Issue 11 of MD Journal intends to explore the topic of design for the connected (or smart city),\u00a0from a perspective that considers the evolution of services in contemporary cities, with particular reference to urban quality and the quality of life of its citizens.\u00a0The development of connectivity over the last two decades is changing the way buildings, public spaces and services are used, affecting the nature of activities such as work, education, urban mobility, healthcare, feed, leisure, culture and tourism. This progressive transformation of the relationship between people and their physical environment has produced a new concept of digitally integrated urban space, defined by Castells (1996) as \u201cflow space\u201d, generated by the social practices of the community on the web, in which the relationship between the citizen and the environment is constantly mediated by the digital dimension (Castells 1996; Ratti, Claudel, 2017).\u00a0Moreover, the trend towards the transformation of goods into services (Rifkin, 2000), has directed the latter to an increasingly informative content and degree of interactivity, shifting the focus from their physical consistency to accessibility. The city\u2019s services \u2013 an integral part of its \u201curban metabolism\u201d \u2013 involve a large stakeholder\u2019s number of (national and local administrations, the private sector, associations and individual citizens) and cover a broad scope, ranging from mobility to social services (including health and safety), the preservation of the environment and the cultural activities.\u00a0Ubiquitous computing (or the Internet of Things) and the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) today form a new paradigm of the physical space of the city, in which built and virtual space are constantly intertwined; the information gained from virtual infrastructure (multi-sector data or big data) enables more accurate service planning. Specifically, these data ease the provision of services, improve the design of urban interfaces, and introduce new sharing models characterised by citizens\u2019 greater awareness of \u201cmaintenance\u201d and design proposals to enhance life quality in the city.\u00a0Today, the smart city also constitutes an extraordinary framework of action in which to make the theoretical and application fields of the disciplines of project planning interact as a whole, in particular the contiguous ones (architecture and design), in a unified vision of spatial phenomena, communicative interrelations, nodes and interfaces for access and use.\u00a0Moreover, it is increasingly clear that this reflection cannot be confined to the urban dimension alone, but should also be directed towards products and services for the territories which are at higher risk of remaining on the margins and which have enormous potential in terms of quality of life.\u00a0The issue aims to draw an effective picture of the evolution of public space design and of the dissemination within it of connected objects and services, which are technologically advanced and capable of producing value in the circular economy processes and of describing its impact on the life of citizens.\u00a0Finally, it will be of great interest to focus attention on the potential that certain innovative urban services and interfaces have to influence the behaviour of citizens, encouraging healthier, more sustainable lifestyles, and mapping out their changes.\u00a0The contributions to issue 11 of MD Journal are intended not only to investigate the transformations and research under way in various sectors related to urban services, but also to develop scenarios that highlight the positive and negative aspects that this revolution may produce in terms of well-being and quality of life in our cities.
\nMD Journal #11 intends to explore the contribution that design can make to this area of interest, by focusing on the theoretical and design aspects, sharing among researchers the transformations under way (or only latent), the methods and instruments that the discipline is implementing, in relation to certain core themes:\u00a0Smart, tangible and intangible objects and services, in relation to the new ways of living in the city;\u00a0Urban services for a healthy city;\u00a0Digital integration between urban services and urban dashboards;\u00a0Urban services, user behaviour mapping and rewarding;\u00a0New urban waste collection systems and promotion of virtuous behaviour;\u00a0Urban equipment: accessibility and attractiveness to encourage playing and physical exercise;\u00a0Water in the city and blue infrastructure: evolution and potential of public fountains and waterways;\u00a0Mobility: research and applications for smart and safer roads; evolution and characteristics of urban equipment connected to eco-sustainable mobility;\u00a0Sensors in the city: physical integration of environmental sensors and video surveillance in historical contexts;\u00a0Urban furnishings as an interface;\u00a0Design of services for marginal territories and rural areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":899,"parent":0,"template":"","format":"standard","topic":[142,597,68,446,459,90,464,17,467,300,615,212,694,634,534,681,653,606,497,498,502,673,326,322,521,318],"country":[25],"nsj_language":[57,56],"class_list":["post-2173","call_for_papers","type-call_for_papers","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-crafts-design-arts","topic-data-sensing-and-analysis","topic-design","topic-digital-technologies","topic-green-mobility","topic-health-wellness","topic-history-of-design","topic-industrial-design","topic-industry-4-0","topic-innovation","topic-innovative-technologies","topic-manufacturing-machinery","topic-manufacturing-process","topic-manufacturing-systems","topic-mobility","topic-remote-sensing","topic-rural-environment","topic-safety-and-security","topic-service-innovation","topic-services","topic-smart-design","topic-smart-devices","topic-user-experience-design","topic-visual-design","topic-waste-management","topic-web-design","country-italy","nsj_language-english","nsj_language-italian"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n