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JULY 3, 2026 | Italy Edition
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Over the summer, this newsletter will highlight design communities. The editorials will focus on RSD15's top countries by submission count, based on data from EasyChair. But we'd love to hear from you! Please be in touch to share systemic design work connected to your group, organisation, region, or other form of representation. cheryl@systemic-design.org
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Update on RSD15
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This year, Politecnico di Torino and Sys_Lab are organising RSD15, so it's a good time to celebrate the work of colleagues in Italy, as well as their associated organisations and design communities. Italy is one of the strongest centres of activity, accounting for 15% of RSD15 submissions. There are contributions across the RSD repository, featuring unique work on territorial systems, as well as many papers and sessions on transition, design education, public value, and the evolving practices of systemic design.
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Submissions are in for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium, and reviewers and committees are hard at work. RSD15 submissions come from 15 countries (nope, we didn't plan that). This year, you are likely to find systemic design work from India, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States, Norway, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, China, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. These are listed in order of current contribution activity.
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Affiliations (in alphabetical order): Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Domus Academy, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, ISIA Roma Design, Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, Sapienza Università di Roma, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Università di Torino, University of Calabria, University of Parma, Vanvitelli University, and independent researchers working in Italy.
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Designing within a plural world
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The RSD15 theme is pluralism, foregrounding questions of epistemic justice, intercultural dialogue, and the ethics of collaboration across disciplinary, institutional, and geographical boundaries. RSD15-Shades of Systemic Design invites us to embrace methodological diversity not as fragmentation but as a condition for collective learning and creative adaptation.
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RSD15 will bring together systemic designers to expand the global dialogue, engaging diverse voices and perspectives to deepen understanding of pluralism in systemic design.
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RSD15-TURIN
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TURIN, ITALY. Pluralism foregrounds questions of epistemic justice, intercultural dialogue, and the ethics of collaboration across disciplinary, institutional, and geographical boundaries. Shades of Systemic Design invites us to embrace methodological diversity not as fragmentation but as a condition for collective learning and creative adaptation.
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RSD15 will bring together systemic designers to expand the global dialogue, engaging diverse voices and perspectives to deepen understanding of pluralism in systemic design.
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RSD15 PAPER TALKS
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ONLINE & TURIN. Paper Talks feature peer-reviewed papers presented online by their authors in curated sessions that bring together related or contrasting contributions. A subject-matter expert guides each session, enabling direct dialogue and feedback, with particular emphasis on inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to systemic design.
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Paper Talks take place online, and a group of authors attending RSD15-Turin will present their work for group discussion.
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RSD15 MON VISO
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OSTANA, ITALY. Systemic Design for Regenerative Practice is offered as an RSD15 retreat and a welcoming extension to systemic design practice.
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At the Mon Viso Institute, at the foot of Monte Viso on the Italian–French border, this retreat explores regeneration through embodied systemic design practice, outdoor movement, and resilience-building. The retreat includes deeper engagement with the systemic design wheel of inquiry.
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Dr Silvia Barbero, Associate Professor, Politecnico di Torino. Co-founder, Systemic Design Association and Chair, 2018–2024. Deputy Coordinator, Design Programmes, Politecnico di Torino. Research on local economies, policy design, environmental production, sustainable development, circular economy, and innovation. Co-founder of Sys_Lab.
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Dr Amina Pereno, Assistant Professor, Politecnico di Torino. Lagrange Project fellow, ISI Global Science Foundation; visiting researcher, Nordic Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. Researches socio-technical systems, healthcare systems, sustainable transitions, sustainable development, and circular economy. Co-founder, Sys_Lab.
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Asja Aulisio, Assistant Professor in Design, Politecnico di Torino. Graduated in Systemic Design, with study experience in Japan at Kyoto Institute of Technology and Nagoya City University. Works on regional and European systemic design and circular economy projects with multiple stakeholders. Research Fellow, Sys_Lab.
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Tobias Luthe, Professor, AHO and ETH Zurich. Program Director, Designing Resilient Regenerative Systems, professional master's degree, ETH Zurich. Forest scientist, sustainability educator, entrepreneur, and designer. Researches socio-ecological resilience, mountain systems, regenerative design, and systems boundaries. Co-founder, MonViso Institute.
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Here are just a few of the contributions featuring colleagues working in Italy. Please be in touch if you have work to share. cheryl@systemic-design.org
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Elena Porqueddu + Systemic spatial design
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Elena Porqueddu is an architect, researcher, and lecturer. PhD in Architecture, Urban Design, and Conservation of Housing and Landscape, Polytechnic of Milan, who has created a place for systemic spatial design, publishing extensively on the topic, with a book, Designing the Complex City, in 2025. Spatial systemic design draws on complex adaptive systems, emergence, self-organisation, autopoiesis, resilience, assemblage, and spontaneous socio-spatial configurations.
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Fab Lab Barcelona + reservist cultures
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RSD12-Turin was an opportunity to learn about work by authors Marion Real and Vikrant Mishra. Emerging Reservist Cultures: From Stories of Resilience to Network Preparedness is an infographic book that explores how communities, makers, and manufacturing networks can respond to crises. It presents stories, tools, and strategies for developing agile "reservist networks" that can adapt production to urgent needs. Marion and Vikrant are multidisciplinary designers and researchers working with Fab Lab Barcelona, a leading digital fabrication laboratory based at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and connected to the global Fab Lab network.
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Systemic design + territorial development
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Systemic design work emerging from Italy often uses "territorial" to refer to place-based systems of production, resources, communities, knowledge, governance, and ecological effects. Although grounded in Italian regional and design traditions, the approach travels well: the concept of territory can be translated as local systems, whether city-regions, watersheds, rural economies, industrial districts, community production networks, or Indigenous territories where that framing is appropriate.
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Systemic design + cultural paradigm
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Luigi Bistagnino is an architect, professor, and author. He is an expert in systemic design, eco-design, the circular economy, and productive/environmental sustainability, and his RSD7 keynote was Systemic Approach Generates a New Cultural Paradigm (opening with the Fibonacci sequence* (golden ratio), a sequence where, starting from the third, each number is the sum of the previous two. Author of Systemic Design: Designing the Productive and Environmental Sustainability, Systemic Design (Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research), and a key figure in the Turin systemic design tradition. Former faculty member, Dipartimento di Architettura e Design, Politecnico di Torino.
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*Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987 ...
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