An introduction to design as a tool for the enhancement of local cultural heritage: a possible methodological approach and experiences from Politecnico Di Torino

The identity of a territory and its cultural peculiarities, that is from the historical-artistic heritage to the environmental resources up to the local material culture, represents a system of values that, in addition to the need for appropriate protection actions, requires special attention to the strategies of enhancement and promotion. In this context, Design is intended as a strategic tool for developing the value of the local Cultural Heritage, in terms of increasing the fruition and enjoyment of natural resources, strengthening of identity, increasing the strategic role for local economy. Design action is developed at different scales, from product to service to strategies, according to a variety of approaches in which design is intended as a multidimensional intervention tool. Specifically, Product Design focuses on the development of material elements for the use of the places and the accessibility to the services, such as furniture, outdoor equipment, communication and orientation systems, as well as products able to tell the places indirectly (eg packaging for typical products or territorial merchandising items). Service Design action deals with developing experiences that actively involve the user, aimed at communicating the values, meanings and functions of the territorial systems. Then, starting from the cultural resources of a territory, the Strategic dimension of Design permits instead to plan the organizational systems among the stakeholders, in order to create added value for the territory itself and for the people living in it. The paper intends to investigate and to document, from an almost epistemological point of view, which are the different "dimensions" of the design intervention for territorial Cultural Heritage, from the typology of the object of intervention (museum systems, environmental heritage, historic buildings, etc.), to the scale of intervention (products, services, strategies) up to identifying the specific actions that can be implemented (promoting, informing, setting up, equipping, making usable, etc.).