The future that will come
A new normality
The widespread city, neighbourhoods on a human scale
From city planning to urban life planning
The health emergency caused by Covid-19 has confronted us with the need to rethink the spaces in which we live, living our homes, workplaces and, more generally, our cities in a profoundly different way. In this context, the activity of the designer becomes essential to support the necessary change towards sustainable models and styles that meet the needs of safety, comfort, access to rights, equality.
It is necessary, now more than ever, to give life to the so-called “Quarter Hour Cities”, urban areas where neighbourhoods – both new and already existing – become living and vital parts of cities (not dormitory neighbourhoods), available to the communities living there. The neighbourhoods of the future will have to allow citizens to live within an ecosystem rich in networks of relationships, proximity services as well as places for outdoor activities and also coworking spaces to integrate the possibility of working at a distance.
In this way, it will be possible to overcome the traditional dichotomy between centre and periphery, opening up the opportunity to invest in the redevelopment of suburban areas, so that they find new conditions of vitality.
Buildings to reconcile private life and work needs
Flexibility becomes central to the design. Our way of living and working is changing quickly and with constantly renewed and different needs: we work from home, in public places, in shared spaces or outdoors, trying to adapt and find a balance between work, personal and social life. Flexibility is therefore the key concept from which design must start to respond to this new way of “urban living”, proposing modular, integrated and functional solutions.
The concept of “home” evolves to allow a multiplicity of destinations of use: it is no longer just a place to return to after a long day out but a place to stay to live fully, work, spend free time alone or in company. The direction to follow is therefore that of creating economically sustainable housing units according to criteria of adaptability, re-functionalisation and sharing, which centralise specific functions and meet the contingent needs of those who live in them. This is also valid for extension within the same residential building, where it becomes increasingly important to design common, open-air, green spaces that serve as enablers of sociality among residents.