TRANSITIONAL HOUSING
An Expansion Strategy for SPRAR Refugee Second Reception
[by Emad Lajevardi, 2019–2020]

The thesis addresses the challenges of second-stage refugee reception, highlighting how existing housing solutions often fail to meet the spatial, safety, cultural and emotional needs of forcibly displaced people. Drawing on migration research and the concept of uncertain living, the project develops a design methodology aimed at creating transitional environments that alleviate the stresses of post-displacement resettlement. Applied to the expansion of the SPRAR system in Milan, the proposal envisions supportive housing that guides refugees from their arrival in Italy to the point of self-reliance, turning shelter into a sanctuary and a space for recovery.

To look inside > click here

CO-LIVING
Proposal for an Innovative Age-Friendly Cohabitation in Aler’s Estate
[by Ilaria Bianchi, 2019–2020]

The thesis explores innovative co-living models designed for older adults (65+), aiming to reduce isolation, encourage social interaction and provide a supportive environment without removing residents from their familiar neighborhood. By examining existing co-living practices and relevant case studies, the project identifies spatial strategies and shared services suited to elderly users with mild vulnerabilities. Applied to an Aler-owned housing estate, the proposal introduces typological transformations and common spaces to promote active, intergenerational living while supporting independent lifestyles.

To look inside > click here

ZERO TYPE
Manual Against Typological Stereotypes
[by Morena Amendolagine & Michela Stamin, 2019–2020]

The thesis defines a “zero type”: a primary housing model capable of overcoming typological stereotypes by identifying the essential features that allow long-term spatial flexibility. The research compares nineteenth-century residential buildings with modern and contemporary cases to determine which architectural qualities enable spaces to adapt to changing needs without structural intervention. Four categories of flexibility are examined: constructive, technological, functional and typological. The work concludes with a set of guidelines tested on a Milan case study, showing how distributive neutrality, adaptable layouts and reduced over-dimensioning can generate resilient dwellings suitable for diverse and evolving ways of living.

To look inside > click here

BEYOND RETROFITTING
Investigating the Role of Spatial Quality in Energy Performance Strategies
[by Alice Cajelli & Gianluca Guiu, 2019–2020]

The thesis investigates how spatial quality can enhance energy retrofitting strategies, moving beyond a purely technical approach to the renovation of existing social housing. The chosen case study – a residential complex in the Romolo district of Milan – serves as a testing ground to explore how typological reorganization, improved dwelling layouts, upgraded communal spaces and environmental devices can simultaneously increase comfort, efficiency, livability and social interaction. Combining energy analysis, spatial assessment and design scenarios, the thesis proposes a retrofitting model that integrates environmental sustainability with the qualitative improvement of everyday living conditions.

To look inside > click here

ORDINARY COURTYARDS
[by Valeria Righetti & Marta Sciarra, 2019-2020]

During lockdown, ordinary courtyards revealed an unexpected potential: previously neglected spaces used as parking or storage became places for new forms of daily life.
The project investigates how these semi-private domestic courtyards can become a new model of public space in the post-pandemic city.
Applied to a Pilot Block in NoLo (Milan), the strategy aims to open property boundaries, activate ground floors facing the courtyards, and introduce shared activities.
By rethinking courtyards through the lens of the Commons, the project suggests how these spaces could help address social, housing and environmental issues, stimulate local economies and strengthen neighborhood interactions across different urban scales.

To look inside > click here

CIÖNDÒL
A Public Space for Mobile Residents in Borno
[by Irene Comini, July 2019]

Borno is an isolated alpine village where many inhabitants commute long hours every day for work or study. Interviews and daily-life reconstructions reveal how this mobile lifestyle reduces their participation in the social life of the village. The project reactivates the abandoned Cinema Pineta, once a central community space, and transforms it into a new public place designed to support the needs of mobile residents. The name “Cìöndöl”, from the local dialect, expresses both moving back and forth and lingering to chat, capturing the dual spirit of the proposal.

To look inside > click here

CO-LIVING
A strategy for the future city housing
[by Laura Vanazzi, July 2019]

This research is inspired by the studies in Politecnico di Milano at the department of Architecture and Urban Studies about the evolution of dwellings practices and the need of new spaces, policies and processes, in the contemporary housing scene in Italy. What emerges is a widespread of co-living practices, which do not regard only Italy but the entire world. Stimulated by these previous analysis, the thesis explores the topic of the co-habitation in order to construct a solid panoramic view and propose a design strategy for a co-living apartment.

To look inside > click here

RIPENSARE GLI SPAZI DELL’INFRASTRUTTURA
Strategies for reprogramming the interchanges of Milan’s eastern ring road
[by Antonio Lento, April 2019]

The thesis examines how the unused voids within Milan’s eastern ring-road interchanges can be reclaimed as new collective spaces. Through the analysis of mobility, open-space systems and the urban fabric, the project highlights the strategic role of these infrastructural gaps and explores how the city can reintegrate them. The proposed scenarios for 2030 reinterpret the interchanges as places where infrastructure, landscape and architecture generate new social and spatial opportunities.

To look inside > click here

IL TEMPO CHE SFUGGE ALLA STORIA
A strategy for reactivating the Marchiondi complex
[by Tinto Miriam, 2017–2018]

This thesis investigates the long-abandoned Marchiondi Spagliardi Institute in Baggio, a masterpiece of Italian brutalism now trapped between administrative conflict, failed restoration attempts and the absence of a clear cultural stance on modern heritage. Through critical and historical analysis, the research interprets the building not as a ruin of the past but as a condition produced by contemporary neglect. The project explores “architectural thinking” as a tool for repairing places marked by social, spatial and symbolic fragmentation, proposing new ways for the Marchiondi to re-enter the life of the city.

To look inside >  click here

YOUTH COMMUNE
Re-Thinking modernist architecture according to contemporary conditions
[by Vigan Zika, April 2019]
 
The “Rilindja” Media House building, was one of the victims of this process, its architecture, program and history were altered, it lost its importance, and as a result, a huge part of the architectural and historical heritage of Kosovo was erased.
These aspects introduced two key questions for the project: how a disfigured building in the city of Pristina can be transformed into an active social intersection between the city and its citizens? and how does the present situation affect the memory of the past?

To look inside > click here

OPPORTUNITIES
A strategy for the adaptive reuse of churches
[by Lorenzo Sizzi, April 2019]

Opportunities arises from the desire to conceive a strategy capable of preventing the practice of uncontrolled and unconscious reuse of churches. The strategy is organized in two phases. The first is based on the study of the work of two architects and is aimed at understanding the church building, which culminates in the definition of four fundamental properties. The second concerns re-use and, thanks to the theoretical support of the documents of a workshop and three conferences on the subject, the aim is to analyze a selection of case studies by experimenting a qualitative evaluation method that works by dividing the intervention into two themes: program and spatiality.

To look inside > click here

FROM WASTELAND TO WETLAND
The cityscape as green transition toward Ecological Civilization
[by Riccardo Mameli, April 2019]

The east Bund of Huangpu River is now required to include public space quality enhancement, ecological environment optimization and cultural function clustering. It is the perfect occasion for a re ection of the redevelopment of brown-fields in green elds. e purpose of the present thesis is to analyze and understand the current social, economic and political situation, in order to propose a suitable model capable to actively reinterpret the Chinese landscape.

To look inside > click here

RE-ACTIVATION-THROUGH INTEGRATION
The case of Campo Marzio in Vicenza
[by Federico Riva, July 2018]

The research aims to explore the relation between individuals and places in the contemporary city and to investigate the way the social dynamics can foster the process of integration in a more and more diverse and multi-ethnic society, taking as starting point the case of Campo Marzio in Vicenza.

To look inside > click here

WELFARE SPACE
Architecture as a tool for social regeneration in peripheral contexts
[by Nicola Sirugo, 2016–2017]

Pozzallo, a peripheral town on the Sicilian coast, exemplifies the condition of many Italian provinces marked by geographic isolation and social fragility. Starting from an analysis of the town’s criticalities and specific territorial qualities, the project explores architecture as an active tool for addressing contemporary needs. The proposal focuses on the reactivation of a twentieth-century industrial complex, abandoned for decades, transforming it into a welfare-oriented space. Through reuse and reprogramming, the project seeks to reconnect the community with its history and to re-establish collective identity as a living and operative resource.

To look inside > click here

IN / TRANSIT
Permanent architectures for temporary living
[Eugenio Nuzzo, 2017]

Economic transition, labour instability, and changing family structures have reshaped contemporary housing needs, making temporary living conditions increasingly widespread. The project addresses temporary housing as an emerging social necessity, focusing on individuals and families facing economic vulnerability. Positioned between research and design, In Transit investigates causes, spatial forms, and architectural strategies to define a coherent and lasting framework for temporary residency.

To look inside > click here

ITALIA NON FINITA
A proposal for reactivation
[Lucia Delmonte, 2015]

Across Italy, a vast number of unfinished public works remain scattered throughout the territory. Begun but never completed for overlapping economic, administrative, and political reasons, these structures range from infrastructures to residential, educational, and cultural buildings. Rather than treating them as failures, the thesis reframes unfinished works as latent resources, proposing strategies for their reactivation through minimal, temporary, and participatory interventions that return them to collective use.

To look inside > click here

SOCIAL FAMILY
An “Aging in Place” Solution for Elderly
[Yu Sun, 2015]

Responding to the global phenomenon of population ageing, this thesis explores alternative housing strategies for elderly people in Milan. The project addresses the social, spatial, and demographic implications of longer life expectancy and declining fertility, proposing an “aging in place” model that supports autonomy, everyday life, and social inclusion. Housing is conceived as an adaptive environment capable of meeting the physical and social needs of an aging population while remaining integrated within the urban fabric.

To look inside > click here

MUSEO D’EUROPA COME MUSEO DELLE MIGRAZIONI
Future Museum of Europe as a Museum of Migrations
[by Marta Pavan, Martina Scaravati, 2013/2014]

Conceived as a response to Europe’s hybrid and transnational identity, the project reimagines the Museum of Europe as an itinerant and nomadic institution. Rather than a static monument, the museum becomes a traveling exhibition moving along the European railway network. Through everyday objects and their migratory biographies, the project explores cultural hybridization, errancy, and belonging, using design as a narrative tool to question fixed identities and redefine the museum as a dynamic space shaped by movement, exchange, and diversity.

To look inside > click here

NUOVI SPAZI DELLA MEMORIA
Two projects for the Resistance and the Liberation in Milan
[by Marco Mazzola, Alessandro Menini, 2014]

The project reflects on how memory can remain active in contemporary cities, questioning the limits of traditional commemorative forms. Through two design proposals related to the Resistance and the Liberation in Milan, it explores new spatial strategies to connect history with everyday life. Memory is treated not as a static monument, but as a living process capable of shaping collective identity and future awareness.

To look inside > click here

SUPERFICIE URBANA, RELAZIONI EFFIMERE, COSTELLAZIONE DI MICRO SPAZI
Urban surface, ephemeral relationships, constellation of micro spaces
[Alice Babini, Anna Pierotello, 2015]

An urban project focused on reactivating public space through a constellation of small-scale interventions. Developed as a site-specific strategy in Berlin, the work combines critical mapping, social matrices, and micro-scale surveys to identify underused urban surfaces. By reconfiguring selected micro-spaces through subtle spatial transformations and micro-structures, the project explores temporary relations, flows, and new forms of urban use, generating unexpected scenarios of interaction within the city.

To look inside > click here

ARCHITECTURE OF POSTPRODUCTION
A design approach based on reuse, recycling, and transformation
[by Ludovica Niero, 2014]

The thesis explores postproduction as a cultural and architectural practice, where existing materials, spaces, and ideas are reinterpreted rather than newly produced. Starting from reflections on recycling and contemporary production systems, the research investigates how architecture can operate through reuse, montage, and adaptation. The project applies this approach to the river landscape of Newcastle, reading the river as a resilient system capable of integrating change while preserving its geographic and cultural identity.

To look inside > click here

SHARED SQUARE METERS
A new paradigm for shared living in Milan
[by Laura Doardo, 2014]

Set within the context of contemporary Milanese housing, the project questions the reduction of living space to fixed typologies and predefined dimensions. By observing how media, objects, events, and human relationships increasingly shape domestic environments, the thesis explores shared living as a flexible and evolving condition rather than a stable architectural form. Through the idea of “shared square meters,” housing is reimagined as a relational system - open, adaptable, and capable of accommodating changing practices, temporalities, and collective uses beyond traditional residential models.

To look inside > click here

OLTRE IL MURO
Growth, development and value of the former Paolo Pini Psychiatric Hospital
[by Francesco Covelli, Elisabetta Martelli, July 2014]

Set within the former Paolo Pini Psychiatric Hospital in Milan, the project focuses on the shared ground that connects the many activities now inhabiting the site. Conceived as a collective and open park, this common space becomes the key element through which social, cultural, and spatial relationships are strengthened. The proposal works to dissolve physical and symbolic boundaries, weaving new connections between the interior of the complex and the surrounding city, and redefining the site as an active, inclusive landscape for the wider community.

To look inside > click here

BORDER MEMORIES
Re-enacting difficult heritage
[by Elisa Mansutti, 2013]

Set within the transnational territory of Venezia Giulia, shared by Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia, the project addresses landscapes marked by unresolved ethnic conflict. Rather than preserving memory as a static record, the thesis proposes its re-activation through architecture, engaging traces embedded in soil and geography. The work confronts forms of removal and silence surrounding traumatic histories, using spatial interventions to reopen processes of collective recollection and reinterpretation.

To look inside > click here