Browsing by Author "Menichinelli, Massimo"

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A data-driven approach for understanding Open Design. Mapping social interactions in collaborative processes on GitHub
(2017-09-06) Menichinelli, Massimo
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
The development and adoption of digital technologies in the past decades has modified existing working conditions and introduced new ones in many fields and disciplines. This process has also influenced the field of Design especially with the Open Design and the Maker movements. The article proposes a software library for analysing networks of social interactions over time on Git projects hosted on GitHub. Such software may be useful for understanding social interactions over time on GitHub, enabling thus an overview of participation in collaborative processes and therefore advance our understanding of how platforms connects and influence makers and designers in their collaborative work on Open Design. The article show its application to three cases of (a) discussing the nature and concepts of Open Design, (b) teaching Open Design to interaction design students, (c) the development of a platform for Maker laboratories and Open Design projects.
A data-driven approach for understanding Open Design. Mapping social interactions in collaborative processes on GitHub
(2017-09-06) Menichinelli, Massimo
A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
The development and adoption of digital technologies in the past decades has modified existing working conditions and introduced new ones in many fields and disciplines. This process has also influenced the field of Design especially with the Open Design and the Maker movements. The article proposes a software library for analysing networks of social interactions over time on Git projects hosted on GitHub. Such software may be useful for understanding social interactions over time on GitHub, enabling thus an overview of participation in collaborative processes and therefore advance our understanding of how platforms connects and influence makers and designers in their collaborative work on Open Design. The article show its application to three cases of (a) discussing the nature and concepts of Open Design, (b) teaching Open Design to interaction design students, (c) the development of a platform for Maker laboratories and Open Design projects.
Deconstruyendo y rehaciendo las identidades de los Makers
(2017) Menichinelli, Massimo
A3 Kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa
Editorial: Open Distributed + Design Production: Design Strategies for Enabling Indie Designers and Makers
(2020-07-01) Menichinelli, Massimo; Bianchini, Massimo; Maffei, Stefano
A2 Katsausartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
The introduction of ICT and open, peer-to-peer and distributed systems in the design world has generated several changes: from the rise of new kinds of designers (indie, amateur, makers, ...) to the emergence of new processes for developing projects (open design, distributed design, …). Furthermore, the design of an artifact and its production are increasingly closer for designers: after years where production was outsourced almost completely and the role of designers limited to delivering preliminary CAD files, now they are more and more engaged with a production that is more accessible, distributed and open for experimentations. For these reasons we call this phenomenon Open Distributed + Design Production, where both designing and making can be open and distributed to new ecosystems of innovation.
Exploring the impact of Maker initiatives on cities and regions with a research through design approach
(2020-07-01) Menichinelli, Massimo
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
During the last decades, economic, social and technological phenomena have influenced the role, importance and perception of cities and regions. Cities and rural areas are increasingly divided because of manufacturing and its globalization; digital technologies in manufacturing are introducing more automation in factories, reducing thus the workforce and aggravating these phenomena. But at the same time, the Maker Movement connects these two opposites by adopting such digital technologies with an open approach, enabling a distributed manufacturing ecosystem based on individuals and communities such as Fab Labs, Makerspaces and Hackerspaces that work locally but that are connected globally. How can we measure the impact of Maker initiatives over cities and regions? This article addresses this issue with a research through design strategy that connects both design research and practice focusing on a) a theoretical context that connects peer production, manufacturing and cities and regions, b) a model for measuring Maker initiatives and their impact on cities and regions and c) a tool for the visualization and exploration of such impact. In this way designers, makers and researchers can actively participate in intentionally building the future of the Maker Movement in cities and regions instead of only analysing its present and past.
A Framework for Understanding the Possible Intersections of Design with Open, P2P, Diffuse, Distributed and Decentralized Systems
(2016) Menichinelli, Massimo
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Since the turn of the century, the discipline of design has increasingly focused its attention on its application to projects and groups of users at a larger scale. Researchers and practitioners have tried to understand how design could shift its focus from single users to local and online communities, from isolated projects to whole complex systems. These new perspectives consequently brought the interest of designers to the tools and strategies that can enable their interactions with larger groups of people distributed in several localities. More specifically, designers and researchers started adopting many approaches coming from software development and web-based technologies, like open source, P2P, diffuse, distributed and decentralized systems. This article proposes a preliminary framework for understanding and working with the integration of design with open, P2P, diffuse, distributed and decentralized systems. In one direction, such open, P2P, DDD systems can be applied into design practice: this first intersection has many applications, from digital projects to P2P-based initiatives to physical projects designed and manufactured on global networks of distributed laboratories like Fab Labs and Makerspaces. In another direction, design practice can also have a role in enabling such systems through the analysis, visualization, and design of their collaborative tools, platforms, processes, and organizations. Design, therefore, could learn from such systems and also improve them. This second intersection falls into the meta-design domain, where designers can have a role in building environments for the collaborative design of open processes and their resulting organizations. The article therefore addresses this phenomenon by providing both an analysis of the concepts and the history of both directions and, in order to understand the phenomena with a broader overview, it proposes a preliminary framework for understanding the possible intersections of design with open, P2P, diffuse, distributed and decentralized systems through both literature and case studies. As the framework is still preliminary, the article provides as a conclusion some possible strategies for validating or improving the framework.
Makers as a new work condition between self-employment and community peer-production. Insights from a survey on Makers in Italy
(2017-06) Menichinelli, Massimo; Bianchini, Massimo; Carosi, Alessandra; Maffei, Stefano
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Peer production has emerged as a new and relevant way of organising the work of distributed and autonomous individuals in the production and distribution of digital content. Increasingly, the adoption of peer production is taking place not only in the development of digital and immaterial content, but also in the design, manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Furthermore, Open Design and Open Hardware projects are developed, discussed, manufactured and distributed thanks to digital fabrication technologies, digital communication technologies, advanced funding initiatives (like crowdfunding platforms and hardware incubators) and globally integrated supply chains. This new systemic dimension of work is possible, among other factors, thanks to local facilities like Fab Labs, Makerspaces and Hackerspaces (that can be generally called Maker laboratories), where individuals can gather and form communities with other people, designing and manufacturing together. Generally, these people are referred to as Makers and, while their existence is still an emergent phenomenon, it is widely acknowledged that they could exemplify a new modality of work. We investigated the knowledge, values and working dimensions of Makers in Italy with the Makers' Inquiry, a survey that focused on Makers, Indie Designers and managers of Maker laboratories. This research generated a first overview of the phenomenon in Italy, improving the knowledge of the profiles of Makers; an important step because Makers are usually defined in a very broad way. Furthermore, we investigated their profiles regarding their values and motivations, in order to understand how much Makers engage in peer production or in traditional businesses and whether their working condition is sustainable or not. Finally, we compared these profiles with data regarding traditional designers and businesses and the national context. Given the recent nature of the Maker movement, the focus of this article is on providing a first overview of the phenomenon in Italy with an exploratory analysis and with comparison with existing related literature or national data, rather than contextualising the Maker movement in sociological and political contributions. Far from happening in a void, Italian Makers have a strong relationship with their localities and established industry. Therefore, this is a recent evolution, where Makers work with a broader palette of projects and strategies: With both non-commercial and commercial activities, both peer production and traditional approaches. The activity of making is still a secondary working activity that partially covers the Makers’ income, who are mostly self-employed working at home, in a craft workshop or in a Fab Lab in self-funded or non-commercial initiatives, where technology is not the only critical issue. As a conclusion, we identified current patterns in the working condition of Italian Makers. The data gathered shows some interesting information that, however, could be applicable only to an Italian context. Nevertheless, the survey could be a starting point to compare the same phenomenon in different countries. Therefore, we released the survey files, software and data as open source in order to facilitate the adoption, modification, verification and replication of the survey.
Makers' Inquiry. Un'indagine socioeconomica sui makers italiani e su Make in Italy
(2015) Bianchini, Massimo; Menichinelli, Massimo; Maffei, Stefano; Bombardi, Francesco; Carosi, Alessandra
Book
The meta-design of systems: how design, data and software enable the organizing of open, distributed, and collaborative processes
(2016) Menichinelli, Massimo; Valsecchi, Francesca
A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
The challenges posed by the complexity of our times requires the Design discipline to understand the many complex relationships behind the social, business, technology and territory dimensions of each project. Such nature of complex systems lays not only inside design projects, but also inside the design processes that generate them, and the ability of organizing them through meta-design approaches is becoming strategic. Since the turn of the century, the design discipline has increasingly moved its scope from single users to local and online communities, from isolated projects to system of solutions. This shift has brought researchers and practitioners to investigate tools and strategies to enable mass-scale interactions by adopting several models and tools coming from software development and web-based technologies: Open Source, P2P, DDD (Diffuse, Distributed, and Decentralized) systems. This influence has matured over the years, and if we observed in the past how such systemic models can be applied in the design practice (part 1), we are facing now a new phase where Design will have an increasing role in enabling such systems through the analysis, visualization and design of their collaborative tools, platforms, processes and organizations (part 2). This scope falls into the Meta-Design domain, where designers build environments for the collaborative design of open processes and their resulting organizations (part 3). In this paper, we address this phenomena by elaborating the Open Meta-Design framework (part 4), that provides a way for designing open, collaborative and distributed processes (including those in the professional design domain). The paper positions the framework among current meta-design and design approaches and develops its features of modeling, analysis, management and visualization of processes. This framework is based on four dimensions: conceptual (describing the philosophy, context and limitations of the approach), data (describing the ontology of design processes), design (visualizing designing processes) and software (managing the connections between the ontology and the visualization, the data and design dimensions). We believe that such a framework could potentially facilitate the participation and the creation of open, collaborative and distributed processes, enabling therefore more relevant interactions for communities. As a conclusion, the paper provides a roadmap for developing and testing the Open Meta-Design framework, and therefore evaluating its relevance in supporting complex projects (part 5).
Open and collaborative design processes - Meta-Design, ontologies and platforms within the Maker Movement
(2020) Menichinelli, Massimo
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
The emergence of the Maker Movement has taken place in the context of a design practice and research that is now open, peer-to-peer, diffuse, distributed, decentralized; activity-based; meta-designed; ontologically-defined and defining; locally-bounded but globally-networked and community-centered. For many years the author participated and worked in the Maker Movement, with a special focus on its usage of digital platforms and digital fabrication tools for collaboratively designing and manufacturing digital and physical artifacts as Open Design projects. The author's main focus in practice and research as a meta-designer was in understanding how can participants in distributed systems collaboratively work together through tools and platforms for the designing and managing of collaborative processes. The main research question of this dissertation is: How can we support and integrate the research and practice of meta-designers in analyzing, designing and sharing open and collaborative design and making processes within open, peer-to-peer and distributed systems? The focus evolved and changed with three main phases: from facilitating collaborative design processes with 1) guidelines for a generic design approach, process and tools, to the use of 2) design tools and workshops that encode the methodology to developing 3) a digital ontology and the related digital platform. In the latter, the ontology for describing, documenting, sharing and designing collaborative design processes was developed as part of a broader conceptual framework, OpenMetaDesign, that builds the ontology on top of concepts describing design processes, and encodes it in a digital platform. The role of the ontology is to support the practice and research with a Research through Design approach that works not just on understanding the practice but also informing it, navigating it and continuously redesigning it. This dissertation is an exploration of the possible role, practice and profile of meta-designers that work in facilitating distributed, open and collaborative design and making processes in the Maker Movement. As a result, it provides insights on the practice and artifacts of the author and also a strategy and tools for applying the same exploration to other meta-designers. Following a Research through Design framework for bridging practice and research, the dissertation redefines Meta-Design in the Maker Movement as the design of digital ontologies of design processes as design material. Ultimately, the practice of designing a Metadata Ontology for Ontological Design through the design of bits (digital environments) and atoms (physical artifacts) with and for Open, Peer-to-Peer, Diffuse, Distributed and Decentralized Systems. Finally, it redefines meta-designers as designers, facilitators, participants, developers and researchers embedded in social networks that define their activities, profiles and boundaries for the ontologies they design.
Platforms for re-localization. Communities and places in the post-pandemic hybrid spaces
(2021-04-09) Manzini, Ezio; Menichinelli, Massimo
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Beside addressing the emergency, design practice and research could focus on how COVID-19 is influencing existing trends in order to strategically plan for a post-pandemic phase where the "new normality" means living in ecological and socio-economic crises. This article focuses on what the pandemic crisis teaches us on the issue of local communities and related digital technologies. How can we design for and with the new kind of communities emerging because of COVID-19? The background of this research is the experimentation and research at the intersection of two themes (as they were before the COVID-19 crisis): The construction of communities related to the place where they are located (community of place), and the design of enabling platforms of re-localizing processes (place-making infrastructure). The article draws an overview of the changes that the pandemic has brought to communities, the emerging hybrid communities of the new normality (i.e., communities before, during and after COVID-19). Finally, it proposes 10 design guidelines for the development of resilient, fair and open platforms supporting and assessing the new emerging hybrid communities and their distributed activities (i.e., platforms for communities after COVID-19).
A Research through Design Framework from the Evaluation of a Meta-Design Platform for Open and Collaborative Design and Making Processes
(2019-07-01) Menichinelli, Massimo
A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
The democratisation of technologies, knowledge and activities have been changing the world of designers, blurring the boundaries between amateur and professional designers, especially within the connected phenomena of the Maker Movement and Indie Designers. Within this context, how can be collaborative design processes documented, analysed, managed, shared? This article investigates the role of meta-design digital tools for the facilitation of distributed systems of creative agents, formally trained and informal amateurs that collaboratively design and produce artefacts. It documents a research study organised for testing a digital meta-design platform with users and the researcher as meta-designer: the results provide insights for improving the platform but also for building a comprehensive research through design framework that connects meta-design research and practice for exploring the role and nature of meta-design and meta-designers in facilitating collaborative design processes starting from their description with digital ontologies.
A Research through Design Framework from the Evaluation of a Meta-Design Platform for Open and Collaborative Design and Making Processes
(2019-07) Menichinelli, Massimo
A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
The democratisation of technologies, knowledge and activities have been changing the world of designers, blurring the boundaries between amateur and professional designers, especially within the connected phenomena of the Maker Movement and Indie Designers. Within this context, how can be collaborative design processes documented, analysed, managed, shared? This article investigates the role of meta-design digital tools for the facilitation of distributed systems of creative agents, formally trained and informal amateurs that collaboratively design and produce artefacts. It documents a research study organised for testing a digital meta-design platform with users and the researcher as meta-designer: the results provide insights for improving the platform but also for building a comprehensive research through design framework that connects meta-design research and practice for exploring the role and nature of meta-design and meta-designers in facilitating collaborative design processes starting from their description with digital ontologies.
Service design and activity theory for the meta-design of collaborative design processes
(2018) Menichinelli, Massimo
A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
This paper explores how the approach, logic and tools of Service Design could support the development of a digital platform that enable the collaborative design of open and collaborative design processes. By integrating Service Design, Activity Theory and Meta-Design, such platform could foster community building and management providing concepts and visualizations that help users in the conscious and reflexive design of the activities constituting their community-based collaborative design processes. How could Service Design enable the meta-design of collaborative design processes on digital platforms? This paper elaborates a proposal for integrating Service Design concepts and tools into a meta-design digital platform for the design and management of collaborative design processes, by providing 1) a reflection on the theoretical connections between Service Design, Activity Theory and Meta-Design, 2) a proposal of a meta-design platform that represents a proof of concept of such connections and 3) a proposal of evaluation strategies for validating such platform.