FUTURA. Un piano strategico per Salsomaggiore Terme / FUTURA. A strategic plan for Salsomaggiore Terme

This volume presents the state of the art of an open, fluid, and continuously evolving design initiative, aimed at providing concrete and sustainable responses for the future development of Salsomaggiore Terme, a city that time has shaped in response to changing requirements and the evolving needs of an ever-adapting society. The research project serves as a strategic opportunity to initiate a critical rethinking of the city’s core and its most significant extensions, adopting a polycentric and multi-scalar logic. This approach respects the past, engages in critical observation of the present, and envisions a new narrative for the city’s future. The FUTURA Strategic Masterplan, presented and examined in this work, operates in synergy with and as a complement to the drafting of the new General Urban Plan (PUG), currently under development. It aims to provide key strategic and meta-design guidelines, supporting and expanding upon urban themes and paradigmatic areas. The plan pursues a concrete action of urban regeneration, both in its material and social dimensions, seeking to reduce marginalization, social degradation, and urban abandonment. The Masterplan’s objective is to define open and flexible guidelines for the city’s future, considering emerging scenarios in the fields of thermal wellness and psychological-physical recovery. The arrival of new private operators will hopefully revitalize a city in perpetual search of its own new identity. The plan promotes a commitment to healthy living, sustainable mobility, and urban regeneration, identifying beauty as the vibrant core of FUTURA’s design approach. Specifically, the study addresses contemporary urban challenges, expanding the concept of material and immaterial connections as fundamental elements of regeneration. The plan envisions a more sustainable and modern local and regional transportation system, aligned with global models, tools, and objectives related to the overall improvement of the quality of life, well-being, and cultural appreciation of time. The research is structured in three phases: a dialogic-analytical phase, focusing on listening to the city’s needs and systematizing existing urban dynamics; a strategic planning phase, defining key urban themes and a guiding Masterplan, in full alignment with future urban governance tools; a conclusive phase, where the Masterplan identifies priority areas to provide a strategic vision for the city of tomorrow, establishing new urban focal points through architectural and meta-design prefigurations. The Masterplan provides a comprehensive vision for a regenerated city, addressing both fine-scale urban redevelopment and the revitalization of historical buildings in disuse. Key regeneration strategies include adaptive reuse and repurposing of public spaces and buildings, and enhancing their public function; improving urban aesthetics and social cohesion, including the renovation of public buildings for cultural, educational, and recreational uses; and sustainable mobility, integrated as a fundamental part of a broader urban regeneration strategy. FUTURA is part of a scientific collaboration agreement between the Municipality of Salsomaggiore Terme and the Politecnico di Milano, signed on December 17, 2021. This partnership aims to study, analyze, and meta-design the urban future and development trends of the thermal city, projecting it toward a new identity, enhancing its heritage in health, sports, hospitality, gastronomy, arts, and culture. This narrative unfolds between dream and reality, between awareness and programmatic actions, between contrasting images and new semantics, aspiring to shape a new future. Within this vision, architecture, in continuity with the past, must and will provide a decisive contribution to the evolution of cities and spaces of human interaction. Architecture is not merely an end, but a tool for a sustainable rebalancing of human existence.