The Measurable and the Real Quality of Life in the City. Urban regeneration as a technological correlation of resources, spaces and inhabitants

Abstract

This essay looks at urban regeneration beginning from the notion of the exclusive qualities of the contemporary city: selective, closed, introspective, and inaccessible. Focusing on the tactical/metadesign phase of the urban regeneration process and referring to the paradigms of resilience and bio-psycho-social inclusion, the paper proposes a technological design vision to recompose the qualities of the ‘common good’ known as the city into an inclusive, open, communicative and accessible reality. Operating through technological-environmental interfaces and need-based/ enabling macro-requirements, the paper considers the urban system as an inhabitable organism characterised by differences, tensions and balances between the apparatuses of the city, within a matrix of widespread quality.