Laboratories

POLI.design is one of the shareholders of PoliHub, the Startup District & Incubator of the Politecnico di Milano managed by the Fondazione Politecnico di Milano. PoliHub offers support to incubated start-ups with a series of dedicated and customized services based on the needs and maturity stage of each business project by providing a growing level of support: materials for Start-ups, acceleration platforms, mentorship program, financing advisory and support services.

The research activities developed in this laboratory include: the development and use of virtual prototypes to test the interactional and functional aspects of industrial products, the development of software and hardware technologies for virtual and mixed reality applications, the simulation of deformable objects on massively parallel computers.

This laboratory specializes in the creation of models and prototypes for design and industry. Particular attention is paid to feasibility and production controls in order to optimize project times and costs by working with all materials on the market.

The laboratory combines the artisan tradition of know-how with the most modern prototyping technologies in the belief that even the most advanced technique alone can respond to the complex situations in which designers are called to work. Other important fields in which the laboratory operates are architecture, urban planning and art installations, in particular large works and artistic installations.

It is a space dedicated to the design, construction and experimentation in the world of interior design understood as domestic, commercial, exhibition, work and transport spaces. Its activities in all areas adopt a concrete experimental evaluation approach to the implementation of the project. Building spaces on a natural scale and prototyping decorations and layout elements: these are the characteristics that distinguish the work processes of the laboratory. Spaces, equipment and know-how of the technical staff aim to support and experimentation with teaching methodologies, design and construction of structures and systems for fairs and events, experimentation and use of new materials in the furniture and interior design sectors.

The laboratory focuses on teaching and research support activities in the fields of design, production and management of communication products in audiovisual and photographic format according to a design approach that includes strategic, linguistic and technical skills in which the multidisciplinary approach is a modus operands. It offers complete multimedia communication solutions that include traditional and digital media and deals with all phases of the project, from conception to pre-production, from production to post-production, from editing to compositing.

The laboratory aims to be a support to teaching and at the same time improve the research of applied design with the collaboration of producers in the field. In addition to this, it wants to make an important contribution to the field of lighting, for surveys and tests of innovative projects in the field of lighting and color.

This is the youngest in the Design System workshop and has been supplemented by a knitwear section in recent years. The equipment and tools available allow users to work with innovative fabrics, yarns, leathers and materials and to experiment with a series of manufacturing and modeling techniques with the assistance of teaching staff and expert technicians.

The Lab is the place where teaching, research and experimentation come together to understand and manage the many technological and design problems related to color design. The laboratory was born from the need to understand and spread the culture of color and solve various problems concerning the use and control of color in various sectors such as interior design, urban planning, industrial product design, fashion design and communication.

Polifactory is a multidisciplinary research space and the makerspace of the Politecnico di Milano. Polifactory promotes the pre-incubation of young “talents in residence” (master’s degree and doctoral students) interested in rethinking product-service systems and develops research and experimentation activities together with companies, organizations and institutions to explore the relationship between design and change in production models.