Book of Abstracts. A global strategy for local problems or a local strategy for global problems. Proximity Planning International Congress.

The search for a greater “proximity” in the project of contemporary cities is the current challenge facing our society. Following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, both national and international debates have pivoted towards transitioning from cities of distances to those of proximity. In line with the renewed interest in this concept and resonance established by the themes and principles advocated by numerous researchers, our research laboratory endeavours to contribute to this discussion, identifying some proximity strategies within the southern periphery of Mantova. Our research consists of two phases. In the first one, we explore an alternative concept for understanding urban complexity beyond traditional units like neighbourhoods, favouring autonomous functional units within a polycentric framework. After some initial studies, we define the term "urban proximity systems" to describe these new modes of urban functioning. Building on this first finding, the second phase focuses on grounding proximity into project terms within these systems. To address this challenge, we involve first-year students of the Architecture Design course in the Urban Planning Laboratory. The students, in this phase, need to be encouraged to develop an interdisciplinary approach that enables them to learn, understand and explores different disciplinary dimensions of urban problems. This is because the laboratory is the first urban planning course they take at university, and it deals with topics and issues they have not previously studied in high school.