The Open Design School, ODS in short, has been one of the two pillar projects for Matera’s application as the European Capital of Culture. ODS has brought together authors, bloggers, designers, craftsmen, hackers, students, professionals, and academics, creating the first design school in Europe based on the principles of Open Culture.

The Open Design School launched its activities in 2016, with the primary goal of setting up a workshop to self-produce everything needed for the cultural program of Matera 2019: from the infrastructure to the service supply. In this spirit, one of the first projects focused on the School’s headquarters, Casino Padula, on the outskirts of Matera, in the Agna-Le Piane district.

At the heart of the Open Design School's activity, there is a continuous path of sharing outputs and processes with the territory. This is embodied in the four-event formats that have defined the School's events since the very beginning.

Open Talks, which consisted of lessons, debates and screenings on topics related to open design, social practices and the School’s project.

Open Reviews, that are public presentations of the School’s work, to gather feedback from the public and the stakeholders.

Community Workshops, or hands-on sessions held by Italian and international experts on techniques related to the School’s work, like DIY repair methods, upcycling and woodwork.

Open Days, during which the School’s Lab, along with its hardware and tools, could be used by anyone to carry out their own projects.

In addition to these four formats, the School has organized a series of other events for Matera 2019, like exhibitions and presentations.

As shown in the chart below, between 2016 and 2019, ODS has organized 27 Open Talks, 23 Open Reviews, 28 Community Workshops, and 9 other public events. Thanks to these activities, the School has activated a network between at least 2,680 participants and 67 speakers.

At the School, the attendees design in interdisciplinary teams: they invent, prototype, and build creative and technological solutions to support the Matera 2019 cultural programme.

ODS’s first significant project has been “Venues of Matera / Luoghi di Matera”, a quantitative and qualitative mapping of the locations in Basilicata that could host the Matera 2019 events. A journey across more than 41 cities resulted in data on 431 sites, from the smallest of 30m² to the biggest of 60,000 m². Most of the venues mapped are outside the Central and Sassi areas of Matera.

Many of the locations mapped then went on to become protagonists of the Matera 2019 programme, in some cases thanks to site-specific projects by the School to restore and reuse existing spaces. To this end, ODS activated a total of 83 projects, 54 of which involved the construction of installations. On several occasions, the School’s intervention meant that the Matera 2019 programme could reach unusual venues, traditionally not used for cultural events.

In total, ODS construction projects led to the restoration and reuse of about 12,480m² of spaces, first of all thanks to the work on Casino Padula, the School’s headquarters. Here, the ODS teams were able to recover almost 5,000 m² in a previously underused venue at the outskirts of the City. The recovery intervention focused both on the interiors and on the vast outside area. The latter became home to Giardino Padula, one of the 32 community gardens in Basilicata activated by progetto Gardentopia, the Matera 2019 project which, through artistic residencies, transformed neglected spaces into open gardens.

ODS design interventions also resulted in the recovery of 1,200 m² at Cava Paradiso located in the Archaeological and Natural Park of the Cave Churches and site of the exhibitions of I-DEA, the other pillar project of Matera 2019.

Overall, as the chart below shows, the School’s installation projects led to the activation of 17 unusual venues for events. Also, 15 projects allowed the Matera 2019 cultural programme to reach areas outside of Matera’s Historical Center and Sassi area.

Other than being a place of production, ODS represented a learning environment for all the participants involved.

The work teams had been selected to favour a diverse background, in terms of professional expertise and of geographical origin, with one-third of the participants from Basilicata, one-third from Italy and one-third from abroad. With the intertwining of different experiences, the School became a unique growth opportunity for all those involved. Not quite a School in the common sense, rather a peer-to-peer knowledge exchange occurring through shared work practices, where the traditional hierarchies between students and teachers dissolved.

In total, 35 professionals have been selected to be part of the School. Mostly architects, designers and artists, but also journalists and mathematicians. Alongside these teams, 4 collaborators, 64 external experts and 13 staff members have contributed to the School. The following graph shows them all.

It’s not only the internal participants that benefited from the knowledge exchange mechanisms activated by the School, but also the outside communities. This is well documented in the project “VOCALE”, presented by ODS at the Milano Design Week. In the exhibition, an audio track narrates the School through the words of its visitors. The voices are not only those of designers and creatives, but also those of local shopkeepers, factory workers and inhabitants of the area, as evidence of the profound impact ODS had on the entire community that revolves around Casino Padula. In fact, it is perhaps the message of an external visitor, Luca, a 50-year-old craftsman, that best embodies what the Open Design School experience has been for Matera.