CO-CREATING THE FUTURE OF TURSI: DESIGN THINKING FOR RURAL REVITALISATION IN ITALY

The challenge

Tursi, a village in southern Italy, faces several challenges due to its remote location: limited market reach for local producers, untapped tourism potential, and a lack of jobs meaning young people move away.

Our solution

We designed and facilitated a collaborative workshop series using the Design Thinking Double Diamond framework. With users and local citizens at the core, we guided international nomads and local stakeholders through a structured co-creation journey:

• 1: Discover: Grounding the project in Tursi’s current reality and creating a collective vision of its future
• 2. Define: Filtering initial concepts and analysing friction. Assessing feasibility and mapping core problem definitions and potential solutions
• 3: Develop: Co-creation using various ideation techniques. Teams mapped user journeys and built prototypes
• 4: Deliver/Test: Presenting prototypes back to the local community to gather feedback and iterate

The result

Our workshops created practical solutions across four areas:

• Selling local products: Co-created frameworks for a co-op farmers’ market, a regional subscription box, digital mapping for local businesses, and specialized local quality labeling to boost economic exposure.
• Unique experiences: Proposed community-centric art and food festivals, curated AirBnB Experiences, and local cooking classes leveraging Tursi’s unique cultural heritage.
• Skills & employment: Designed a volunteer attraction pipeline via global platforms (e.g., WWOOFing, Workaway), alongside regional university partnerships and entrepreneurial networks to benefit local youth.
• Mobility & access: Developed micro-mobility concepts, including e-bike/e-scooter rentals and an informal community shuttle bus network to fix local connectivity issues.

Our team

Nadia Laabs designed and delivered the entire workshop series for the project, with translation support from Serena from KINO Italy.