Università e riqualificazione urbana

With the birth of modern urban planning the concept of circulatory and respiratory system takes over the city. A metaphor linked to medical sciences to introduce the theme of healthiness in urban design. Haussmann’s Paris was planned with systems to divert the increased traffic. At the same time, it was necessary to sanitize the city’s environment, with open spaces that were obtained by cutting and demolishing the existing fabric. Even today, traffic and hygiene are among the major concerns of contemporary metropolises, but they are confronted with the opposite problem, i.e. limiting traffic congestion and encouraging new lifestyles that lead people to live a more active life in order to prevent the diseases of the 21st century, caused by sedentariness. Urban transformation strategies therefore go in the opposite direction to those of two centuries ago. Limit the number of car carriageways, make pedestrian space pleasant and attractive, insert cycle paths, increase space to enjoy outdoor activities, encourage solutions that introduce green and blue streets into the urban environment. European universities, unlike Anglo-Saxon and North American ones, are widespread in cities and not isolated from them. According to this settlement model, universities and cities live on a continuous dialogue that constitutes the essence of a complex cultural, educational and research network. For these reasons, especially in Europe, they are often engines of urban regeneration, capable of revitalizing entire districts of the city. The most interesting element of these settlement forms, old and new, of Italian universities is the plot of open spaces, the main place and characteristic of university life. La Sapienza in Rome, with over 100,000 students, is the largest university not only in the city, but in Europe and is an interesting case to generate systemic actions in the urban fabric of Rome and to reason on the relationships between building plot, roads and green infrastructures, not only at the service of the university community, but of the entire city.