This paper is about the relationship between design and the prickly pear of Roccapalumba (Sicily), a product of the agrifood chain, considering it as a resource able to start innovative strategies for waste recycling and for a sustainable local economy.

The study examines the entire life cycle of prickly pear and, among the various outputs, considers the cladodes to obtain cellulosic fibres, mucilage for cosmetics and for restoration of cultural heritage, the flowers for infusions and the fruit seeds for an oil with nutraceutical properties to generate a second life of the prickly pear. This will lead to economic and environmental benefits in the territory, creating a network of companies with zero waste.

Authors: C. Anna Catania, Aurora Modica

Many territories suffer from the lack of strategies and tools for the promotion, fruition and enhancement of their heritage. They require new forms of organisation, ICT interaction platforms, stakeholder participation, infrastructures and services to avoid inadequate fruition and loss of the potential value of their resources. This could generate significant negative effects on the environmental, social and economic aspects of the territory. Nonetheless, the growing interest in ecotourism and the global proliferation of bike sharing systems foreshadow an increasing demand of cycle tourism related services and products. Furthermore, the improved performance features achieved by the technological E-bikes development, could help traveling safely through longer distance and tourist itineraries with steep slopes, especially for users with different abilities and of diverse ages. The paper describes the intermediate results of the current PhD research, based on the definition of an advanced system model applied to cycling tourism for the enhancement and sustainable fruition of territorial resources.

Authors: Alessio D’Onofrio

In the wake of Richard Heinberg and Rob Hopkins’s theories, the concept of Transition Design has found its place at the EESAB-Brest. It has been put in place to offer a curriculum to future designers with the aim of responding with a personal and creative approach to social and environmental issues related to the energy transition induced by the depletion of fossil fuels. This paper presents our approach, based on developing and transmitting resources on eco-friendly materials, multidisciplinary cooperation, local actions, the recovery of traditional know-how, methodologies for analysing and exploiting features of a specific territory, thinking about the adaptation of local knowledges to other territories, respect for others, moral and intellectual integrity of project partners and respectful and empathic communication. We conclude by presenting student projects to give concrete examples of our educational actions.

Authors: Erwan Geffroy, Manuel Irles, Xavier Moulin

Many studies report that the results of top-down policymaking approach are not enough and suggest that “sustainable development cannot be imposed from above. It will not take root unless people across the country are actively engaged” (UK DEFRA, 2002). The goal of this research is to combine the interaction and gamification strategy with a set of personal data in order to increase the users' awareness of the impact of each action. The research context is the mobility system in which the increase in road congestion and the risk to compromise human well-being are just some of the critical points to be faced in the future. Possible solutions to these problems already exist, such as shared mobility and autonomous cars, But the change to be fostered is not only about business or technology, it must involve the citizens who will influence the future through their decisions and behaviour. The experimentation focuses on a case study useful for obtaining and analyzing the qualitative and quantitative research results. In particular the case study concerns the design of an interactive augmented reality game, that plays on board of a full self-driving car, in which user takes decisions as the leader of his fictional world; as result of his decisions the environment around him changes. The game continually reconfigures itself taking advantage of users' personal information and data collected through different ways. Gestures, copywriting and other elements will follow the needs of each user. Instead of a more traditional approach that results frustrating and not very involving for the user, the game uses an ironic, surreal, and funny language in order to be more engageable, instead of a more traditional approach. The goal is to make conscious users towards the environment that surrounds him and his ability to affect positively or negative the system in which he lives.

Authors: Andrea Arcoraci, Andrea Di Salvo, Paolo Marco Tamborrini