Smart Street Furniture: Innovation in the Concept Design Process

The prospective of replace the traditional street furniture with smart ones, in which digital technologies are integrated, is fascinating many cities all over the world. Many cities are today in a dichotomous situation: on the one hand, some “smart” street furniture are installed with less success than expected, on the other hand, in many public spaces the “traditional” street furniture are still not sufficient or not integrated, with problems of effective usability, or they are in worrying degraded conditions. The research group of Department of Architecture and Design (Politecnico di Torino) participates to a demonstrative project called “Smart square meter, looking the city meter by meter” where a partnership of companies intends to test smart street furniture in the city of Turin and Milan. The paper describes the role assumed by the research group in the demonstrative project and the contributions in terms of service design, integration in the built environment, analysis of citizens and public administration’s needs.