? It is a system of proximities (space) that is part of the human world (anthropological) and, thus, dependent on Complexity maps

Designing connected places

Places, identities and sustainable development International Summer school techniques, meanings, language, culture, conventions, representations and human emotions».

The definition offered by critical cartography during the 1970s has further extended the theoretical dimension of cartography, defining maps as «intellectual abstraction» of a reality, thus implying the authorial intervention of the cartographer. This definition, by introducing into the concept of maps their intention of pursuing an objective, invalidates the presumed objectivity of cartography, even scientific cartography. Instead, maps become a decisionmaking instrument: based on the pre-determined objective of a designercartographer, information is weighed and selected and then rendered in a visual form. A working definition of map could be an authorial cultural artefact, rather than a scientific-objective artefact, that depicts space through a narrative dimension based on an objective. Like linear textual narration, maps have a cartographic rhetoric that could be defined as: «the art of intentionally structuring a series of arguments in a certain dialectic form that renders them useful in achieving an objective».

Once the idea of the objective narration of the world is abandoned and, with it, the claim of project perfection, diagrams become the construction of the best of all possible worlds on the basis of values that are shared at a particular moment and of the opportunities that exist for a project within a given context, based on logic, knowledge and cultural background. In light of the considerations that we have showed about the sense of diagrams and maps and the way they are constructed, it could stated that each representation of reality, and thus, each diagram, from maps to mood boards, storyboards and graphs, is intentionally structured and, as a result, is arbitrary, anexact and incomplete. From this characteristic can inferred the political nature of these narrations and the principle of responsibility that the designer should be aware of. From another point of view, the explicitly political, non-objective nature of maps, in the sense of a subjective artefact, could be the result of shared design interpretations, makes them one of the most useful instruments for acting in complex social systems such as multiorganizational and multi-actorial design contexts.

Complexity maps

Designing connected places

Places, identities and sustainable development International Summer school Abrams, Jant, and Peter Hall, eds. 2006. Else/where: mapping new cartographies of networks and territories. Ed. Jant Abrams and Peter Hall. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Design Institute.

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