The Housing and Neighbourhoods Workshop aims at offering students an opportunity to address emerging issues concerning the contemporary housing policies and neighbourhood regeneration projects.

The Housing and Neighbourhood Workshop assumes the scenario of deep socio-economic transformations affecting contemporary societies as a fundamental context in which to identify new challenges for housing and neighbourhood policies and projects. In the perspective of urban policies and projects, we can indeed register a constant gap between structural socio-economic changes (and their effects, such as temporary and flexible labour market, new social risks, intense flows of migration, industrial relocation, and so on) on the one side, and the actions which are undertaken at the government level on the other. Social practices, on the contrary, tend to be more reactive, and to change along, in search of adaptations and new solutions.

Given this background, the workshop aims at developing skills and competences in the design and development of innovative policy actions and programs for the innovation of housing projects and for the integrated regeneration of neighbourhoods. Along a very pragmatic approach, the workshop will focus the analysis on the intersections between current policies and projects and emerging innovative practices as a way to identify emerging social issues, disclose demands that are unmet by existing policies, and support students in developing innovative policy and design proposals.

At the end of the workshop, students are expected to have developed:
- awareness of the multiple dimensions and complexities of policies and projects tackling housing and neighbourhood problems;
- awareness of the challenges that social and demographic change raise for urban planning and public policies;
- capacity to understand the intertwining of social and spatial issues at stake in the development of integrated regeneration programs;
- capacity to interact with local actors along a process of field work and research as well as to develop project proposals that can address public institutions;
- capacity to develop original and effective team work;
- capability to represent and communicate projects and outcomes in an effective and diversified way (i.e., photos, papers, posters, presentations...).

THE BACKGOUND: THEMES, TOPICS AND CHALLENGES

The shift to post-industrial societies has implied major changes in the labour market, especially in terms of high mobility and flexibility of the workforce, and compression of salaries and wages, that are producing dramatic changes in the life settings and perspectives of growing numbers of individuals and in the social fabric of urban neighbourhoods. Ageing of the population, diversification of family structures and de-synchronization of life courses are reflected in changes in both housing needs (for instance with an increase in singles, in multi-local living, in house sharing) and in the ways of living one’s neighbourhood. Needless to say, the Great Recession has further worsened working and income conditions of many, and stressed the social cohesion, especially in those urban areas where several social issues cumulate, like social and ethnic concentration, economic deprivation, deterioration of social housing and of public spaces.

The various – and changing – ways and solutions in which the people organise and re-organise their living in the city in order to be able to afford their housing costs (despite the scant public support) and at the same time cope with the labour market requests, their individual and family life needs and pursue a satisfactory quality of life in their neighbourhood is to be more closely investigated, as this brings along significant changes in terms of housing cultures, patterns of solidarity/community, and socio-spatial organisation.

THE FOREGROUND: A NEIGHBOURHOOD AND ITS LOCAL ACTORS

The H&N studio will be focused on a large area South of Milan that comprehends the Boifava-Abbiategrasso and the Gratosoglio neighbourhoods. The area displays a high incidence of social housing (mostly built in the 1960s), characterized by early deterioration of buildings, underuse of ground floors (in particular few shops are effectively open), wide low-quality public spaces (especially large slabs and green plots with no identity and little use). Few resources for housing and urban requalification have been allocated here in the last decades. On the social turf, one observes risks of isolation of older inhabitants, concentration of migrants, incidence of drop-outs and NEETs among the young.

On the other hand, it is an area with a strong presence of public agencies, associations and social cooperatives that have been long rooted in the area and that work especially with older people, children and teen-agers. This lively set of actors works in a coordinated way to attract funds for requalification, plan social activities and build projects for the economic revitalization of the area. These local actors will be a fundamental reference for our work and a qualified audience for the presentation and discussion of the outcomes of our work.

The workshop will tackle questions related to the current needs and to the possibile visions and projects that could led to an integrated regeneration and development of the area. The definition of policies and projects providing new solutions to these emerging new demands in the context of the City of Milano will be the main focus of the workshop. The workshop will aim at providing new inputs to the public debate on the above issues through the development of experimental projects and policy actions which could contribute to the innovation of housing policies and to the improvement of neighbourhood quality.

A consistent interaction with actors of housing policies at the regional, city and neighbourhood level will support a vivid exchange with the concrete problems and potentials. A strong focus on an international set of case studies, frontline and innovative housing projects will be offered as a frame for an understanding of major contemporary challenges in the development of housing projects and neighbourhood development.

STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKSHOP

Studio activities and group work will represent the core of the workshop. Work will be developed by teams of students (3 to 5 components) along different and joint phases of:

Phase one: documentation and investigation (presenting and discussing central terms of references in housing policies, social and economic change) and choice of a specific focus / target-group / location.

Phase two: explorative-comparative (investigating practices, and the way these are changing, and exploring frontline case studies and experiences and projects in Milan and other European and world cities).

Phase Three: project development (developing concepts and projects targeting innovative housing), presentation of results /dissemination through public event.

An introductory set of lectures and of complementary activities such as field visits will be relevant supports to the work and a reading list will be available to provide references (as in the past years, a whole set of books on the discussed topics will be made available for the workshop participants in a specific section of the Department library).

A final public seminar will be organized to discuss and disseminate the results of the workshop which will be collected in a joint final report.

Interest in interdisciplinary research and design methods and in discovering new perspectives of integrated planning policies and projects at the croassroads between urban planning, policy design and social programs. Interest in dealing and interacting with local actors.

We expect the workshop to be a collective learning process in which knowledge is developed and shared: active participation in class and in collective discussions as well as the  contribution to the organization and development of the workshop will be highly welcomed, encouraged and evaluated.

The final evaluation will be based on the midterm presentations, the contribution to the final collective report, the final discussion and presentation of the group work, as well as on the overall individual participation to the group and to the class work.

A set of references, books, articles from scientific journals will be presented and discussed to support and to offer references to the development of the work.