The transition to a new university campus as an opportunity for the urban regeneration of the former milan expo 2015 areas

In Milan, in the 1990s, the Ministry of Education and Research inaugurated the policy of opening new decentralised university campuses with a twofold aim: to relieve pressure on the central headquarters and, at the same time, restore functionality and liveliness to the suburban neighbourhoods, which have been affected in the last two decades by the decentralisation of industry. The paper presents a research work still in progress, carried out by a group of the Politecnico di Milano on behalf of the Università degli Studi di Milano, concerning the definition of the meta-project briefing for a new campus to be located on the ex EXPO 2015 area. Although the event was a formidable territorial marketing tool for the city, a new destination for the space occupied by the pavilions must be implemented for the future. The company that owns the area, Arexpo, decides to build a scientific and technological park in which public and private institutions must be housed, including the new campus for the science faculties of the university. The project appears as an opportunity to make a transition to a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable educational and research site. The Politecnico di Milano research group uses methods at the crossroads between Strategic, Service and Spatial Design to immediately involve the various primary stakeholders in a collaborative project to create the guidelines that will be given to the architects in charge of planning the new site.