Taranthon Reloaded - co-design edition

We are sharing the results of a work done with a group of students from the Battaglini Scientific High School in Taranto. The TARANTHON RELOADED – CO-DESIGN EDITION workshop is conceived as a pilot laboratory to involve young residents of the Apulian municipality, to try to imagine new green and sustainable futures for the city.

The preparation phase of the workshop – managed in hybrid mode through face-to-face and online meetings, and the latter supported by the use of the collaborative platform Figma – saw the involvement of a small group of students in the co-design of new scenarios, starting from real projects under construction and planning. Specifically: the off-shore wind and photovoltaic park, the Tara river desalination plant, the urban forest of Rione Tamburi, the stadium for the 2026 Mediterranean games.

Each of these projects has been studied from the point of view of implication and interconnection with the environmental themes of reference, and their level and “measure” of sustainability from an ESGs perspective, highlighting their critical issues.

The next phase saw the whole class working on the four projects with the aim of re-imagining them through the lens of creativity, imagination and critical thinking about the real sustainability of the interventions.

After relying on their “human” intelligence, supported by the ‘fantastic binomial’ method, the students gave life to creative and more sustainable ideas of great impact, which they then visualized thanks to the DALL-E artificial intelligence.

The main objective of Everything is Connected was to introduce students to the principles of design and co-design as creative tools that simulate a trans-disciplinary and sense-making approach, and which could function as a mediation, synthesis and grounding of the imaginary, which leads to the simplification of complexity.

At the same time, the lab was a space for grafting notions related to both digital skills and transversal skills, with the intention that these can inspire them to deepen and expand their critical thinking, creativity and research skills within the area of ecological transition.

Credits

Workshop conceived, produced and directed by Everything is Connected APS

Led by Valentina Demarchi

With the support of Maria Teresa Salvati and Matteo Falchetti (Opilex Law Farm)

This workshop follows the Taranthon / hackathon organized in September 2022 by Uniba and the Ionian Department of Taranto, as part of the Green Blue Days 2022, which decreed the victory of a group of students from the Battaglini high school, with a project linked to energy communities launched by Opilex Law Farm.