Digitization and design for social innovation. a co-design model for prison spaces

This paper presents the results of a survey on the potential of applying Building Information Modelling, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality tools to the context of designing Juvenile detention centres. Testing on a specific case study highlighted the main advantage offered by computer and network technologies, i.e., the maximization of the interaction between designers and stakeholders, bridging the gap between technical and common knowledge. The design and co-decision models tested, based on the use of inclusion methodologies supported by technological tools suitable for the particular study context, have made it possible to overcome the non–expert–user difficulties of understanding the technical documents and allowed to work in accordance with incremental logic, whereby the project is built, evaluated and corrected by successive approximations, taking into proper account problems and actions as a whole and in their interrelationships.