Crafting beauty together

In the transition to more inclusive societies, design can go beyond traditional design domains dealing with form shaping and contribute to organisational and social transformation, through projects for new meanings, new services, and new processes. In this connection, this chapter aims to discuss the practice of “Costruire Bellezza” (Crafting Beauty) as an experiment of design for social inclusion. This practice focuses both on the empowerment of homeless people and on the development of university students’ (mainly relational) skills, via Design Anthropology-led creativity. Participants include researchers, homeless people, students of design and social sciences, social workers, educators, creative talents, and private citizens. Through regularly organized “design initiatives” they all experiment with projects, languages, and co-creation processes together. Design and Anthropology shape a strong relational and community-based apparatus of collaborative experiences, thanks to which all participants’ backgrounds are valued. The participatory experience thus becomes a context where more effective services for homeless people and new models of active and responsible citizenship are tested.