Diversity, community and participation: how Covid-19 has boosted the main issues of public space design.

In our earlier research on urban regeneration process and the specific role played by public spaces, we have focused on three key-concepts that represent our interpretation of multiple dynamics that occur in public space design: they are diversity, community and participation. In this paper we propose a reinterpretation of those topics because we believe that the Covid-19 pandemic takes a role as an accelerator in the development of urban projects. In addition, due to a collaboration with the municipality of the city of Mantua, we conducted research on how Covid-19 has boosted the main issues related on designing of public space. So, in conclusion, we propose a new set of keywords such as: care as reciprocal responsibility; interplay as interactions of different factors; adaptability as the ability to take action in evolving scenarios; integration as the way to mange urban complexity; proximity, considering both the social and urban field; and finally, planning time as the necessity to plan both short term and long-term actions.