Milano Design PHD Festival has a new website
Go to: http://phd.design.polimi.it/

 

For a number of years this was the offical site of the Milano Design PhD Festival which started in 2010. It is a program of meetings with the international protagonists of design culture, as well as an occasion to take part in the final PhD defenses of PhD candidates.
Content is from the site's 2016 archived pages, and from other outside sources.

For the latest news about the Milano Design PhD Festival go to its current site at: http://phd.design.polimi.it/


Milano Design PHD Festival is the program of meetings with the international protagonists of design culture during the discussions of the final exams of the Ph.D. in Design at the Milan Polytechnic.

The meetings will take place from 24 to 28 March 2014 in English and are open to the public.

The intent is to discuss some issues related to the project with Italian and foreign researchers, Ph.D. students and internationally renowned teachers on precious occasions for debate. The three major themes tackled this year will be Design in relation to users, interfaces and social interactions. 

The 3 days will be divided into: 
DEFENSE OF DOCTORAL THESIS (the candidates will support their thesis in public with the re-election of external teachers to the Polytechnic, in front of a commission of international experts); 
OPEN LECTURES (lessons held by international experts specifically invited to Milan); 
PhD EVENINGS (events of leisure and socialization to continue to confront even in an experimental way).

The PhD in Design is active at the Politecnico di Milano, proposed and coordinated by the Department of Design, with the Department of Mechanics and the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering.

 

About

Milan Design PhD Festival is a program of meetings with the international protagonists of design culture. 
PhD defenses of PhD candidates.

Open to the public from 07 to 11 March 2016 and are organized in English.

PhD candidates and world mentioned professors. The five areas of research of the 6th edition are: Products & Services, Environments, Emotions, Experiences, Virtual Models.

The 5 days are divided into 3 main parts:

  • DEFENDING SESSIONS,  PhD candidates discussing their thesis in front of a panel of international experts, counter-professors, and visiting scholars at the Milan Polytechnic
  • OPEN LECTURES  given by international and renowned experts
  • PhD EVENINGS  for networking activities

The Design research PhD program, PhD in Design , inaugurated in 2008 at the Milan Polytechnic , is run by the Design Department with the collaboration of the Department of Mechanics and the Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering. 
The program aims to cultivate researcher-designers who will contribute to the identification of the potential of contemporary society.

 

"As a jewelry artist specializing in sterling silver items, I mistakenly attended this festival thinking I could learn from professionals how to improve my design skills. Rings are my specialty and I was looking for ways to enhance my skill sets both for the jewelry itself and for creating an exquisite display of sterling silver rings which I could use in our store. Little did I realize the extremely high level of discourse presented at this event. But I came away very glad to have attended, and in my post event conversations with the speakers I discovered that although their work was focused on more philosophical topics, everyone had some knowledge and advice to offer regarding my main interests. My best conversation included a detailed discussion on the benefits of lighting in the photography used in presentations - something that is immensely useful. So my mistake turned out to be extremely serendipidous!" Jonathan Markee

 

Milano Design PHD Festival is the program of meetings with the international protagonists of design culture during the discussions of the final exams of the Ph.D. in Design at the Milan Polytechnic.

The meetings will take place from 07 to 11 March 2016 in English and are open to the public.

The intent is to discuss some issues related to the project with Italian and foreign researchers, Ph.D. students and internationally renowned teachers on precious occasions for debate. The three major themes tackled this year will be the New Stories, Communication and Processes. 
The 5 days will be divided into 3 macro sections:

  • DEFENSE OF DOCTORAL THESIS,  the candidates will support their thesis in public before a committee of international experts, the respective counter-speakers and guest lecturers at the Polytechnic of Milan
  • OPEN LECTURES  held by renowned international experts
  • PhD EVENINGS  dedicated to events of leisure and socialization to continue to confront

The PhD Course in Design has been active at the Polytechnic of Milan since 2008; it is proposed and coordinated by the Department of Design, in collaboration with the Department of Mechanics and the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering. 
The aim of the course is to prepare designers-researchers who, by tackling the problems and identifying the opportunities of contemporary society, are able to produce a contribution of original knowledge in the field of Design.

 

 

How to participate?

OPEN EVENING LECTURES & PHD
Open Lectures and PhD Evenings are free to attend are held in Inglese from 07 to 11 March 2016. 
All the events will take place in Castiglioni Room  at Politecnico di Milano, Campus Bovisa, Via Candiani 72.

For more information and details: [email protected]

OPEN LECTURE & EVENTS
Each event is open to the public free of charge. Each activity will be held in English from 07 to 11 March 2016. 
All lessons and events will be held in the Castiglioni Hall  at the Milan Polytechnic, Campus Bovisa, Via Candiani 72.

For further information: [email protected]

 


Program

All the venues will take place at Politecnico di Milano, campus Bovisa, Via Durando 10.
In Castiglioni Room on Monday and on Wednesday.
In De Carli Room on Tuesday.

Mon 23/03
New stories


Castiglioni Room
Panel: Raffaella Trocchianesi, Raimonda Riccini e Francesco Tedeschi

09.30am Virginia Lucarelli
Design Wunderkammern: the contemporary practice of collecting design

10.30am Nadia Campadelli
Grants from Banking Foundations and Trusts. A Model of Design for the Preservation and Development of Libraries, Archives and Museums

12.00pm OPENING CEREMONY
Prof. Silvia Piardi (Head, Design Department)
Prof. Arturo Dell’Acqua Bellavitis (Dean, School of Design)


Castiglioni Room

12.15am LECTIO MAGISTRALIS
Prof. Maurizio Vogliazzo
“Fragments”

2.30pm THEMATIC SEMINAR 
Prof. Luca Guerrini
“SEEKING EVIDENCE – Dialogues on 6 domains of Design Research”

Tue 24/03
Communication


Castiglioni Room
Panel: Paola Bertola, Stuart Candy e Asta Pundzine

10.00am Jennifer Rudkin
Navigating through Trends and Anticipation: An Advanced Design perspective on Reframing practices

11:00 Dogning Yan
Interface Design for User Decision Improvement in E-commerce


Castiglioni Room

2.30pm Prof. Stuart Candy (Ontario College of Art, Canada)
“Design future”

3.30pm Prof. Asta Pundziene (Kaunas University of Technology, Lituania)
“Design Thinking in Contenporary management of Research and Innovation”

6.00pm

Wed 25/03
Processes


De Carli Room
Panel: Margherita Pillan, Richard Rogers, Max Giovagnoli e Andy Simionato

10.00am Michele Mauri
Design of the un-finished. Information visualization in mapping social issues through the web

11.00am Mariana Ciancia
Transmedia Design Framework. A Design-Oriented Approach to Transmedia Practice


De Carli Room

2.30pm Prof. Richard Rogers (University of Amsterdam, Holland)
“Digital methods”

3.30pm Prof. Andy Simionato (Curtin University of Technology – Perth, Australia)
“What remains is the book”

6.00pm

 

 

DEFENDING SESSIONS

Meet the PhD candidates defending their theses

 


Lectures

All the events will take place in  Castiglioni Room at Politecnico di Milano, Campus Bovisa, Via Candiani 72.

Mon 07/03

LECTIO MAGISTRALIS

Prof. Francesco Trabucco [Politecnico di Milano, Italy]
The Practice of Design

SCIENTIFIC SEMINARS

14.30 INTRODUCTION
Prof. Luca Guerrini [Politecnico di Milano, Italy]

14.30 DISCUSSANTS
Prof. Ken Friedman [Tongji University, China]
Prof. Nicola Morelli  [Aalborg University, Denmark]

Tue 08/03

OPEN LECTURES

14.00 Prof. Can Özcan [Izmir University of Economics, Turkey]
Designers Go to Dentist

15.00 Prof. Peter Mc Grory  [Aalto University, Finland]
Systemic Innovation and Integrated Platform Strategies

16.00 Prof. Keiichi Sato [Illinois Institute of Technology, USA]
Human System Integration and Design: Design for Meaning

Wed 09/03

OPEN LECTURES

14.00 Prof. Elena Mugellini [University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland]
Persuasive Technologies

15.00 Prof. Wendy Ju [Stanford University, USA]
Interacting with Automatons and Automation

16.00 Prof. Nadia Berthouze [University College London UCL, UK]
Bringing Affect into Technology: the Case of Physical Rehabilitation

Thu 10/03

OPEN LECTURES

14.00 Prof. Peter Gall Krogh [Aarhus University, Denmark]
Drifting by Intention – Design Research from the Inside

15.00 Prof. Andrew Hines [University of Houston, USA]
Future-Friendly Design: Designing for and with Future Consumers

Fri 11/03

OPEN LECTURES

14.00 Prof. Steven Kyffin [Northumbria University, UK]
The relationship between Design, ICT, and Arts

15.00 Prof. Raul Fangueiro [University Of Minho, Portugal]
Designing with Fibers: Challenges for Innovation

 

More Background On PHDFestival.com

 

PHDFestival.com represents the archived online presence of the Milano Design PhD Festival, a distinctive multi-day event centered around the PhD in Design program at the Politecnico di Milano. For several years, the website served as the festival’s main communication hub, publishing schedules, programs, speaker lists, lecture abstracts, thematic focuses, and descriptions of public PhD thesis defenses. Although the festival later migrated to an updated institutional website, PHDFestival.com preserves an important historical record of earlier editions, particularly those from the mid-2010s, when design research was expanding across new technologies, digital tools, and multi-disciplinary approaches.

The Milano Design PhD Festival is unique among academic events. Few design schools stage a festival that fuses public doctoral defenses with lectures by international scholars, thematic seminars, social events, and opportunities for networking. PHDFestival.com documents this hybrid model and captures the evolution of design research at a time when the discipline was dramatically shifting toward emotional interaction, experience design, information visualization, service systems, and virtual models. Its archived content allows readers to understand how the festival operated, how the research community engaged with global design issues, and how the PhD program positioned itself within the international landscape.

This article provides a comprehensive, 1700+ word overview of PHDFestival.com and the Milano Design PhD Festival, including its ownership, structure, themes, audiences, cultural context, historical development, and continuing relevance.

What PHDFestival.com Was Designed to Provide

PHDFestival.com served multiple purposes simultaneously.

A Central Information Portal

The website provided complete information on each edition of the festival, including:

  • Day-by-day schedules

  • Room locations

  • Thematic breakdowns

  • Biographical notes on speakers

  • Lists of PhD candidates defending their dissertations

  • Descriptions of open lectures, panels, and seminars

  • Practical instruction for participation

Its clarity and structured format made it easy for the public, students, and visiting researchers to participate fully.

A Public Academic Archive

PHDFestival.com preserved past editions of the Milano Design PhD Festival, including:

  • Themes explored each year

  • Lecture titles and abstracts

  • An outline of research categories

  • Notes from previous years’ activities

  • Explanations of the PhD program’s purpose

Even though the site is now static, its archival depth helps students, researchers, and historians understand the evolution of design thinking at Politecnico.

A Showcase of Doctoral Research

The Milano Design PhD Festival revolves around public dissertation defenses. PHDFestival.com displayed:

  • Names of candidates

  • Supervisors and external opponents

  • Research areas explored

  • Titles of theses

  • Times and rooms for each defense

This transparency positioned design research not as a closed academic exercise but as an open cultural event.

A Cultural Bridge

Beyond information, PHDFestival.com framed the festival as a meeting point for:

  • Designers

  • Scholars

  • Students

  • International visitors

  • Industry professionals

Its archived descriptions emphasize social events (“PhD Evenings”) and open lecture formats, stressing that design research thrives on exchange and dialogue.

Ownership and Institutional Framework

PHDFestival.com was an official project of the PhD in Design program at Politecnico di Milano, organized by:

  • The Department of Design

  • In collaboration with the Department of Mechanics

  • And the Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering

The festival directly reflects the mission of the Design PhD program, launched in 2008, which aims to train “designer–researchers” capable of identifying problems and opportunities in contemporary society and contributing original research-based knowledge.

The festival reinforced several institutional goals:

  • Offering public visibility to doctoral work

  • Creating open platforms for international collaboration

  • Encouraging critical discussion of design as a research discipline

  • Integrating industry perspectives with research agendas

  • Strengthening Milan’s position as a global design capital

The archived festival material highlights the collaboration among numerous professors, visiting scholars, and panelists who act as evaluators and discussants for PhD candidates.

Festival Location and Spatial Significance

The festival is held at Politecnico di Milano’s Bovisa Campus, one of Europe’s centers for design education and innovation. Events took place primarily in:

  • The Castiglioni Room, Via Candiani 72

  • The De Carli Room, Via Durando 10

These locations sit at the heart of the Bovisa district, which has undergone extensive transformation from an industrial quarter to a creative, educational, and technological hub. This setting underscores the festival’s identity as a bridge between historical industrial Milan and the emerging digital, service-oriented design culture.

The Bovisa campus is near:

  • Research laboratories

  • Design studios

  • Art and cultural spaces

  • Transportation hubs

This proximity enhances the festival’s accessibility and embeds it within Milan’s broader design and creative ecosystem.

Historical Development of the Festival

The Milano Design PhD Festival began around 2010, shortly after the launch of the Design PhD program itself.

Foundation and Early Years (2010–2013)

Its earliest editions focused on:

  • Establishing public defenses

  • Introducing guest lectures

  • Encouraging broader participation

  • Creating new spaces for debate on design research

The concept of a PhD festival was innovative because it challenged the traditional model of private academic evaluation.

Growth, Expansion, and Internationalization (2014–2016)

The years documented most thoroughly on PHDFestival.com—particularly 2014 and 2016—reflect a period of substantial expansion. These festival editions featured:

  • Multi-day thematic structures

  • International keynote lecturers

  • Panels curated around specific topics

  • Public events scheduled throughout each day

  • Evening sessions designed for informal conversation

Themes during these years included:

  • New design narratives (“New Stories”)

  • Communication, media, and digital interactions

  • Processes and research methodologies

  • Design and social issues

  • Interaction and interface design

  • Transmedia design

  • Information visualization

  • Design thinking and innovation management

The festival’s structure stabilized around the proven format of:

  • Defense sessions

  • Open lectures

  • Evening networking gatherings

Transition to a New Website

Eventually, PHDFestival.com became an archive and the festival moved to an updated institutional website, consolidating its branding and content with the university’s primary digital identity.

Even so, the archived site remains a rich snapshot of the program’s maturing identity.

Structure of the Festival

The Milano Design PhD Festival is structured into three main components, and PHDFestival.com documented all of them clearly.

Public PhD Defense Sessions

These sessions are the core of the festival. They typically include:

  • A candidate’s research presentation

  • Responses from external evaluators

  • Academic critique

  • Audience questions

  • Public evaluation

The decision to make defenses open to the public sharply contrasts with the conventional closed-door academic model, reinforcing the idea that design research benefits from transparency and community engagement.

Open Lectures

International experts deliver lectures on a range of design-related topics. Past speakers worked in areas such as:

  • Human-system integration

  • Innovation strategy

  • Persuasive technologies

  • Design futures

  • Emotional interaction

  • Transmedia storytelling

  • User experience research

  • Information visualization

These lectures were open to the public and conducted in English, reflecting the program’s global orientation.

PhD Evenings

These informal events allowed:

  • Social interactions

  • Conversations over food and music

  • Collaborative networking

  • Peer-to-peer exchange

The “evening” format emphasized the festival’s cultural aspect and its positioning within Milan’s creative scene.

Themes and Research Areas Highlighted on PHDFestival.com

The archive shows several recurring research domains:

Products and Services

Exploring design for integrated product-service systems and user-centered innovation.

Environments

Researching spatial design, human factors, and the relationship between users and built environments.

Emotions and Experiences

Studying affective UX, emotional design, and sensory experiences.

Virtual Models

Investigating digital simulations, virtual prototyping, and new modes of digital representation.

Interfaces and Social Interaction

Examining human-computer interaction, collaborative design systems, social media behavior, and the impacts of interface design on decision-making.

These categories show the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of design PhD research at Politecnico.

Audience and Popularity

The festival attracts:

  • PhD candidates

  • International scholars

  • Master’s students exploring doctoral paths

  • Professionals in design, architecture, engineering, and digital fields

  • Visiting academics

  • Designers in Milan during the spring season

  • Members of the public with an interest in design culture

Because participation is free and conducted in English, the audience is diverse and international. The festival’s popularity grew steadily, benefiting from:

  • Milan’s reputation as a design capital

  • The campus’s accessibility

  • The quality of the speakers

  • The originality of the format

  • Word-of-mouth among the global design-research community

Cultural and Social Significance

The Milano Design PhD Festival plays an important cultural role.

Democratizing Academic Research

By opening defenses to the public, the festival promotes transparency and invites community participation in scholarly evaluation.

Supporting Milan’s Design Identity

Milan is known globally for design; the festival enhances this identity by creating a research-centered event alongside the city’s commercial and cultural design offerings.

Encouraging International Collaboration

Speakers and participants come from universities and studios around the world, strengthening cross-cultural academic ties.

Developing New Leaders

Many PhD candidates who present at the festival go on to roles in:

  • Academia

  • Strategic design

  • Innovation consultancy

  • Technology companies

  • Public-sector research

Preserving Design Culture

PHDFestival.com records the intellectual atmosphere of a period when design research was expanding into emotional, systemic, digital, and experiential dimensions.

 

PHDFestival.com remains an invaluable archival resource documenting the evolution of the Milano Design PhD Festival during a period of significant growth in design research. The website chronicles how Politecnico di Milano created an event that merges scholarly rigor with cultural openness, transforming the PhD defense process into a public celebration of design knowledge.

Although the festival now operates under a different website, PHDFestival.com preserves its early identity—its themes, structures, lectures, and research focuses—and continues to offer insight into how design research was shaped by global ideas, technological change, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

 

 

PHDFestival.com