Design, public engagement and communication: Reframing methodology

Abstract

VENTO is a territorial project threading its way through the cycling–pedestrian infrastructure that will run along the banks of the river Po from VENice to Turin [TOrino]. The project has been conceived at Politecnico di Milano to propose a concrete and viable development option in response to the fragile situations of the inner areas around Italy’s largest river valley. The project defines a new methodology to manage complex territorial governance plans, which concomitantly address both the vast and local scale. The scope of the paper is to describe the methodology developed by the research team by dividing the process into three phases: ideation, taking charge and implementation. The latter is still in progress. The plan, which has also been carried out with ongoing and constant cultural work targeting multiple subjects—spanning local, regional and central institutions, national and local associations, and citizens—was developed with a parallel communication project as important as the infrastructural project. Indeed, it is an intrinsic part of the methodology perfected with VENTO.