ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the case study which describes how service design tools have been used to activate the social and economic resources of a peri-urban area of Milan to support its development and preservation. The case study illustrates the contribution of service design to the creation of a network of food-related services as a way to support the sustainable development of agricultural peri-urban areas which are critical areas lying between towns and rural surroundings. The network of services ideated by this project aims to create a relational pattern at the basis of the development of the region, and to become an input for urban planners to design infrastructures. The framework scenario for peri-urban agriculture has been derived from the identification of cases of social innovation, their conceptualisation into service models, and the consequent generation of new service ideas. This kind of scenario helps capitalising on vanguard initiatives by imagining distributed changes for the region that hold a reasonable chance of success.
