Design Strategies for Climate Emergency. Circular Technologies as Driver of Socio-Cultural Change in Regenerative Processes

The circular economy has emerged as a strong tool to fight global warming by preserving and extending the functional lifetime of materials. In response to the polycrisis condition of climate change, regenerative strategies of circular design in urban processes, represent drivers of innovation at different levels: contextual, technological, and social. Contextually, according to Ellen MacArthur Foundation, place-based circular economy projects, implemented for and with local communities, make the circular economy tangible: something that can be experienced in real life. On this aspect, Circular Design strategies, interpreted as a “common good,” for society, identify and promote drivers of social and inclusive innovation, through co-design and service-design experiments. The study, through the critical analysis of several urban regeneration projects, aims to highlight the terms of theoretical and experimental development of Circular Design principles as a driver of cultural social change, inclusion, participation, and improved quality of life. The paradigms of Design Thinking, applied to public spaces, represent a new dimension of urban intervention and territorial design strategies oriented to reuse and recycling, disassemble technologies, advanced materials. The paper proposes a framework for reading circular action strategies and climate adaptation in selected Case studies through two levels of reading (contextual value and technological value) that converge in the third level: the social one, interpreted as resulting from the first two values. The work is a partial outcome of research activities and experimental studies conducted by the authors and complemented by PhD research that is still ongoing.