Social Housing: How Covid-19 Has Affected/Infected and What Care/Design Strategy is Needed

For over a year, Covid-19 has rapidly imposed many changes not only in daily habits, but also in the adaptive capacity of the domestic space, imposing a functional reinterpretation to make it more flexible for multiple uses, such as home, office, gym, etc. Sensitive data on the indirect effects of the lockdown and on the houseinhabitant relationship show how new spatial needs have conditioned our physical and mental health as well as having produced cultural and socio-economic implications. Thus, the need to review home comfort and improve the quality of the indoor environment has become urgent, as well as to enhance contact with nature to live happier. This becomes more relevant in Social Housing, where moments and spaces for sharing represent the most characterizing aspect of the life of low and middle-income residents. The sector literature has dealt with this issue several times, especially in more recent times, but the results of the interrelation between Covid-19 and Social Housing are still poorly investigated and deserve further investigation. This paper aims to investigate the specific housing typology and to propose appropriate treatments as design strategies, to ensure healthier conditions of urban life. Through practical experimentation on an Italian case study, an emblematic example of economic and public housing in the urban history of Rome, the study will provide design solutions, graphic results and best practices that demonstrate the necessary updating of the architectural discipline in the light of a global pandemic, within the limits of a preliminary investigation which will suggest new ideas for the current debate on the subject.