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The paper describes both the method and the preliminary outcomes of the "Blind-assistive autonomous Droid Device: BUDD-e" research experience, funded by Polisocial Award 2021 of Politecnico di Milano, and designed to exploit a multidisciplinary approach to bridge the gap of inclusive design, making spaces and services accessible, functional, and usable by Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) people. The research purpose is to develop accessible public places and indoor environments where the autonomous robot BUDD-e will act as guide for the BVI people. User-centred design principles will be applied to support accessibility to - both outdoor and indoor - public places, where the robot guide BUDD-e will be a primary feature in allowing access to services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the effects of climate change and pandemics are emerging. This brings about the need for new models of interpretation and organisation of urban spaces to respond to the multiple impacts on human health and the built environment. Urban peripheries are among the most vulnerable areas due to physical and socio-economic degradation. This paper presents the results of the Federico II University research “PER_CENT/PERIFERIE AL CENTRO”. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the research developed some innovative proposals for living spaces in the northern suburbs of Naples in line with European technical policies with integrated approaches for knowledge management, measurability of response to impacts and formulation of predictive scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the methodological approach proposed within H2020 ROCK project, on the adaptive reuse of public spaces in the historic city, particularly focussing on accessibility. The methodology is applied in a test-bed site of the historical context with the aim to identify integrated and effective strategies capable of shifting attention from the single building to the urban scale, following a performance-oriented approach. The goal is to contribute, through a light infrastructure, enabling technologies and new services, to the definition of a barrier-free built environment suitable to satisfy the citizen's environmental well-being in an equitable manner. The integrated approach involved users and key factors such as: disabled associations, sectors of the Municipality, representatives and operators of cultural institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the common practice and the regulatory requirements related to the urban planning of our cities continues to define environmental quality through compliance with urban planning codes, the inadequacy of this parameter is increasingly evident. For this reason, numerous urban regeneration programs, and above all urban sustainability assessment standards, evaluate the environmental sustainability levels and livability, as if they were a project indicator. The paper describes the most consolidated indicators and proposes the use of the livability indicator of the public space promoted by the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona with some modifications that make it more consistent with the Milanese and Italian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a critical analysis of the 15-Minute City concept, developed through a comparative analysis of three case studies: the ville du quart d’heure in Paris, the Superilla plan in Barcelona and the Piazze Aperte programme in Milan. This comparative analysis is addressed through the lens of the theoretical and design paradigm of civic design/capital web and aims to highlight the limits and potential of these models and inform future research directions to pursue the eco-social transition of urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades a growing awareness about the effects of pollution on our planet and its inhabitants has led to a demand for a new environmental sensitivity in urban planning. Nature-Based Solutions have the potential to enhance the liveability and prosperity of cities, providing ecosystems services (Millennium Ecosystems Assessment, 2005). The paper explores pathways towards a progressive knowledge construction to shape a future in which NBS are largely integrated in our buildings and public space thanks to the use of digital technologies and design, transforming our cities into healthy, productive and collaborative environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between the urban contexts' features and the Public Health outcomes, opens to a challenging scenario about the Urban Health issue. The research purpose is to describe a critical literature review, aimed to correlate the Public Health outcomes with the environmental risk factors, and for each of them, define Evidence-Based Design Strategies and Actions, capable to reduce those risk, improving the urban quality and attractiveness of places. Furthermore, the main focus of the paper is to underline the cities' ability to be resilient to the on-going climate change phenomena, and the definition of the urban context's features representing best practices i.e. of Nature- Based Solutions, to enhance the ecosystemic quality, and to reach healthiness, safety and security of the urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In urban areas, the issue of resilient-based design for adaptation to climate impacts is one of those where the interdependence between technological innovation, resource governance and sustainable development strategies is relevant. Public spaces are a key system for testing the most effective strategies for reducing climate impacts through approaches that use computational design tools in climate adaptation actions. The paper presents the results of the Athenaeum Research Project funded for 2017-2019 by Federico II University entitled SIMMCITIES_NA, Scenario Impact Modelling Methodology for a Climate change-Induced hazards Tool for Integrated End-users Strategic planning and design - Napoli1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current socio-cultural scenario, the practice of sport represents one of the main drivers of development, given the inclusive connotation it incorporates and the functional and spatial qualification potential that it expresses. Literature on this subject, and the many experiments in the field, serve to highlight how sports activities today are a central tool in the promotion of an "open city" ethic, namely one that is liveable and safe. Equally, in modern times, the city's public infrastructure system represents an increasingly important factor for urban and social quality, requiring programmes and strategies capable of redefining places and their modes of use according to the themes of health and environmental quality. On the basis of these premises, this paper aims to analyse the recent evolution of the methods of planning and design of public space in relation to sports practices understood as a "comprehensive social reality", as areas where urban and social regeneration policies based on the desire to promote health education actions, social inclusion and programmes for the physical qualification of the built environment are applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the main regulatory experiments for Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) in North America and Asia, comparing requirements for implementation and outcomes. It also underlines the need to make these spaces representative of the social and environmental complexity of a public place, presenting the original proposal to include in the exchange conditions regulations that guarantee ecosystem services equivalent to the loss for the community due to the bonus granted. The reflection leads to three main aspects for the edition of updated regulations: the construction of integrated networks of spaces, the consideration of the urban ecosystem and the meta-design of thematic cultural guidelines [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to critically review the emergence and evolution of design methodologies aimed at improving security and quality of life in cities. It analyses important experiences internationally, particularly in America where they first experimented with an environmental approach to urban security, and in more evolved European contexts. It then looks at Italy following the recent Legislative Decree of 2017 and successive additions and the UNI Regulation of 2010 which sets out a clearly structured design approach which has not, however, been implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central topic of the paper is the relationship between mobility infrastructure and run-down public spaces in outlying areas, in which São Paulo, which is taken into consideration as a case study, becomes good prac-tice for the creation of new infrastructure, termed soft mobility infrastructure, which is grafted onto existing networks, taking advantage of their accessibility and potential for the regeneration of run-down public spaces in the historic centre. An analytical methodology and a series of regeneration strategies have been developed in order to be applied to all of the city's public spaces and other analogous situations in the historic centres of Brazilian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of increasing and differentiating the low-cost housing demand and the trend of establishing new paradigms in the contemporary housing design, the architectural investigation has replaced into its disciplinary statement the topic of housing as central question in research and design experimentation. The city of Barcelona has codified in the last years innovative modalities of public management in social housing, offering interesting points of reflection on the idea of housing and of Mediterranean quality in urban, architectural and constructive terms. The paper proposes a key to the reading on the recent experiences of social housing in Barcelona illustrating the different forms through which architecture interprets the relationship between housing and public space, between innovation and constructive tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]