Conference article

The paper is a position paper attempting to frame the foundations of an emerging topic in design research, education and practice: a transdisciplinary approach defined here as Service+Spatial design. Starting from the insights acquired by the authors through basic research and educational activities exploring the mutual influences between Spatial design and Service design, the challenge is to disclose the fundamentals of Service+Spatial design in order to set up a qualitative comparison and discussion around their relationships. The paper explores the cultural dimension of design, trying to identify and highlight common ground and differentiation to frame, support and expand the comparison between these two design disciplines. The common ground is based on the relevant converging factors that create the current landscape of design; the perspective for comparison is structured through the identified key dimensions in the different evolution of Spatial and Service design; the comparative analysis is sketched around the ongoing findings and the evidences gathered from the theoretical research and the assessed teaching framework tested.

design research, spatial design, design education, systemic approach, product-service systems