D1. Knowledge and understanding. To develop knowledge and skills on: - theories and ideas of cities, design and planning experiences, in Italy and abroad; - reading, representation and interpretation of urban and territorial structures, of environment and landscape; - reading, representation and interpretation of historical processes and current trends; of roles and practices of institutional actors, subjects and social groups; - design and regulatory contents of urban and territorial planning tools, of landscape and environmental plans and projects; of policies for the government of the territory; of integrated programs and projects for the regeneration and reuse of existing assets, with a view to adaptation to socio-economic and environmental-climatic mutations. D2. Applying knowledge and understanding. To develop knowledge and skills on: - critical evaluation of the use conditions of different theories and techniques of design and planning; - identification of fields of intervention at different scales, recognition of their criticalities and potentials according to objectives of conservation, regeneration and urban and territorial transformation; - construction of planning and design proposals for specific urban and territorial areas, applying in an integrated manner techniques that are appropriate to the different contexts. D3. Making judgments. To develop the ability to autonomously integrate the inputs from a variety of surveys and analyses, and to formulate interpretations of specific territorial situations. To develop the ability to autonomously identify actions and priorities for projects of spatial transformation. D4. Communication skills. To develop the ability to describe and argue acquired knowledge and project proposals, using different communication languages and tools: verbal and public presentations (through the use of a variety supports, from power point, to videos and models); drafting of project posters and reports. D5. Learning skills. To develop the skills necessary to build processes of survey and interpretation aimed at drawing urban design and planning tools.

In order to attend the Laboratory and to take the exam, it is necessary to have already passed the examination of the first Urban Planning Laboratory held at the second year of the course of studies (Laboratory for the design of the contemporary city).
The knowledge and the skills that are required to follow with profit the “Urban regeneration and urban planning” Laboratory therefore refer to those developed in the first Urban Planning Laboratory.

Affordable housing, public spaces and collective facilities as drivers of urban regeneration: toward supportive neighbourhoods.

Through teaching and design activities, the Laboratory offers a critical learning experience on approaches, processes and techniques of contemporary urban planning, with a focus on the regeneration of sectors of the existing city and the provision of welfare equipment and services (housing, schools, civic centers, green and public spaces, social and health support equipment, etc.).

In recent years, the crises that have hit Europe contributed to the increase in the conditions of social and economic fragility of a growing number of people, and to the exacerbation of the difficulty in accessing housing. A difficulty that today appears particularly evident in Italy, where housing policies and procedures for accessing public and social housing are still mainly aimed at households with economic situations marked by relative stability. For people in overt conditions of fragility and poverty, housing is often a mirage difficult to attain. Moreover, housing in itself is not enough: to ensure a decent and autonomous life, it is necessary to have access to a broader and more integrated system of collective facilities and services. How to imagine new co-habitations among diverse people and accessible service networks is therefore a central issue in building sustainable and inclusive cities, starting from neighborhoods, and at the scale of everyday living.

The Laboratory focuses its activities on the theme of “affordable” housing, understood as a complex set of spaces and services extending from dwellings at accessible costs to entire neighborhoods understood as supporting spaces to the construction of networks among people and conditions of proximity to welfare spaces.

The Laboratory consists of two courses: “Plans and projects for reusing the existing city”, “Urban and territorial regeneration techniques and processes”.

In addition to lessons and seminars, the Laboratory offers students a design exercise. The project areas cover an urban sector of the city of Trieste.

- Bricocoli M., Cellamare C., Cognetti F., Marchigiani E. (2021), “Edilizia residenziale pubblica: leve per incrementare il patrimonio disponibile”, in Coppola A. et al. (a cura di), Ricomporre i divari. Politiche e progetti territoriali contro le disuguaglianze e per la transizione ecologica. il Mulino: Bologna. - Bricocoli M., Peverini M. (2024), Milano per chi? Se la città attrattiva è sempre meno abbordabile. LetteraVentidue: Siracusa. - Cognetti F., Delera A. (2017), For Rent. Politiche e progetti per la casa accessibile a Milano, Mimesis, Sesto San Giovanni (MI). - Dagnes J., Salento A. (a cura di, 2022), Prima i fondamentali. L’economia della vita quotidiana tra profitto e benessere. Collettivo per l’economia fondamentale. Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli: Milano. - Gabellini P., 2018, Le mutazioni dell’urbanistica. Principi, tecniche, competenze. Roma: Carocci. - Gabellini P., 2024, Avvicinarsi all’urbanistica. Approaching Urbanism. Planum Publisher: Roma-Milano. http://www.planum.net/avvicinarsi-all-urbanistica-approaching-urbanism-gabellini-2024. - LaboratorioCittàPubblica, Città pubbliche. Linee guida per la riqualificazione urbana. Bruno Mondadori: Milano 2009. - Lanzani A., 2018, Città territorio urbanistica tra crisi e contrazione, Angeli, Milano. - Lanzani A., 2024, Rigenerazione urbana e territoriale al plurale. Itinerari in un campo sfocato. Milano: Franco Angeli. - Peverini M. (2023), Promoting Rental Housing Affordability in European Cities. Learning from the Cases of Milan and Vienna. Springer: Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43692-5 - Secchi B., 2013, La città dei ricchi e la città dei poveri. Roma-Bari: Laterza. - Storto G. (2018), La casa abbandonata. Il racconto delle politiche abitative dal piano decennale ai programmi per le periferie. Officina: Roma. - Tosi A. (2017), La casa dei poveri. È ancora possibile pensare un welfare abitativo? Mimesis: Sesto San Giovanni (MI). Further bibliography will be provided for at the end of lessons and seminars.

Affordable housing, public spaces and collective facilities as drivers of urban regeneration: toward supportive neighbourhoods.

The Laboratory offers a critical learning experience on the approaches, processes and techniques of contemporary urban planning. Urban planning will be dealt with as a practical knowledge oriented to the sustainable transformation of cities and territories; as a practice of rewriting of existing open and built spaces, in particular of the public equipment and services that, throughout the twentieth century all over Europe, helped to ensure better conditions of "life in the city" for large parts of the population.

Today, the awareness of the effects of a profound economic, social, environmental and climate crisis forces to focus our attention on new topics, as well as to assign different importance and meaning to long-standing issues of the debate on the city and on urban planning: spatial and social inequalities; de-growth and demographic trends (aging, migrations); reuse and recycling of spaces, and of urban and territorial heritage; mobility and accessibility; smartness; resilience and climate transition. Recurrent is the call for the stop of further consumption of land, landscape and environment, in favor of the reuse of available urban materials, equipment and spaces, and of the construction of new scenarios for a different development based on the regeneration and integration of existing settlement systems and resources.

In particular, recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the conditions of social and economic fragility of a growing number of people, and to the exacerbation of the difficulty in accessing housing. A difficulty that today appears particularly evident in Italy, where housing policies and procedures for accessing public and social housing are still mainly aimed at households with economic situations marked by relative stability. For people in overt conditions of fragility and poverty, housing is often a mirage difficult to attain. Moreover, housing in itself is not enough: to ensure a decent and autonomous life, it is necessary to have access to a broader and more integrated system of collective facilities and services. How to imagine new co-habitations among diverse people and accessible service networks is therefore a central issue in building sustainable and inclusive cities, starting from neighborhoods, and at the scale of everyday living.

It is in relation to this conceptual framework – and to European New Green Deal issues and Urban Agenda 2030’s Sustainable Development Goals – that the Laboratory project exercises focus on the theme of “affordable” housing, understood as a complex set of spaces and services extending from dwellings at accessible costs to entire neighborhoods understood as supporting spaces to the construction of networks among people and conditions of proximity to welfare spaces.

The Laboratory consists of two courses: “Plans and projects for reusing the existing city”, “Urban and territorial regeneration techniques and processes”. The teaching and design activities proposed by the two courses take place in an integrated way, offering an articulated framework of prompts to reflect, of technical knowledge and references to national and international urban design and planning experiences.

In addition to lessons and seminars, the Laboratory offers students a design exercise. The project areas cover an urban sector of the city of Trieste.

The project activities of the Laboratory are supported by ex-cathedra lectures (held by the professor of the courses of “Plans and projects for reusing the existing city” and “Urban and territorial regeneration techniques and processes”) and by seminars (organised in collaboration with external scholars and practitioners). The Laboratory gives large space to classroom work, to discussion among students and between them and the teaching staff in order to foster collaboration and critical learning through the design practice. The Laboratory ends with a week of intensive design workshop.

In particular, moving across the scales of urban planning and design (from masterplan to site specific projects), the activities proposed to the students are organised into three phases. Each one involves self-study by the students (analyses and surveys, project and design solutions), and operations developed with the professors’ support during the Laboratory (thematic seminars, surveys and audits, individual and collective reviews).
- PHASE I (average duration 5 weeks). Drawing of a spatial masterplan and of design strategies. Students are asked to develop on site surveys and to draw design frameworks for one of a large scale territorial context. Starting from a critical reflection on problems, resources and transformation potentials, the outcome is the construction of a spatial masterplan (scale 1:5.000-1.10.000) and of a coherent repertoire of urban planning strategies. At this stage, the students work in wider groups, with a maximum of 10 persons.
- PHASE 2 (average duration 6 weeks). Development of urban design solutions for specific areas of the masterplan. This phase is addressed to draw project solutions for specific sites that were identified in the masterplan, by focusing the attention on topics and approaches explained in the repertoire of strategies (PHASE 1). The scale reaches a minimum of 1: 500; proposals describe solutions for the ground floors of buildings (new and existing ones), the layout of open spaces, sections and profiles, as agreed with the teaching staff during the individual and collective reviews. Students work in smaller groups (3 persons maximum).
- PHASE 3. Intensive design workshop (1 week). Starting from the work done during the Laboratory, the aim is to finalize the project proposals elaborated for specific areas (PHASE 2) and to consistently review Masterplan and Strategies (PHASE 1).

All lessons and information are provided through email and the MS Teams platform.

The procedures for verifying the learning achieved through the Course are among those identified for the final examination of the “Urban regeneration and urban planning” Laboratory (the exam will be unique for the whole Laboratory).

In particular, each student must:
- have attended the lectures and seminars of the Course;
- have participated in individual and collective reviews of the project work (PHASES 1 and 2);
- have participated in the final intensive design workshop (PHASE 3);
- have carried out the required project activities within the prescribed time and manner (4 A1 project posters; 1 project model; 1 A3 book on the project);
- have presented an oral critical reading of one book identified with the professors from the bibliography (the general one and/or the specific bibliographies that will be given at the end of each lesson/seminar).

The exam consists of:
- individual interview both on the issues addressed in the lectures of the two courses (“Plans and projects for reusing the existing city”, “Urban and territorial regeneration techniques and processes”), and on the book read by each student;
- a panel discussion on the project work developed by the group of students.

The final evaluation is unique (for the Laboratory and for the two courses it is composed by) and takes into account the overall work done by the student throughout the Laboratory, the active participation in the lessons and in the activities organized by the two courses and the Laboratory as a whole, the quality of the required project work, the level of preparation and the critical reading ability of the texts brought to the final exam.

Each student is scored in the examination using a grade expressed in thirtieths, calculated based on the average scores achieved in the individual interview and the discussion on the group design exercise. To pass the exam (18/30), each student must demonstrate sufficient knowledge of all topics covered in the exam (interview on the issues of the two courses and design exercise). To achieve the highest mark (30/30 cum laude), the student must demonstrate excellent knowledge of all the topics covered by the two courses constituting the laboratory and have performed excellently on the group design exercise.

This Course explores topics that are closely related to one or more of the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the
United Nations (in particular, goals 10, 11).