4 december 2008 presentation of chita workshop at Pecha Kucha Shanghai #12 http_//pecha-kucha.org http://chita.politecalab.org slide here: http://www.slideshare.net/urijoe/chita08-workshop-presentation-pecha-kucha-12-shanghai-presentation

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hi everybody
we are Zhao Bin and Xu Jiang, from a group of design students from Jiangnan University in Wuxi,
China
and with this presentation we would like to tell you the story of a workshop about sustainability
and service design. The workshop took place in our university and concluded a few of weeks ago.
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the story we want to tell is about the service design as a way to approach sustainability.
CHITA08 was a cross cultural workshop organized by Jiangnan University (China) and Politecnico
di Milano (Italy)
in the framework of a cooperative design research agenda.
The brief of the project promotes new sustainable everyday lifestyle and the idea of a harmonious,
community based society.
Following we will present the results of the workshop.
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We know very well about the present that the world is changing rapidly and profoundly.
About the future thee only certain thing that we know about is that the current change must change
direction, it must find the way to sustainability.
We start from this point because in this process China has the concrete possibility to surprise us
through a strategy that could involve both the technological systems (from the power generation, to
food chains, housing and mobility) and the social ones (from welfare services to new patterns in
consumptions, behaviors and ways of living).
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So the question that we addressed was:
Can the service design promote
the grassroots social innovations and diffused social enterprises?
We aimed to explore and express new social models, development paths for local territory,
participatory culture as the new ways of being and doing in the Chinese society
Shanghai 上海, Pecha Kucha #12, 4 December 2008
CHITA Workshop 2008 http://chita.politecalab.org
Creative Commons Licence 3.0 AT-NC-SA

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So we embrace the challenging task of proposing sustainable service design solutions for the
Chinese context.
We was a group of 26 students and 9 lecturers.
Started with a two very intensive workshop weeks In the early september, and after that we fully
develop the service ideas during three month of work on the concept, service simulation,
interactions and communication of the service.
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The main topic of the workshop were the potentials of mobile communication
in enabling solution of collaborative services within the local and social contexts.
So we started from these keywords and start to think to service solutions based on mobile
technology
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We started by exploring the Chinese local context in order to identify the real life needs with which
the local people were confronted.
We brainstormed in discussions, sketched up schemes and drafted scenarios that could help us
understand the collective meaning of the context.
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We try to tell the story that were discovering together, and within them find key point that could
inspire a design actions. The research on the field has intensively last for some weeks.
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We adventured all together in field research trips. Countrysides, citizens, houses of migrants,
farming field, hospital, taxi parking, gardens, markets and whatever…
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From the field research six working domains that investigated the following issues have emerged :
Shanghai 上海, Pecha Kucha #12, 4 December 2008
CHITA Workshop 2008 http://chita.politecalab.org
Creative Commons Licence 3.0 AT-NC-SA

3. migrant workers communication network, sustainable food network, local memory preservation,
community knowledge and information sharing, car pooling, collaborative bike trekking
information exchange
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Migrant workers in China find difficult to be a part of the cities because they are marginalized. The
service helps this particular target to take part in the social life of the cities, with pride & equal
opportunities, through a virtual platform of information sharing.
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Mobile Comunication Technology helps to collect memories from places that are fastely changing
and to provide a new access to the ancient neighborhood. Through the mobile phones people who
have experience of the same place can keep the memory and share stories among them
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the service facilitates the connection between the pregnant women, new mothers and doctors to
facing the problems and share the experiences together. The service enables community and
participative activities, helping them to build more strength and confidence during the pregnancy
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Finding the Fresh is service of Community Supporting Agriculture, a network to match the needs of
organic foods from the urban residents and providers of small-scale family food producers in
suburb
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Footprints is a system for the collaboration of budget traveling participants, focusing in particular
on the ones who like traveling with bike or on foot.
It’s based on a P2P community that describes on places, stories, routes and sustainable footprints
of travels.
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Taxi pooling concept deals with a particular case of car pooling located in a context in which public
transportation is not enough frequent and feasible to meet the needs of the users. Taxi pooling
could help decrease the individual car transportation and increase the economical benefit to the
users and the pleasure of travel together.
Shanghai 上海, Pecha Kucha #12, 4 December 2008
CHITA Workshop 2008 http://chita.politecalab.org
Creative Commons Licence 3.0 AT-NC-SA

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At the end of our initiative that concluded some week ago, We presented the project at the
international industrial design exhibition in Wuxi, last month, through some video scenario about
our concepts.
we are now preparing a book that will be published next spring with an Italian printing press
company.
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The next step in the process will be to actually try to find ways to implement the developed ideas,
and connect the students to the system of stakeholder and practitioners.
Between the two university We are now building a service design knowledge exchange program (?)
to go on with research program about sustainability, and we think this experience is worth sharing
with you as real step of design research agenda for sustainability in China.
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Finally, we have a couple of website that collect all the material from the experience and we are
updating with the final works. You can get the videos, the pictures, lessons and field research.
so you can go, have a look on the detailed stories and of course if you like to interact with us
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And it is necessary to conclude with greetings to all the people involved, that cannot be here but it’s
like they are, and contribute in some way to this amazing and rich experience, as our first step
together.
And finally, thank you all for listening.
Shanghai 上海, Pecha Kucha #12, 4 December 2008
CHITA Workshop 2008 http://chita.politecalab.org
Creative Commons Licence 3.0 AT-NC-SA