With 14 million people over 65 years old and 7 million people over 75 years old, Italy is nowadays the country with the oldest population in Europe. Changes in demographic and socioeconomic composition force us to rethink the shape of the city for "the three ages of human life."
The limitations and shortcomings of a lacking and often undersized endowment of facilities intended for the care and assistance of the elderly population have been further highlighted by the recent worldwide pandemic. In particular, the already known critical issues concerning the Assisted Living Residences (RSA), have revealed the need for a different model, no longer based on a seclusion, on a sort of para-hospitalization, yet on a social sharing, able to help elderly people feel better. At the same time, our cities have a consistent and valuable yet underused or even disused real estate, as well as the necessity to stop soil consumption by 2050, according to the European Council directives.
This research intends to address both of these issues in a synergistic way, in line with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) of the Italian Government. On one side, the research aims at implementing models of social and health care – in architectural as well as planning terms – suchas to ensure elderly people being able to stay in their original family and social context, rather than in an RSA; it also aims at identifying principles and criteria for a shared living, able to gather the elderly and young people together, thus creating suitable places for the different ages of life.
On the other side, the research goal is to define strategic horizons and innovative architectural and typological models, for renovating/reactivating/converting disused existing buildings (also belonging to an industrial heritage), and to design shared spaces for housing and socialising, mainly serving the elderly population. The final purpose being to imagine a widespread system of co-housing units and co-living facilities – such as the day-care centres – able to foster neighbourhood relationships, in harmony with other shared practices.
The method will consist in the analysis of innovative case-studies and in a design survey through a pilot project – a disused building to be transformed into shared dwellings and a neighbourhood gathering centre – developed within each research unit (Roma, Firenze. Padova), showing a strategy to be started and disseminated nationwide through a set of strategic instructions and best practices that might be used by public authorities in their planning of supportive housing as well as in their leading and supervising of any private enterprise.
L’eccezionalità della situazione attuale, unita alle variazioni nella composizione demografica e socio-economica della popolazione in Italia, ci obbliga a ripensare la conformazione della città per “le tre età dell’uomo”. La calamità contingente ha altresì evidenziato i limiti e le carenze di una dotazione inadeguata e spesso sottodimensionata di strutture destinate alla cura e all’assistenza della popolazione anziana.
Contemporaneamente il tempo presente rileva il problema del patrimonio immobiliare esistente in disuso che incombe sempre più nelle nostre città e nei nostri territori.
La ricerca intende affrontare in modo sinergico queste due problematiche, in coerenza con il Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) del Governo italiano. Lo studio mira – in termini architettonici e programmatici – a implementare le occasioni e i modelli di assistenza socio-sanitaria per garantire agli anziani la permanenza nel tessuto famigliare e sociale di appartenenza; mira altresì a definire nuovi modelli di abitare condiviso al fine di salvaguardare l’inclusione sociale e culturale anche nella terza età.
La proposta intende inserire tali modelli – di co-living e di co-housing – all’interno di immobili dismessi, accuratamente selezionati, trasformati e adeguati ad un nuovo diverso uso, e si configura secondo uno schema organizzativo-gestionale flessibile e modulabile, per creare luoghi consoni alle diverse età della vita.