37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 284SOCIAL HOUSING AND PUBLIC SPACE. A LABORATORYFOR URBAN RENEWAL.Stefania MarlettaDipartimento di Architettura e UrbanisticaUniversità degli Studi di Catania, Italiae-mail: smarlett@dau.unict.itKey words: social housing, public space, urban renewal, environmental sustainability, architecture.AbstractThe social and political changes manifested in Europe over the few last years have determinedan inversion of tendency in the way cities in many countries have grown.Processes of saturation and transformations of towns – including the energy emergency –have forced our society to revalue existing buildings as a resource for investment. ManyWestern towns are dimensionally saturated and by designing the re-use and rehabilitation ofexisting resources we can envisage their evolution.A great many contemporary urban areas contain a significant proportion of social housingwith which there are numerous problems regarding social marginalisation and urbandegradation.This situation is common to many Italian towns, especially in the South of Italy, and is thesubject of this study.The themes of social housing and the design of public space are central to the debate oncontemporary town planning and the imposition of new issues concerning the following:relation to the context and the people; new practices and social instances; the evolution oflifestyles; and energy and environmental issues.Taking these considerations as a starting point we have paved a path of observations,proposing new points of view and design approaches with a view to improving the quality ofheritage of housing, services and space to produce an urban regeneration.Two interpretative perspectives have oriented this research project. The first regards the rolethat public space can play in activating an urban regeneration involving a large number ofcontemporary cities. The second perspective concerns the idea that the project/process ofurban renewal can improve on both material and immaterial aspects [1]. The urban design ofpublic spaces and their relations with social housing, has been an important area of research inthis case study and project dealing with a small Sicilian town. Using the findings of these casestudies we have developed several strategies for urban planning.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 166