Primary design and architecture studios worldwide united in a task force, promoted by the DesignTech Hub, together with experts and reference companies in different sectors to overcome the emergency and revive the economy.

After two months of lockdown which questioned consolidated habitat models, the opportunity to transform the future of design and revive the economy, in a complicated moment for Italy and for the whole world due to the protracted health crisis , starts right from Milan thanks to the DesignTech project, the first Hub for technological innovation in the design sector that will arise within the MIND Milano Innovation District. Designed by Hi-Interiors, DesignTech has mobilized a large sector task force to outline the contours of the new world in which we will live, involving some of the most important national and international architecture and design studios, alongside professionals and reference in their respective areas of implementation, with the aim of delivering to the company and the institutions a programmatic document for the restart that summarizes how the project, combined with technological innovation, can play a role in overcoming the health and economic crisis.

An unpublished “White Paper” on the role of “Design After Covid 19”, developed through 13 thematic working tables composed of experts and professionals in multiple sectors, united in a choral effort to draw up guidelines and concrete ideas for development – in the short , medium and long term – of possible solutions that integrate design and technology to transform the different spaces in which daily life will resume. From Real Estate to Education, from living to office spaces, with the specific declination of the world of banks, from places of health to restaurants, from the retail world to that of hospitality, up to a focus on mobility, social innovation and on the supply chain, with particular attention also to public spaces.

“Given the central role of design in the public debate on phase two, we were called upon to imagine the future of spaces to quickly plan a return to safety in what will be the new daily life – declares Ivan Tallarico, CEO of Hi-Interiors and promoter of the initiative.

With this crisis, according to Hi-Interiors, the critical issues and limitations of architectures, environments, and objects have sometimes dramatically emerged which in many cases have proved completely inadequate to face events that, although unpredictable in themselves or in their scope, they certainly reflect the profound changes that the world is undergoing more and more rapidly, and that it will have more and more in the future. Most of which are caused by man, from apparently obsolete models. There is now the opportunity to establish the essential foundations for shaping the future with a more aware vision, and to rewrite tomorrow’s spaces, environments and objects in a finally and truly new way, improving everyday life. But also rethinking human settlements by making them more functional, contemporary, innovative and human, as well as transforming this crisis into a new great beginning for a design culture with an important social, salvific, or at least capable of contributing significantly to improving the planet.

There are three common keys that emerge regarding the approach that design will have to take (in addition to the specific needs of each of its disciplines): sustainability, technology, flexibility. DesignTech is therefore working to deliver the White Paper as soon as possible to the Italian System, institutions and business world, developing contents and proposals that will emerge from the special task force distributed on the following work tables, each of which coordinated by one of the member firms or companies. :

1. Real Estate > Lendlease (coordinator) + Giuseppe Tortato (by Giuseppe Tortato Architetti)

2. Living > Pininfarina

3. Office > DEGW Lombardini 22 (coordinator) + Workitect

4. Healthcare > Binini Partners (coordinator) + Santagostino Medical Center

5. Restaurant > Maurizio Lai (Lai Studio, coordinator) + Paolo Barichella (Food Lifestyle)

6. Retail > Piuarch

7. Banking > Matteo Belfiore (MBA + D)

8. Hospitality > Zaha Hadid

9. Public Spaces > Progetto CMR

10. Mobility > MIC Mobility in Chain

11. Supply Chain > PwC

12. Education > School for Dreamers

13. Social Impact > PwC New Ventures

The White Paper, available at this link, collects the contributions of all the architecture and design studios involved to propose an outlook of the state of the art, guidelines in the relationship between public-private and above all operational solutions. Media partner of the initiative and coordinator of the contents of the White Paper, the PPAN communication and networking team for the construction of Paola Pierotti and Andrea Nonni.

In this sense, the DesignTech Hub is a candidate to facilitate collaboration along the entire value chain and to encourage the development of open innovation programs, enhancing the resources of Milan and MIND, for startups that want to accelerate their growth and companies looking for innovation.