Final thesis project
MA in Systemic Design
Politecnico di Torino — 2021
Behave
Mapping the commitment of Higher Education toward the Sustainable Development Goals
University Campuses are wide and complex entities in which flows of people, activities, and spaces continuously interconnect, defining the campus’ identity and giving life to scenarios in continuous transformation.
Every tangible and intangible element of this system of relations contributes to the social, environmental, and economic impacts of the campus and of its surroundings. In such a complex context, where different actors engage at different levels, it’s crucial to understand how universities are approaching and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals should be seen as an opportunity and not as a drag; hence the need to develop a visualization tool to map the campus’ sustainability and the community’s perception of it.
Behave is a mapping tool developed to involve Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Each campus has the possibility to keep track of its performances and activities by collecting data under six macro-topics: campus setting, academic innovation, education, community awareness, outreach & partnerships, leadership & governance.
— Data-driven design for a sustainable approach
Core of the project is data visualization as a language to understand and interpret specific situations.
However, without a context it would be impossible to extract observations from a series of data; the data itself would not have any meaning. The environment - considered as natural, industrial or individual - can be seen as the circumstance of visual artifacts under different point of view. Representing this type of data can be an opportunity to discover and interpret everyday behaviors inside an individual’s life but also inside organizations where the actions of a community can have a strong impact, both positive and negative.
— Behaving through data
Starting from the homepage, users become aware of what the platform has to offer, discover the joining campuses, and directly reach their pages, to explore the data. This is the main section of the tool, where all the data can be visualized, compared, and analyzed with a process of data aggregation that follows a ‘subtractive’ approach: users can see all the data but have the possibility to filter them according to entities, perspectives, or additional filters.
The project was developed as a contribution to the research program QualENv - Change the Climate,
co-funded by the Erasmus + Program of the European Union
The complete thesis can be consulted and downloaded here
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