The SPORT.SPAZIO.SOCIETÀ Laboratory is set up as a cell for experimentation and scientific research, in the field of architectural culture, technological design and architectural technology, within the Department of Architecture, Construction Engineering and Built Environment ( DABC) of Politecnico di Milano University. In particular, it aims to respond to the definition and application of models and tools, methods and processes, for urban and social regeneration, with particular reference to the field of sport, public space, and culture. More generally, it intends to pursue a renewed interpretation and use of the value and the space-time relationship that architecture demands today.
The general objective of the SPORT.SPACE.SOCIETY Laboratory is to establish a physical and digital platform that can constitute a permanent point of reference in the academic, research and professional world. It intends to coagulate, in the same reality, institutions and actors as an expression of policies, processes and projects, aimed at promoting innovative and contemporary models for the configuration of architecture for the community; a laboratory of analysis, meta-design action and design practice, capable of addressing urban, architectural and social regeneration policies, for a renewed culture of leisure, inclusion and health education, through reconfigured spaces for a city and a constantly evolving society.
The Laboratory will constitute a reality capable of supporting public administrations, businesses, companies involved in the processes of transformation of the territory, and the stakeholders connected to it, providing them with programmatic, procedural and planning activities, capable of establishing strategies and scientific visions/ systemic for the regeneration and innovation of space and functions for the definition of a new culture of free time. Architectures and spaces for sport, culture, health, seen in a logic of inclusiveness and ethically sustainable, but at the same time interpreted as new places that are catalysts for economic and technological development, in an international market perspective.
Specifically, the research and experimentation activities of the laboratory refer to the areas configured within the recent evolution of the relationship between collective infrastructure and the city. Among these: the entire sphere of complex and specialist constructions to which indoor and outdoor sports facilities can be attributed: those for “basic” sports practice (sports centres, gyms, swimming pools, oratories); high-performance ones such as sports infrastructures for sports events and entertainment (stadiums, arenas); public and urban spaces dedicated to social, cultural and sporting activities (city-gym, city-theater); the collective structures and architectures connected to cultural activities and responsible for psychophysical well-being. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the activities of the laboratory aim to: innovate the current methodologies of the analysis, meta-design, planning and evaluation process by means of the most objective and scientific methods of investigation and simulation – spatial and functional – by means the adoption of innovative models, recognized and validated in international contexts; subject the outputs of the design scenarios to experimentation, aimed at supporting decision-making strategies in the urban and architectural context, in a vision of the city read as a common and collective heritage.
Services offered
The SPORT.SPAZIO.SOCIETÀ Laboratory intends to offer a series of services, for clients belonging to public administration, private sector and third sector. The services offered are based on specific know-how, consolidated over the years, with reference to sports and collective structures and infrastructures. They are mainly configured as services for the analysis and development of models, databases, strategic plans and meta-project actions.
- Definition of analytical modeling and qualitative-quantitative evaluation tools specifically dedicated to the field of architecture and sports and collective infrastructures, within operations and processes of urban and social regeneration;
- Guidelines and support models for the phases of application of the strategies defined by the tools developed up to the involvement of local contexts in the planning and construction processes of sports and collective infrastructures in urban areas;
- Roadmaps and accompanying models for stakeholders involved in evaluation/decision-making processes related to the design or regeneration of sports and collective infrastructures and architectures (public administrations, managers, federations, owners, associations, representatives of the third sector, users);
- Development of innovative models for the design, construction and management process of sports and collective infrastructures;
- Elaboration of feasibility studies and strategic plans and meta-project intervention strategies for sports departments and architectures;
- Processing of documents and graphic materials relating to the aforementioned activities (analysis documents, evaluation questionnaires, feasibility study reports, strategic plans, typological, spatial, functional and technological models and diagrams, meta-project documents, renderings and photo-insertions).