Welcome Home

As the project interested a varied group of users, tenants (returning and new), staff and hospitality mangement (our client), we were seen by every faction as an ambassador of the others. Our preliminary work consisted in interviewing all the stakeholders to familiarize ourselves with their interests.

We had to sift through a lot of feedbacks, problems and desires that were outside of our scope of influence and related to broader issues, that although very interesting, would have caused our project to go from actuable to hypothetical.

We were mainly concerned with:

• What have students and staff have to say about staying at the facility?
• How do we include stakeholders in the evolution process of Polimi's hospitality system?

Politecnico di Milano Office of Hospitality connected with the faculty of Design to have students start working on modernizing their approach to accomodating students in their facilities. A particularly important aspect of this process being that a lot of the students that use this kind of accomodation facility are exchange or foreign students, coming from different cultures and talking mainly in english, having a mainly italian speaking staff serving the establishments, language was a known problem.

Isaac Newton residence, is one of the 5 dorms that Politecnico di Milano offers in Milan for its students. It reopened its doors for new guests on September 2016 after being closed for some years due to a remodeling work. The building is composed by five floors and it is located in the neighborhood of Gallaratese, specifically in Via Mario Borsa 25, very close to San Leonardo metro station.

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The co-working session was organized as a two days workshop with the students of Newton. All the studio class worked together to create a meaningful interaction between peers, to improve the situation from both parts of the co-working session.On the first day the Studio focused itself on interviews, in a one to one relationship. While the first part of the session was during the afternoon, the second part was organized during the evening, allowing a wider, reach and a more relaxed environment. The night was organized as an aperitivo, with various activities, some were to create the right mood and others more focused on data gathering.

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The interviews were the first moment of direct contact with the people of Newton, this activity is the one that we used the most throughout the whole project. We achieved to interview around 110 Newton residents that gave us a lot of insights that were our starting point to continue with the work that we have developed. Our group had the possibility to interview also two members of the staff for one hour, this moment was very important for us to understand their point of view.

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The studio planned a great number of activities with precise and complementary aims, to get contribution from the students and to understand what they cared most of inside the dorm. The response of the students to the event was beyond expectations, and this lead to the creation of more activities on the fly to make the most out of the session.

Some of the activities that took course in the co-working session were: Speed dating, Express yourself, Newspaper title, Hotspot, Treasure hunt, and others

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From this successful co-working session we got lots of insights, here are some that were very meaningful to us. There is a big communication barrier. Students know the facilities available but they are also unaware about them. There is a lack of merge of cultures. The building has lack of identity.

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Newton is a residence inhabited by a mix of nationalities and courses of study, we like to call them “Newtoners”. Around 72% of the students come from outside Italy but still, Italians conform the biggest popoulation inside the dorm, being 28% number followed by Iran, India and Pakistan.

Staff is also an important component of Newton’s population, always present in different shifts and divided equally between the reception and the rest of the jobs that are needed to run the dorm.

After the co-working session we built three personas with the aim of representing the biggest groups of people that live inside this residence.

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The nature of the project and the workshop that we organized required us to learn how to manage complexity. Having large amounts of data and insights coming from relevant sources made the project something that the users felt attached to, ultimately contributing to its effectiveness and relevance. Our involved users knew that we wanted to give back something that would have helped them and future students, it was their empathy that allowed us to create guides and a map of the area for the welcome kit!