Strategic design and product innovation for the sustainability of agri-food industry

The new production scenarios that design studies are confronted with today go far beyond the design of material and immaterial products. Research carried out in the field of Italian design in recent years has described what seems to have become the new role of design, which in some respects had been suggested as early as the 1970s. The driving force of present-day Italian economy is the “made in Italy” sector, of which design could certainly be the mastermind, both at the territorial and planning levels. With its “weak” models capable of adjusting to the ever-changing scenarios and of enhancing the multifaceted Italian production landscapes and their resources, this field of study works out new development models based on viable, sustainable visions of the living and production spheres. Production landscapes – a deep-rooted reality but also a new way of understanding the characteristics of Italian production excellence – are a set of resources such as landscape quality, local know-how, collective intelligence and the complex economic and social system. This close- textured system was able to produce excellent quality, of life and of Italian products alike. For a long time the Italian industrial system has developed following alien models: industrial districts, especially the “global” ones, eradicated all the complex interactions taking place in any one place in favour of the pursuit of mono-logical, abstract qualities.