A Project of Laboratory CIRCO in Rome. Rethinking a Public Institutes of Assistance and Charity (IPAB) in Rome

The progressive aging of the population is a phenomenon showed by numerous researches. Several agencies and structures (public or private) are updating their legal and organizational status, in order to respond to new management methods for the provision of care and assistance services. An example in Italy is represented by the passage of Public Institutes of Assistance and Charity (IPAB) into Companies for Human Services (ASP). This transformation was addressed by the Laboratory CIRCO (an acronym for “indispensable house for civic recreation and hospitality”), active in the Architectural and Urban Design Laboratory of the master’s degree program in Urban Design of the University of Roma Tre. CIRCO has investigated (thanks to a didactic planning experience) the case of an important roman IPAB, (the Istituto Romano San Michele - IRSM) which is facing a change without a complex posture, unable to combines the spaces of care with the need for temporary housing and other functions coming from the city in transformation and its new users. In particular, the prospects of the IRSM highlight a future scenario of a mono-functional, mono-demographic part of the city, incapable of weaving relationships of complementarity between problems and strategies. Furthermore, the existing functional and spatial quality tends to introversion, failing to open towards the neighbourhood, triggering the underutilization of some buildings, the mortification of public space and a certain relational deficiency (in some cases conflictual) among the subjects who inhabit it. The contribution deals with the first results of the CIRCO Laboratory in its attempt (through the process and the project) to transform the IPAB into an open, inclusive, hospitable and relationship-rich city.