PROGETTARE LA CITTÀ CONTEMPORANEA/DESIGNING THE CONTEMPORARY CITY

This book addresses several of the principal challenges that contemporary cities are called upon to confront today, including the enhancement of place identity, the improvement of urban health and livability, the adaptation of contexts exposed to multiple risks, the protection and enhancement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage of exceptional value, and the design of high-quality public spaces. Within this perspective, the city is understood not merely as a physical structure, but as a lived environment, daily experienced, perceived, and interpreted by a plurality of subjects who embody diverse needs, expectations, and visions. The volume is situated within this framework and stems from the awareness that urban analysis and design today require tools capable of overcoming sectoral or exclusively regulatory approaches. Its objective is to propose methods able to integrate quantitative and qualitative dimensions, objective data and perceptions, analytical readings and design visions, while enhancing the role of users and local stakeholders in transformation processes. To this end, the book presents five operational methodological frameworks, which I have conceived, developed, and tested within various research projects, to address the aforementioned contemporary urban challenges through replicable and updatable investigation and design protocols, usable both as decision-support systems and as evaluation tools. Each method illustrated is structured into three closely integrated components: a theoretical section providing conceptual framing; a methodological section detailing the operational phases; and an explanatory case study demonstrating its concrete application and transferability across different contexts. This structure allows the reader to follow the entire process, from the construction of the theoretical framework to the definition of informed design choices, making explicit the criteria, procedures, and outcomes. Through methods such as PlaceMaker, Healthy Place Design Method, Multiadaptation Place Method, HeritED, and the QPS-D@taC database, the book proposes tools capable of interpreting urban complexity while also translating it into maps, indicators, guidelines, and information useful for the interpretation, design, and management of places. The book is addressed to a broad and diverse audience. It is intended for students engaged, across different degree programs and disciplinary fields, in the analysis and sustainable design of places and territories; for researchers, as a theoretical and operational reference for the study of complex urban phenomena; for practitioners, as an applied tool supporting urban design; for public administrators and decision-makers, as an aid in the construction of more informed and context-sensitive urban policies. At the same time, the volume speaks to all those who, in various capacities, are interested in understanding the transformations of contemporary cities and contributing to the creation of places that are more sustainable, healthy, livable, adaptive, and inclusive. To all these readers, I offer the methodological pathways presented herein, with the hope that they may serve not only as useful instruments for new applied experimentation, but also as an open foundation for subsequent updates, adaptations, and processes of hybridization. It is further my intention that these methods may enter into dialogue with other approaches, disciplines, and research and design contexts, fostering methodological cross-fertilization and interdisciplinary contributions capable of further enhancing their effectiveness, interpretative capacity, and design potential within present and future urban environments.