Reloading Spaces: How design makes urban spaces more liveable

Design has been often used as a key-lever in the transformation of urban places to respond to the arising needs of the contemporary society. Our cities see the growing demand for places where people can cultivate a sense of wellbeing, share their daily life and get closer to other inhabitants. This paper focuses on the challenging task of designing new scenarios to reactivate urban spaces and abandoned or underutilised interiors, on the ground level of the city, in some difficult contexts. Urban interior design could help to create welcoming public places where the ethnically diverse neighbourhood, the co-existence of a progressively ageing population together with young families, the mix of council housing and private ownership, could be a value. This paper introduces the neighbourhood of San Siro, where the final design studio lab experience of the Bachelor of Science in Interior Design, School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Reloading Spaces took place. Design lab projects were aimed at the activation of dynamic redevelopment and revitalisation of the neighbourhood through strategies for the re-appropriation of the urban spaces that bond different environments in order to communicate and strengthen a common identity of the neighbourhood. The ultimate goal of the design lab projects was to imagine possible scenarios that could become innovative trends, starting with an enquiry into people, their behaviour and their contemporary needs.