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Knowledge and exploitation of local resources: the historical centers of the Comino Valley
This contribution is focused on an area located in the southern area of the Lazio region called “Valle di Comino” that has valuable characteristics from an environmental and historical construction point of view. It’s part of a wider research path carried out within the Laboratory of Documentation Analysis Survey and Technical Architecture (DART) of the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio which deals with the analysis of the historical centers of southern Lazio, from architectural to environmental emergencies
Corporate Museums and design: Web communication strategies
Abstract The content of this article is the analysis of Web communication strategies used by corporate museums. The main goal of the research is to analyze the Italian corporate museum’s communication in order to first review the digital identity and the reach and engage operations used by them. Through several indicators, the study highlights both strengths and weaknesses of the online strategies used by those samples, which have been selected among Museimpresa partner museums operating in the commodities sector of design.
A Flexible User Centered Design Model for Social Housing Units
Dwelling is the most important spatial need for everyone and the basic determinant of dwelling is its users. This paper aims to underline the importance of human needs in determining the basic living environment by discussing the design methodology developed for standard social housing units in Istanbul, TOKI Başıbüyük Housing Settlement. The design model is characterized by a flexible expert system that leads to different spatial variations by multi parametric layout generation based on parameters determined by user needs. The spatial variations embrace different interior modules answering to different activity sets concerning the basic activities that take place in living environments. The study also includes the prototyping process of basic modules and the design of an interface that contains the proposed alternatives with their material and cost estimations. The proposal of such a modular system that can be mass customized and mass-produced has the potential to be implied to different existing housing settlements in different geographical contexts. It also gives the possibility to reuse abandoned spaces by donating them with interior solutions that can answer to the needs of different users such as refugees and people who are in emergent need of dwelling. The modules can also be reconfigured and reused according to changing needs and changing users, which can also be economically very sustainable. Insights offered by this work aims to create a value that overcome the specific case as it tries to develop a flexible model that create a variety of interior solutions based on user needs.
Desire and the Socratic Paradox of Happiness
If you are able to satisfy your desires you are happy; this is one of the many theories of happiness. The Socratic Paradox says that a virtuous person is always happy, regardless of his circumstances. An enigmatic proposition follows: You can be happy even in the worst circumstances if you can satisfy your relevant desires. This sounds strange but I will argue that it is a plausible view. However, a lucky person, that is a person in good circumstances, may be unhappy. Let me suggest a Switch Test, namely, we ask whether an unhappy but lucky person would like to change places with a happy but unlucky person; the answer is in the negative. The lucky person will prefer his good circumstances regardless of the fact that he is and remains unhappy. Therefore, the happiness of Socrates is not what one should aim at. But to maintain that happiness is not desirable sounds paradoxical. The Socratic Paradox can be resolved but it then leads to another paradox of happiness.
Museums’ visitors in Italy
In a country where cultural participation generates alarming negative numbers (in 2015, 68.3% of the Italian population has never entered a museum [1] ), it becomes crucial to understand the new public and study suitable strategies for a cultural proposal able to better reflect their interests. Indeed, although this percentage is on the rise compared to the trend of recent years, there is a kind of cultural impoverishment, which concerns not only the museum, but also publishing, theater, music and dance. The 88.3% of the total population of our country in 2015 has never attended a classical music concert, 78.8% have never seen a play, 51.9% have never read a newspaper, 56.5% has never opened a single book [2]. It has often been attempted to reduce analysis of public museum culture to a series of data, more or less accurate, more or less exemplary, rather than to a basic theory that you intend to demonstrate and posit as a significant idea and a related cultural marketing strategy. It will be to demonstrate, id est, with the data, the validity of an idea, sometimes deforming the correct reading and interpretation. What is sometimes forgotten is the exact opposite: the need to gather facts on a phenomenon under investigation, and then let the data talk, so that a sense can be drawn from their links and their possible interrelationships. In his “L’analyse des données”, Jean- Paul Benzecri, founder of a scientific discipline related to data analysis, wrote: «The model must follow the data, not vice versa [3] ». It is then the daunting task for the researcher to find a connection, if any, between numbers which may be sometimes discordant or present apparently low affinity.
Taranto: a Social Innovation Lab
Since many years European policies have acknowledged culture as a key factor for the development of cities and regions and as a pillar of innovation and social cohesion (ECIA 2014; EU 2013). Nonetheless, it is not yet clear how to measure the impacts of cultural initiatives, especially with respect to intangible aspects such as sense of belonging, social capital, empowerment, and quality of life in peripheral neighbourhoods and post-industrial cities. The evaluation of the impacts of cultural policies usually refers to economic indicators, such as the increase of employment and the wealth produced by the so called ‘Cultural and Creative Industries’ (CCI) (Symbola 2015; Ernst&Young 2014; KEA 2012), or the contribution of big events, such as the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) to urban regeneration (Garcia e Cox 2013; Palmer et al. 2012, Garcia et al. 2010; Johnson 2009). There are several examples of industrial cities that experienced an economic renaissance and a redefinition of their identity and image thanks to specific cultural policies. Liverpool, Turin, Bilbao, Marseille, Genk are well known cities where culture played a strategic role becoming a real economic sector and a pillar of the new development model. If the results in terms of wealth, attractiveness and tourism are more evident and measurable, it is far more difficult to understand the role of culture as an agent of local development processes. This implies the observation of phenomena when they are still emerging and thus cannot be labelled within traditional classification frameworks or measured by means of statistics. Accordingly, the number of new cultural and creative enterprises or the increase of tourists are not useful indicators to measure the innovative potential and social impact of such initiatives. Instead, it is crucial to map the spontaneous clustering dynamics bringing local actors to aggregate, to develop projects and to cooperate with institutions and public administrations (Comunian 2011). This means to investigate what happens in the backstage to identify the preconditions enabling or impeding the emerging and strengthening of a creative milieu.
Arts and strategic communication in Italy and Spain: from sponsorship to corporate responsibility
The paper investigates the rise of business communication strategies based on culture and arts in Italy and Spain. As previous researches demonstrate, cultural communication can work as a strategic asset to develop corporate identity and reputation, enabling organizations to cultivate quality long-term quality relationships with their stakeholders. From this scenario and considering the lack of a systematic European comparison, the study presents preliminary data from a comparative research on the evolution of cultural communication models (patronage, sponsorship, partnership, investment), in order to evaluate similarities and original features of the phenomenon in the two countries by means of an explorative and multi-case study approach. Communication management in organizations and private companies stands as a strategic asset and is not immune to a changing context. While the investments tend today to concentrate on digital and social media strategies (Zerfass et al., 2015), there are other trends emerging in some countries and sectors. One of these is the phenomenon of business communication strategies based on and arts, which some scholars define “corporate cultural communication” (Martino, 2010) or “corporate cultural responsibility” (Azzarita et al., 2010): such approaches see a company including artistic activities, programs, or policies in its own strategic communication policies in order to develop corporate identity and reputation.
