The potential Roles of Design and Designers within a Time-based approach

Multiple temporalities: projects, processes and communities at SS. Trinità delle Monache in Naples

Abstract

Considering the urgency to update design disciplines in respect to the current times describable with the word transition, the paper proposes a critical analysis on the basis of a long research involving the former convent of the SS. Trinità delle Monache in Naples. The multiple research contexts have all been aimed at the recovery, valorization and opening to the city of the former convent. Focusing on this case study, the contribution identifies possible roles for the design and the designer within a time-based approach. Assuming the complexity and coexistence of multiple temporalities, one can broaden the spectrum of action of the project itself. In this sense, the contribution proposes six connotations of the project, through an examination of as many project experiences, to which correspond different purposes, communities, scales and – above all – temporalities. It is believed that the case study presented here provides a possible example of a minor and processual project developed within a time-based approach where the designer-researcher plays the role of the choral architect. Within this theoretical framework, the recognition of multiple and interrelated temporalities as indispensable tools of contemporary design is urgent.