Lorenzo Sarghini

Product Designer - Talent in Residence

Born in Rome in 1989, as a child he participated in several illustration courses which directed him to purely artistic interests. After completing the highschool, the desire to turn what he designed into reality led him to the ISIA of Rome, where Lorenzo cultivated and refined its natural propensity to the creative side of design. After completing the three-year study, he decided to perfect his professional figure continuing his studies at the Politecnico di Milano within the Master’s Degree in Design & Engineering.

Project developed @ Polifactory:
“Tactivity. A game to increase the tactile capabilities of blind people.”

The focus of this work is the design of a board game useful to increase the tactile capabilities of the blind. One of the main goals set is to obtain a product whose characteristics differ as far as possible from those associated with the concept of teaching aid. His strength is therefore his ability to exercise the blind’s tactility through a playful and autonomous approach. The analysis of the theme of the project consists of an overview of the visual minority, describing the interaction, in many cases problematic, with the surrounding environment and how the blind have succeeded, in the course of history, from a condition of segregation and to gain an active role within society. The next section introduces the theme of perception and how it is treated in psychology, medicine and philosophy, then deepening the analysis of the ways in which the individual perceives the surrounding world and how it can process the sensory information obtained from this, last in more complex information. The analysis then focuses on touch, describing how the latter, unlike the view, is a way that can be “educated”. Based on the analysis of the multitude of collected data, a tactile game consisting of weaves was also drawn up, a useful tool to exert the tactile capabilities of the blind person. The product by its nature wants to be adaptable to the “tactile training” of the individual, so all the elements that make up the system are designed to be produced using technologies and skills typical of fablabs and makerspaces.