Designing Hybrid Spaces

Edited by Laura Galluzzo and Salvatore Di Dio

This volume investigates the potential of Socio-Cultural Hybrid Spaces as engines of urban regeneration, democratic participation, and cultural innovation.

Designing Hybrid Spaces edited by Laura Galluzzo and Salvatore Di Dio was published by FrancoAngeli.

The book develops a critical and impactful perspective on the functions, design and interdisciplinary approaches, and transformative potential of Socio-Cultural Hybrid Spaces. Emerging at the intersection of cultural production, social experimentation, and territorial transformation, these spaces challenge conventional boundaries between public and private, temporary and permanent, physical and digital.

Workshop activities at Open Casello. Photos by author. Image taken from the essay 'Co-designing Socio-cultural Hybrid Spaces: methods and transformative practices' by Ambra Borin.

From their evolving role as plural ecosystems to their capacity to generate declinations of public value; from cultural and participatory practices that reclaim and reimagine the commons to the opportunities and challenges introduced by digital technologies; it offers a multifaceted lens on hybrid practices in contemporary urban and territorial contexts.

Multisensory interactions at The Senses: Design Beyond Vision exhibition (Cooper Hewitt, 2018), exploring touch, sound, and scent through integrated physical and digital experiences. Source: Authors (2018). Image taken from the essay 'Sensory design in phygital environments: expanding participation through embodied experience' by Paulo Eduardo Tonin, Marinella Ferrara and Elton Moura Nickel.

By weaving together theoretical perspectives, empirical research, and case studies, this book provides critical reflections by and for scholars, practitioners, and institutions. How can cultural initiatives generate new alliances between institutions and communities? What forms of participation can strengthen the democratic role of public space? And what challenges arise in connecting physical and virtual dimensions for collective engagement?

Designing Hybrid Spaces is available in the FrancoAngeli open-access catalog.

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