There is an ever increasing interest in identifying the links between architecture and public health and in how urban design can positively influence the latter. The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development represents an innovative research area as a recent contribution to sustainability science and its trans-disciplinary configuration. The research topic deals with the importance and the centrality of the user-centered approach in the observation of the relationships among mankind, technological systems, and built environments, for projects that guarantee the conditions of physical, mental, and social well-being. Starting from the plurality of different disciplinary sectors, from anthropometry and sociology to psychology, “human experience” and user’s expectations are explored, understood, and systematized. The analysis of the relationship between health and urban design has allowed researchers to identify design strategies to improve the level of urban livability. The city of Pisa is the case study; mobility within the city is redefined through various levels of the use of space so that paths and areas of inclusion and socialization are re-valued, while new scenarios for some urban spaces open up. In this perspective, the design strategies synthetically follow two main directions: the re-appropriation of these places by the citizens and, at the same time, the promotion of their well-being from both a physical and psychological point of view.

Abstract:The design of housing systems is today challenged by a highly uncertain context, dominated by the rapid development of functional and technological obsolescence in inherited housing models. If flexibility is the ability of a system to be easily modified and to respond to changes in the environment timely and conveniently, it can be considered as the antidote to obsolescence or the characteristic of the system that guarantees slippage over time. Our paper focuses on the concept of flexibility as a fundamental prerequisite for residential building in order to extend its life cycle design, through strategies and constructive solutions that ensure both the convertibility of the space in response to changing usage and the use of building materials that encourage the reversibility and the long-term easy maintenance of the technological choices that have been implemented. Flexibility is examined both from a conceptual point of view, so as to obtain a clear and logical definition that is distinct from related terms, as well as from a practical point of view, by finding ways to incorporate this requirement into the designing of housing.

as part of an experimental thesis that led to the implementation of a Decision Support System. The objective of the work was to implement a tool capable of evaluating-in relation to the choices concerning the morphology of the building, the construction technologies, the materials and the design of the architectural elements-the levels of maintenance quality implemented in the various phases of the project, from the first phases, in which few relevant decisions are made, to the executive phase characterized by a multiplicity of choices. The aim was to construct a tool in which the reliability of the evaluations was related to the quantity and quality of the data that feeds the decision-making process, but which is also able to evaluate preliminary decisions based on the elements of choice that characterize the first phases of the project. The conceptual model has been defined through the construction and implementation of a Bayesian Network or a graphical system of probabilistic inference able to represent the set of stochastic variables and their conditional dependencies through the use of a direct acyclic graph. Through the interrogation of the network it is therefore possible to evaluate through the expression of a synthetic index, a real overall rating of the different aspects that contribute to define the maintenance quality. The use of Bayesian Networks, in the light of the analyses carried out on an experimental basis-exemplified here on the case study of ING Groupe headquarters-for the ability to control a multitude of factors linked to the durability of materials, the morphology of systems and ease of intervention, seems capable of generating useful, effective and expandable tools to support the design decision-making process.

A local administration can develop learning policies aiming at improving the economical and productive capacities and regenerating the urban contexts: the city physical and social requalification can indeed be carried out even by building up a learning community as a crucial development tool. The district labs and networks - socio-technical places aiming at properly requalifying/maintaining/using cities - can build, in such a scenery, a strong means of physical requalification and evolution of the social capital in degraded environments, by building a path guiding towards the implementation of "learning cities" as a new way of thinking modalities, times and places of learning

This experimental study on the renewal of post-World War II suburban areas addresses the theme of the technological retrofitting of buildings, focusing on typological features, construction techniques and, more in general, of all aspects that fail to meet the needs of contemporary living. An initial examination of Italian and international case studies helped to identify possible guidelines for the optimization of urban renewal activities. The guidelines were tested by applying them to a case study: a 1950s-era neighborhood in the city of Pisa. The study undertaken highlights the need to consistently integrate all of the activities that affect the building structures-consolidations and static adjustments, improvement of energy efficiency, functional and spatial adaptation-and that work towards strengthening social integration by taking into account the specific needs of the individual. The work is implemented on individual buildings and urban areas, with the aim of improving the local identity characteristics. The suggested approach is that of a circular economy, which helps to reduce the impact on the environment, mainly through the extensive use of recycled materials. The proposed experiment thus aims to test the resilience of buildings following their seismic, energy and functional updating, including sociological and environmental psychology assessments, with particular attention to vulnerable users, in order to find solutions capable of promoting social inclusion.