Urban Time and Mobility Planning

Research focus

The Peer review has evaluated this group as Excellent

Focus is on the future of the city and of urban life, faced with two complementary phenomena: the globalization of the city as a form of physical settlement, of institution and of inhabiting; the gigantism of urban systems, unfolding from the local to the regional and global scale, according to new ways of using personal time and urban space. Urban gigantism is a worldwide issue, originated in Europe and North America with industrialization, fostered by the globalization of post-fordist economy. The contemporary city calls architects and planners to new challenges: new flexible uses of personal time and private means of transport support the use of the territory at multiple scales with zigzagging mobility practices: the “hyperchoice” effect identified by European researches. These phenomena raise new inhabiting problems which concern both resident and temporary inhabitants: temporary dwellings; flows of populations, goods, information; mobility places designed for in-between life practices; resident inhabitants and city users competing for urban services and urban excellence. New subjects of citizenship - such as women, young people and children - ask for a quality of the architecture and environment capable of answering the structural and citizenship problems raised by the contemporary city: public space, accessibility, spaces for the new rites of sociality. The design issues explored are coherent with this framework of problems: public space, the architectures of public life for the knowledge society, great events where the city itself is on stage, stations and exchange platforms. Architecture and urban quality (Pac) A.B. Belgiojoso (coordinator), G.P. Calza, G. Ricci, G. Fossa The methodology of architectural and urban design in the city of the present, aiming at the quality of the built environment. In the contemporary city several factors are at work: new high-mobility ways of inhabiting, globalization of economy and of the urban environment, primacy of knowledge and networks in the processes of society and firms. Qualifying components of the methodology are: multiscalarity, multidisciplinarity, comparability among strategies and solutions, interpretation of the city as a transforming process. Issues: Architectural and urban design - Urban studies - Theatre and city -Megaregions Architecture of public space (Asp) M. Albini (coordinator), L.Spagnoli, E. Varon The architectural design of public space is at the centre of the international researches concerning the redesign of the city of the present: dispersed in archipelagos of settlements interrelating multiple territorial scales. Inhabitants and firms ask for architectural and environmental quality of the new civil structures of public and social life. Issues: Mobility Architecture - Urban Design Urban Time Planning (labSat) S. Bonfiglioli (coordinator), C. Stevan, G.Belotti, S.Stabilini, G.Bassanini, L.Perelli Construction of a neodisciplinary field: time-oriented urban plannning integrated with urban and architectural design. Research is aimed at interpreting, through the use of the time category, the contemporary urban transformations. The contemporary city is 9 6 characterized by new space-time morphologies of daily life practices. Planning instruments, recently reviewed after an international debate, establish a new linkage between the scale of architectural design, the neighbourhood and the government practices of the urban system. LabSat is European leader in the design of urban time policies and plans. Issues: Urban time plans - Genders/generations for participated architecture – Chronotopic Maps - Public Art. Urban project, interaction, new forms of public space – Representation of environmental and urban phenomena. Urban Quality and Safety (LAQUS) C. Cardia (coordinator), C.G. Bottigelli, U.Nicolini Urban safety and crime prevention in relation to urban planning and design. The Laboratory has an environmental approach to safety and works on problems of violence and antisocial behaviour in urban spaces. Activity falls within the environmental approach and addresses safety of neighbourhoods, public spaces, streets, parks, transports and buildings, following Jane Jacobs’ approach that the sense of belonging to a place and the “eye on the street” are the best guarantee for a safe city. Environmental safety belongs to the “situational crime prevention sphere; it studies specific actions to sustain environmental vitality, to stop urban blight, to avoid physical decay and social decline in order to prevent crime; it also acts to restore the inhabitants’ trust in their city (http://www.netdiap.polimi.it/lab/laqus/). Issues: theoretical and historical development of environmental crime prevention; evaluation methods and indicators of propensity of urban spaces to safety; guidelines and criteria for safety and crime prevention in urban planning and design; mapping techniques of indicators of urban safety; comparative studies of European urban safety policies; safety evaluation of public transport, large commercial projects, stations, decaying historical districts, low income residential areas.

Dipartimento di afferenza

Dipartimento di Architettura e Pianificazione (DIAP)

Docenti afferenti

Full Professors
Belgiojoso Alberico
Bonfiglioli Sandra
Fossa Giovanna
Ricci Giuliana
Stevan Cesare
Associate Professors
Albini Marco
Belotti Gabriella
Cardia Clara
Calza Gianpiero
Spagnoli Lorenzo (Dpa, Politecnico)
Varon Edoardo
Assistant Professors
D’Amia G.
Forni M.
Stabilini Stefano