Design in the traditional sense, as we have come to know it, will no longer exist. A new era has begun, characterised by the collaboration between design teams that will become increasingly heterogeneous, also composed of citizens and students as well as professionals. And so collaborative design (or co-design) makes its way, providing a synergy with customers and end users, focusing on open innovation and creativity.
Professor Luigi Ferrara, Director of the School of Design at George Brown College, was the first to support this thesis, already adopted by many experts. This new awareness will lead to a new phase that Ferrara called Wisdom Economy. Planning with people rather than for people, one creates a participatory reality that in many cases has led to the birth of true collaborative design communities.
Three-dimensional revolution
3D printing is radically changing the way we produce, with very strong impacts, especially on design, at the centre of this technological and digital revolution. Everything we can think of, we can now realise and this, in addition to stimulate cooperation and sharing, will push all forms of customisation to the extreme, most likely putting an end to mass, homologated and flat production. Design follows this path by putting man at the centre of the idea of the market, his real needs and emotions.
Masochistic design? No thanks
When the world of beauty blends into functionality, we get a perfect design. Because we remember that the design has to be functional and practical, responding to the needs of everyday life, even combining aesthetics and art. We often give up when facing objects that we cannot decipher or manipulate, because they seem abstruse or uncomfortable. Donald Norman talks about it in his book "The Design of Everyday Things," which became a best-seller and has changed the idea and the principles of design. Norman talks about a human-centred design, where technological aspects, cognitive processes, relational behaviours and aesthetic and emotional connotations converge.
The Spark project for co-design by the Polytechnic University of Milan
Spark (Spatial Augmented Reality as a Key for co-creativity) is a platform based on augmented reality in the design phase, which breaks down language barriers and knowledge, maximising creative collaborative design in the conception of new products. Augmented reality becomes a means to enable designers, customers and end users to share solutions, even sketched in the form of prototypes, and process them in real time. In this way, the Spark platform facilitates creative thinking and brainstorming with a more fluid and efficient exchange of ideas during the design process. The use of the Spark platform has the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of collaborative design activity by reducing the time required for the generation of ideas.