The Distributed Design Platform is an international platform created to be an exchange and networking centre for the emerging field of Distributed Design. The aim of the initiative is to develop and promote the connection between designers, makers and emerging digital and local markets.

From 2018, the Polifactory research group, a research lab at the Politecnico di Milano that explores the relationship between design and analogue/digital manufacturing to promote a new culture of making, joins the DDP network to share its projects and talents.

ANNO 4 | CTRL+
Exploring augmented reality for distributed design

During the fourth year of its collaboration with DDP, Polifactory proposed the CTRL+ initiative to stimulate designers and makers to explore the potential of Extended Reality (XR) for Distributed Design. In particular, a process of co-creation and prototyping of applications and tools capable of enabling innovative augmented making practices was undertaken in Fab Labs and for their user and innovator communities.

The distribution of these products was intended to take place via digital platforms, while their materialisation was linked to Fab Lab, i.e. digital fabrication labs created to provide access to the environment, skills, materials and advanced technology to enable anyone, anywhere, to design.

The two projects that were realised, through a phase of development, selection, implementation and subsequent promotion of the ideas on the DDP platform through a public event with demo session, were

• Palpatine AR uses Augmented Reality to guide women through the practice of breast self-examination. Thanks to the application of a simple marker on the Palpatine bra, created in 2018 as part of the FABCARE initiative, Palpatine AR is able to track the user's movements and display Augmented Reality animations to assist in breast self-examination.
• Red Shift is a system demonstrator that uses virtual reality to help users understand and visualise complex and abstract physical principles. The application and wearable analogue provide the user with feedback on their physical positioning in reality in relation to virtual navigation.