Social housing in Milan: innovation of typologies and new users

After a long period from the end of the 70's of XX century of general institutional inactivity in the field of public housing, in the early years of XXI century, the social housing has become central topic in the Italian policies. In the last decades, in Europe, a lot of significant realization of urban regeneration and transformation has been built, emphasizing a programmatic orientation aimed at the realization of new parts of the city, accompanying these opportunities with policies of experimentation and innovation. In Italy, despite a significant increase in interventions, there are poorly purposeful and innovative housing policies. This is evident in the limited and scarce public investments and in the modest social housing realizations, having poor quality impact in terms of urban regeneration and innovative approach, in comparison to the European context. In particular, considering the case of Milan in the last fifteen years, there is a solid need, at least in intention, to develop innovative projects related to the housing typologies in relation to new housing and market needs, that expresses a increasingly differentiated demand. This request should actualize to plan proactive design strategies regard the creation of housing typologies and the inclusion of elements of flexibility and variation, compared to traditional spatial and functional model. Actually this condition is not satisfied, demonstrating a strong backwardness in Italy about morphological, typological and technological innovation of housing design, that is still connected to traditional approach of living. Analyzing different types of users and their needs, the research aims to demonstrate the opportunity and the possibility to produce innovative design experimentation regarding the morpho-typological housing system and its link with the collective dimension through the inclusion of appropriate common spaces and services.