Design for New Paradigms of Sustainable Living and Dwelling, More than a Hammock

The contribution aims to identify a new paradigm for living development expressing one of the most crucial challenges of our time, the need for a solidary convergence between the two inescapable instances of innovation and sustainability. Ugo La Pietra asserted, “to inhabit is to be everywhere at home” (2019). It is within this spirit that the Abito Mediterraneo project was conceived at the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, and, since 2020, further developed within the Planet Life Design program at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia. More than a hammock was the payoff indicated to the students to work on the project and the creation of hammocks, as wearable refuges of peace, designed to be dismantled and carried through journeys of hope and uncertainty and utopian movement. Moreover, in accordance with the guidelines of ecodesign themes, made with recycled materials, support elements, ropes, lacing, and hooks from forgotten objects, ready to be thrown away, yet transformed into new artifacts. The hammock, but also other small dismountable artifacts, thus become an expression of a new social and environmental sustainability, as an offshoot, grafts, inclusions for play, rest, leisure, and break aimed at improving the personal and social well-being of human beings, in relation to life ‘for and on’ the Planet.