Genova Street Lab
Genova Street Lab is a temporary urban regeneration project in Sampierdarena, conceived as an open-air urban laboratory that integrates Service Design, participatory practices and tactical urbanism to test new ways of using and perceiving public space.
My role
Service & Experience Design: definition of goals, service ecosystem and experience principles across project sites.
Co-design facilitation: planning and leading participatory workshops with local stakeholders and children.
Narrative concept: creation of the thematic storyline connecting spaces, users and touchpoints.
Visual identity design: definition of a sea-inspired graphic language, patterns and visual assets.
Touchpoint & wayfinding: design of narrative signage, spatial communication and on-site experience elements.
Implementation support: coordination with partners during prototyping and installation phases.
Project brief
Genova Street Lab was born as an experimental project in collaboration with the Municipality of Genoa, with the aim of rethinking how public space is lived and experienced in the neighbourhood of Sampierdarena. The project did not focus on permanent transformations, but on the creation of a temporary urban laboratory where light and reversible interventions could be tested directly in the streets and public spaces of the district through participatory processes and service design activities.
Through artistic installations, narrative signage and collaborative activities with residents and children, the project sought to strengthen local identity and sense of belonging, improve the perception of safety and observe how everyday practices and community relations could inform future directions for urban regeneration.
Preliminary analysis
A process of listening to the neighbourhood through interviews, on-site observation and dialogue with residents and shop owners, to understand needs, tensions and everyday perceptions of public space.
Co-design
Participatory workshops with local communities and children transformed ideas, shared imaginaries and narratives into design materials and visual directions for the urban interventions.
Workshop outputs from the Sampierdarena summer camps.
Concept & identity
The sea becomes the narrative thread of the project, translated into a shared visual language of symbols, patterns and signs that connects installations, the Pedibus route and spatial touchpoints.
Implementation
Temporary installations were realised through light construction and close coordination with the local administration, turning public spaces into urban prototypes that could be observed and iteratively adapted.
Pedibus
The home-to-school route is conceived as a collective and educational experience: Safe Islands, directional signs and nautical references make the journey more recognisable, playful and safer for children.
Urban art installations
