IAAD announced today the seventh edition of IAAD TURIN DESIGN WORKSHOP, a system of synergistic workshops organized annually in February between the first and second semester. A week devoted to discuss around current issues related to the design world and its direct connection with contemporary society, a fundamental moment of the creative-experimental-educational path in which professors, students, companies and institutions work together for the territory and its needs.

The conference was opened by the Mayor of Turin, Piero Fassino, who stressed the importance of the city in the decades as a player in the world of research, education and innovation, particularly in the design field. At the presentation also attended Ilda Curti Assessor Youth Politics, architect Cino Zucchi who oversaw the work of enhancement and functional recovery of  IAAD premises and project Nuvola Lavazza, moderated by Laura Milani, IAAD Director and by Federico De Giuli, Director of IAAD Scientific Board.

The theme of this seventh edition is inspired by the work of the British urbanist Charles LandrY, The Art of City Making. Against the model of urban engineering, which focuses exclusively on the physical infrastructure, he creates the concept of creative infrastructure, a union between the material elements and the human dynamics of a place, the connections and the relationships, the atmosphere. Cities should be the most creative for the world and not in the world. So creativity takes an ethical foundation. The creative city concept, he coined in the late 80’s, has become over time a shared model for rethinking the planning and management of cities.

In Torino, just nominated UNESCO Creative City for Design, IAAD is back to work on, with and for the territory, local and global: the city and the district, daily theaters of dynamics reproducible on a large scale. Already focus of many interventions, including IAAD headquarters and the new business centre Lavazza, the area of the Aurora district will be subject of new redevelopment project: with a resolution passed at the end of November 2015 by the City Council, Torino candidates to the invitation of the Council of Ministers, which provides almost 200 million euro for social and cultural redevelopment.

IAAD, as incubator of innovation and creativity, will work for a week with 8 different workshops, designing solutions for the redevelopment of an area – quoting the Councillor for Strategic Planning, Stefano Lo Russo – characterized by a particularly weak and fragile social structure requiring interventions both public and aimed at further integration. A challenge that IAAD has in its DNA and vocation and that will continue for the foreseeable future.