Research
2021
Architectural Design, Health and Wellbeing, Ageing, Reuse, Social Housing
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
Abstract
The exceptional nature of the current situation, together with the changes in the demographic and socio-economic composition of the population in Italy, obliges rethinking the conformation of the city for the three ages of the human being. The contingent calamity has also highlighted the limits and deficiencies of an inadequate and often undersized endowment of facilities for elderly care and assistance, with particular reference to the elderly suffering from multimorbidity, non-self-sufficiency and poor social support network. At the same time, the present reveals the problem of existing real estate in disuse, which is increasingly looming in our cities and territories. This proposed research intends to address these two issues synergistically, aligned with the Italian Government's National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
In architectural and programmatic terms - with a Health Promotion perspective - the study aims to safeguard the well-being, implement opportunities and health care models to ensure the elderly remain in the original family and social tissue favoring the maintenance of health and minimizing the risks associated with physical and cognitive decline. It also aims to define new shared living models to safeguard social and cultural inclusion even in the elderly, to support the so-called Healthy Aging. The proposal intends to insert these co-living and co-housing models inside carefully selected disused buildings, transformed and adapted to a new use, configured according to a flexible organizational-management scheme, to create places suitable for different ages of life. The ultimate intention is to provide new and effective models for intergenerational co-housing living in order to improve long-life course quality of life. The development of shared guidelines will contribute to implement pilot projects open to intergenerational users and ready to accommodate diversified residential, socio-cultural, and welfare functions.
2020
architectural design, local development, urban requalification, development cooperation, public health
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
Abstract
This ongoing research explores how architecture and civil engineering can support sustainable growth in vulnerable and impoverished territories. Studies focus on so-called developing nations where living, social and cultural conditions differ from the Western model, and which face problems (humanitarian, environmental and healthcare emergencies, imbalances generated by important internal and external migratory movements) seen at the global scale. The research looks at rural territories in Sub-Saharan Africa to study effective methods for an organic, sustainable and low environmental impact approach to design and services required by society, generally implemented through cooperation programmes and by making local communities an active player during the phases of design and construction.
The research develops and shares a method for designing basic healthcare service structures that can also serve as centres of social aggregation for communities living in small rural villages.
The research incorporates participation and training, in synergy with associations operating in these contexts, such as the NGO Doctors with Africa CUAMM and selected African universities, through various forms of participation.
The product of the research will be an illustrated manual designed to share technical know-how rooted in consolidated knowledge and local resources shared among all actors, and integrated with best practices borrowed from important contemporary architectural projects. Guidelines presented in the manual (open source, open system, to be constantly updated) will offer a summary and clear illustration of design criteria and building processes based on assisted self-construction, verified during a pilot project developed in collaboration with CUAMM and partner universities.
2018
DO-IT-TOGETHER ARCHITECTURE FOR HEALTH. BUILDING MODELS FOR AN ARCHITECTURE OF COOPERATION
cooperation for development, architectural design, local development, environment and health risks, health and wellbeing
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
Abstract
The United Nations report on Millennium Development Goals has shed light on the reduction, between 2000 and 2015, in the gap between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Yet this gaps still remains considerable: there is an increase in internal inequalities within nations, which skey statistical data, and a persistence in dynamics (demonstrated by rising migratory flows) which may invert these trends and reduce the gap.
In this situation, the research, ongoing, identifies architecture and civil engineering, and the implementation of the right to medical care and access to healthcare services as a possible lever of integrated actions, capable of initiating regenerative processes in extremely vulnerable territories, exacerbated by peaks of wealth and poverty.
Developed in synergy with the NGO Doctors for Africa CUAMM, the study begins by recognising the communities in Africa examined as fundamental actors in a process intent on improving the quality of life and lifestyles, also through good architecture.
The objective is to develop the design of a functionally flexible and versatile dwelling module that is adaptable/transformable/expandable, and designed to improve, implement and ground not only a networked healthcare system, but also a social infrastructure a that service of the community.
To overcome an exclusively welfare-based approach the study will consider local social, cultural and economic potentialities and criticalities in order to exploit the participatory process (do-it-yourself) involving those subjects and groups targeted by a cooperation project.
Architectural projects will be presented in an illustrated manual describing materials, components and building processes. The manual can be used to share a summary and easy understanding of low cost/high quality building know-how founded on local knowledge and resources among all actors actives involved
2014
URBAN REGENERATION AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN ROME. PILOT PROJECTS FOR EXTRAORDINARY RECEPTION CENTRES: TEMPORARY SETUPS FOR OPEN AREAS AND ADAPTIVE REUSE OF DECOMMISSIONED BUILDINGS
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
2013
HOUSING PROBLEMS IN ROME: FROM EMERGENCY TO SOCIAL INTEGRATION. PROJECTS FOR THE HOMELESS. SPECIFICITIES OF GUESTS-USERS: MOTHERS WITH CHILDREN AND POVERTY-STRICKEN FAMILIES
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
2012
HOUSING PROBLEMS IN METROPOLISES: THE EXAMPLE OF ROME. FROM ENVIRONMENTAL AND HYGIENIC-SANITARY STUDIES TO ARCHITECTURAL PROPOSALS FOR SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
2011
HOUSING PROBLEMS IN METROPOLISES: THE EXAMPLE OF ROME. FROM ENVIRONMENTAL AND HYGIENIC-SANITARY STUDIES TO ARCHITECTURAL PROPOSALS FOR SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Research Project
2010/2009
INHABITING THE CITY UNDER CONDITIONS OF EMERGENCY. FROM TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS TO MODELS OF DEVELOPMENT BASED ON PROGRAMMED DEVELOPMENT
Research Coordinator
Type of Financing
Sapienza University Biennial Research Project