Phygital technologies for an open-air urban market during the pandemic crisis

Abstract

The pandemic crisis has definitively exposed the limits of a development model that the crisis of the new millennium had already amply demonstrated. Urban commerce has been heavily affected by the polycrisis, requiring innovative solutions to overcome it. In Saint-Germain-en-Laye (SGL), the problem was addressed through a relaunch project aimed at transforming the city centre of SGL into an open-air urban market through the pedestrianisation of selected areas and encouraging multimodality and multifunctionality of spaces and services assisted by digital technologies. The goal was pursued by leveraging the sense of community of the inhabitants and the ability to interpret their needs by a team made up of planners and designers from the municipal administration of Saint Germain-en-Laye and researchers in several different disciplines from the Politecnico di Milano. Overall, the experience was configured as a co-design activity aimed at experimenting with new ways of urban resilience for citizens and business keepers particularly affected by the effects of the pandemic.

The role of Architectural Technology for the ecological transition envisaged by the PNRR

“…Infine, un terzo contributo potrebbe riguardare la consolidata esperienza della disciplina della Progettazione tecnologica ambientale nell'ambito della valutazione predittiva e del monitoraggio degli impatti delle opere. Una conoscenza stratificatasi a partire dagli anni Novanta con metodologie e strumenti in grado di quantificare, anche attraverso il ricorso a indicatori e indici, impatti ambientali, sociali, economici (Tartaglia and Mussinelli, 2016;Fanzini and Rotaru, 2018). Un contributo al processo di programmazione-progettazione-gestione delle opere pubbliche che non appare di facile attuazione a fronte di uno scenario normativo consolidato che impone già per specifiche categorie di opere la valutazione degli impatti, in particolare ambientali e paesaggistici.…”

“…In the Italian case, in addition to the areas of application referable to the complementary plan to the PNRR 7 , the meta-design model could be applied to the construction and redevelopment of other network and punctual services, such as penitentiary structures, health and assistance structures, nursing homes and schools. Finally, a third contribution could relate to the consolidated experience of the discipline of environmental and technological design in the context of the predictive assessment and monitoring of the impacts of the works; it is a knowledge that has been stratified since the nineties with methodologies and tools capable of quantifying, also through the use of indicators and indices, environmental, social and economic impacts (Tartaglia and Mussinelli, 2016;Fanzini and Rotaru, 2018). This contribution to the planning-design-management process of public works does not appear to be easy to implement in the face of a consolidated regulatory scenario that already requires the assessment of impacts, in particular environmental and landscape, for specific categories of works.…”