Guidelines for the design of Digital Platforms for wellness and inclusion: Shaping future community of citizens
Authors: Di Roma Annalisa , Annalinda Neglia Giulia , Scarcelli Alessandra 
Published: November 2024

The primary objective of the presented research is to explore and outline the possibilities offered by digital platforms in the urban context of the future, enabling the the well-being and care of individuals and communities, asserting that in a fragmented social context, the development of aggregation services and reconfiguration of social networks is crucial to respond to pluralisation and changing needs (Kazepov & Barberis, 2013; Kazepov & Cefalo, 2009). The research is part of the project, funded under XX, which aims to design 'platforms of care' to improve the holistic well-being of citizens in their territorial and cultural context. The first phase of the research concerns the study of the city from a multidisciplinary point of view, integrating theoretical and practical methods from the technical disciplines of design and architecture with those provided by humanistic and social fields, such as socio-semiotics, cultural studies, and urban sociology. The research investigates the intrinsic correlation between digital transformation and progress in the broad context of citizen care and welfare, with a focus in the welfare sector, aimed at promoting economic, environmental and social sustainability while improving responsiveness to emerging social challenges and needs. Digital services can offer support for new services by encouraging and facilitating proximity interactions for better living in today's hybrid physical and digital space (Pais, 2021). In this regard, the paper presents the outcomes of the initial phase of the research, about the analysis of existing digital platforms for the organisation and provision of holistic care services in the Italian national context, promoted by public administrations (PA) and the third sector. In particular, the case studies considered concern the welfare platforms active in Italian cities, covering sectors such as social welfare, education, care, and physical well-being. Strengths and critical points are critically highlighted, particularly with respect to the relationship with citizens and the territorial and cultural context of reference. The robust interconnection between "care" practices and the structure of the city, typical of pre-modern urban contexts, has been gradually replaced by the evolution of increasingly functional and specialised proximity relations in contemporary cities as a result of digital evolution, pushing towards cities of distance, inherently devoid of care. Proximity, understood in the condition of being physically close in space, but also in the feeling arising from the awareness of sharing something with someone (Manzini, 2021) is here understood as a source of care; an ecosystem of people, organisations, places, products and services that collectively demonstrate a mutual capacity for care and wellbeing. The very concept of care emphasises the importance of contact and thus proximity, recognising how holistic care requires close interaction between the actors involved (Manzini, 2021). The physical-digital hybridisation of proximity is intertwined with the analogous hybridisation of care, making tangible the need to redesign care systems to support new communities and forms of proximity, inclusive and capillary over the territory, considering the city of proximity as a common good. The city of proximity becomes a social and material resource of all its citizens, who contribute to its production, and of which they must have the burden Moreover, today the outcomes of digitisation also involve welfare, requiring the transformation of services such as education, health, welfare and social protection services. The welfare of the future requires physical and non-physical places where people can overcome the barriers of sociability, creating the basis for a new community-type cohesion: the ability to establish proximity relations is closely linked to the long-range relations of community welfare. This gives rise to the phenomenon of welfare platforms, based on the principle of several people providing collaborative responses to needs, actively involving social actors and creating interactions, thus strengthening community resources (Arcidiacono et al., 2021; Fosti, 2013, 2016). The platform, in this context, acts as the main infrastructure linking the demand and supply of goods and services through their reorganisation. The methodological approach of the research considers human-centred design, declined with respect to the emerging phenomenon of digitization. The outcomes of the ongoing research presented consist in mapping the reference city context, the city of XX, its significant places, as well as the characteristics, habits and cultures of its citizens. The sociological analysis will support the technical analysis in the field by means of qualitative survey tools in order to outline realistic scenarios as a basis for the design of 'digital platforms of care and well-being'.