THE HOLISTIC DIAGNOSIS AS A METHOD TO SUPPORT URBAN MINING ACTIONS: THE CASE STUDY OF THE EUROPEAN PROJECT RETRACE FOR PIEDMONT REGION (ITALY)

This paper wants to demonstrate the importance of a method – the Holistic Diagnosis (HD) – in the design of the future society which goal is to eliminate the concept waste and to valorise the ‘new’ resources of territory, today underestimated. The shift from a linear economy to a circular one needs a radical paradigm shift. It means not talking about resources and waste, but, as a systemic designer is used to do, working on resources that go in (input) and goes out (output), considering their intrinsic quality instead than only quantity. This shift gives a new dignity to the matter that, despite being called waste, it has intrinsic properties that must be expressed. It doesn’t have to be rejected because it has no more the quality enjoyed by the human being, as olfactory and organoleptic characteristics. It can be appreciated by another natural reign, as happen in nature. Most of the properties of outputs today are unknown for many reasons as they are not the topic of scientific researchers or it misses attention or economic resources on the issue. In this context, the designer takes an important role, as an expert in designing, passing from a product designer for the industry to a designer of complex scenarios, in which she/he is the center of a multidisciplinary team required for this goal. Before the real act of designing, the systemic designer uses a method, the HD, that permits, with step 1 and 2, to obtain a clear vision on the problems and potentialities inside a specific territory, discovering a mine of resources, supporting Urban Ming actions. The step 1, for Systemic Design (SD) methodology, is the analysis of input and output of a specific production process, while HD 2 is the analysis of the territory in which the process is settled and takes in consideration all the components that influence it, from morphology to economy. The paper, after a description on SD, HD and its relationship with Urban Mining, takes as a case study the HD analysis on Piedmont Region. It was carried out for the European Interreg project Retrace and has represented an essential role in the definition of the results for the following step of the project, connecting designers and policymakers.