ACTION-RESEARCH in the SOUTH of ITALY.

1. ACTION-RESEARCH in the SOUTH of ITALY. Mixing urban planners and scholars in nanotech applied to medicine Giulio Verdini Department of Urban Planning and Transport - UW Tallin – 1st November 2016

2. CONTEXT of THE RESEARCH

3. Action-research (practitioner-based) is a focus of research on real-life cases, aiming to gathering data from local stakeholders & co-producing knowledge; • Service-based urban planning and design studios (workshop) are particular forms of action research: collaborative interdisciplinary client-based teaching practices aiming to solve real-world problems, declined during the 80s and re-emerged in the last 10-20 years (Neuman, 2016);

4. Which research question? How culture and creativity can support local forms of sustainable/inclusive development in small settlements and marginal regions of the world – Research commissioned by UNESCO and developed with many partners institutions. • Publications • Verdini (2016), Culture as a tool for harmonious territorial development in UNESCO, Culture: Urban Futures. Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development, Paris: UNESCO; • Verdini, Ceccarelli (forthcoming), Culture-based solutions for sustainable local development, Research Report and a book; • Dissemination • - Small settlements and the cultural dimension of urbanization, hosted at Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine in Paris, February 2016.

5. Factors enabling interdisciplinary approaches and concrete results to real world problems within studio-based research (partnership between Academia, NGOs and local government)

6. Testing action-research in Chinese rural villages since 2012. • Extra-curricular intensive urban design workshop or service-based urban design and planning studiosin selected sites; • Involvement of students and scholar from different disciplines (urban planning, architecture, landscape design and forestry, management, development economics, sociology and so on); • Commitment of local government, therefore exploring sustainable solutions for real local problems (decline of local economy; impact of tourism; re-organization local mobility and so on); • Co-production of knowledge with local stakeholders (participatory setting).

7. WORKSHOPS IN RURAL CHINA 2012 – 2015

8. SHUANG WAN CUN - CHINA

9. SHUANG WAN - Wujiang (CHINA) • - An area traditionally important for silk • production and agriculture; • A massive urbanization process in the • Yangtze River Delta threatening local • agricultural and productive identities; • The development of home-based textile • workshops and on-line selling (the top village • in the Wujiang District for TaoBao • on-line selling - the ‘Chinese e-bay’)

10. PROBLEMS TO SOLVE • - Reorganize the local accessibility; • Re-launching the local economy; • Preserving the heritage and the rural • environment;

11. Key features • Outside of the formal academic learning environment, although quite complementary; • Intensive and studio-based activities (Charette): groups works; tutorials; discussions; public presentations and peer-review feedbacks; tight timing; • Sponsored for no-profit purposes; • A mix of academic seminars and public presentations: changing rubric and style; • Co-production of research through interviews; focus groups (with established stakeholders) or mental mapping (with marginalised actors); • Sense of commitment (service-based): clear goals and public responsibility;

13. The similarities and conflicts of cognate disciplines See Carmona (2016) on interdisciplinary urban-design

14. An enlightening experience in the South of Italy (July 2016 – ongoing)

15. THE CASE OF GAGLIATO CALABRIA (ITALY)

16. GAGLIATO - ITALY

17. GAGLIATO - Calabria (ITALY) • - An area of ancient civilization (Magna Grecia); • A long-lasting decline and history of • underdevelopment within Europe; • The setting up in 2008 of an Annual International • Conference in Nanotechnology and later on of a • programme of informal STEM learning for local • Schools (youth 4-18 years old) – on-line courses in • Collaboration with the Houston Methodist Research • Institute; • The research question of the action-research: how • to bring wider benefits to the local community • (from a temporary events to something more • structural;

18. http://www.nanogagliato.com

19. AN UNUSUAL CONFERENCE AS A STARTING POINT FOR FUTURE ACTION-RESEARCH

21. Preliminary results Some unwanted (but desirable) outcomes have arisen: an expertise which was not contemplated before has informed the project (one of the topic of the July 2017 workshop will be community-based health care)

22. Factors • An informal setting for having a small scale seminar; • An ‘outsider’ session within a discipline-specific conference with panelists all involved in the discussions; • No chance to escape from a rural village; • Many extra activities (3 sessions on the hill, one session at the seaside); many bus travelling; one overnight marathon (from 4 am to 6 am) with a final swim in the Ionian Sea and the closing remarks of the conference; • But most of all: • A public presentation of the results in the ‘Serata in Piazza’ – PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY; • The fact that nanotech and medicine experts represent a stakeholder view (although an expert voice) – SENSE OF OWNERSHIP (it’s not an academic exercise);

23. THANK YOU For more information: g.verdini@westminster.ac.uk