Inhabited Screens. “Individual” and “Type” in contemporary Housing

The functionalist tradition of housing design was founded on an abstract notion of universal “dwelling needs” and “typical users”. But the evolution of lifestyles, of new ways of dwelling and moving through contemporary urban territories raise new questions which necessitate new design approaches. In modern design procedures, the housing unit was seen as the cell of the bigger body of the city, where the simple addition of a well-thought layout could generate successful living environments. Spatial unities were considered able to create social ones; the post-war “quarters” attempted to recreate the lost solidarity of the village in the outskirts of the industrial metropolis. But in the varied landscape of the contemporary urban sprawl many design strategies inherited from the modern tradition seem to be ineffective. We have today a better understanding of urban dynamics, of how the city grows, evolves, changes its destination and social composition. The private dimension of the living unit cannot dialogue directly with the territorial dimension without elements which act as mediators between the two; interfaces which host the desire for privacy of the suburbs and at the same time define a new kind of collective space: inhabited “screens”, capable of creating the backdrops of a new city, where social interaction is waiting for new convincing responses.