Designing Urban Smart Furniture for Facilitating Migrants’ Integration: The Co-design Workshop as Approach for Supporting Inclusive Design

European cities are changing due the immigration of people from different cultures. There are many issues related to the integration and dialogue between cultures. Urban design plays a key role in how migrants participate in their host community and it is an important driver for the inclusion process. Facilitating the participation of residents in designing public spaces and their use helps to create a better sense of belonging. Promoting in public spaces the interaction of different cultures becomes a crucial element to facilitate social cohesion and living together. The research project explores an innovative approach in the use of public spaces, through the design of smart urban furniture. Based on a survey of the user’s needs, and on co-design activities, the project investigates innovative solutions for facilitating migrants’ integration and the dialogue between different cultures, through the design of innovative urban furniture, with smart technologies embodied inside. The project, based on the co-design approach of rapid prototyping, creates different kinds of new interaction among urban space and people, and between users of different social or cultural background. The results presented in this paper, were conducted by the research unit of the University of Florence, in cooperation with the Human Tech Institute and the School of Management of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland.