Design for Social Innovation in Italian Inner Peripheries

Italy is scattered with small peripheral settlements, often characterised by difficult environmental morphologies, a lack of public services and a tendency toward depopulation. These places are mostly located in inland mountainous or island areas, far away from big cities. Yet despite a significant drop in population, they are still home to a quarter of the Italian population, distributed over more than two thirds of the entire country. Today, a few of these towns are being reorganised and repopulated, re-establishing a sustainable community approach thanks to innovative forms of organisation and entrepreneurship, capable of bringing together cultural, natural and social capital and production chains. In these contexts, unexpected models of innovation and design are born, to outline peculiarities of extreme interest for a contemporaneity that comes to include the dramatic instances of the current pandemic circumstances. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to strategic scenarios, theoretical guidelines and examples of good design practices, already created or in progress, including those by the authors, related to the promotion of eco-literacy, community and on-demand health and social services, the promotion of local agri-food systems, the preservation of know-how and craftsmanship, highlighting the contribution that articulated and multiscale design can provide in transforming territorial fragility into social and economic opportunities.