Reading the Current Cities to Anticipate Their Changes

The chapter presents the changes taking place in cities, assumed in a broad sense, through a design-oriented view that uses the elaboration of scenarios as a key to understanding. It is an open-ended guide, which on the one hand aims to establish some design principles, and on the other hand hypothesizes possible types of future cities based on current trends. The scenarios are presented individually but should be read as fluid definitions that can be integrated with each other. The text begins with the drivers of urban space design used as a substrate for observation; they have been divided into two parts, where the first deals with design principles, while the second presents those tangible and intangible elements to be taken into account when designing a public space in the city. The last part of the text explains the type of analysis conducted to generate the scenarios.