Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

As part of the activities of the national research project PRIN2022 “ESCAPES – Experimental Spatial Solutions for the Sustainable Management of Remote Work and Family Care”, Carespaces is a workshop which aims to analyse the sustainability, for workers, of the impacts of agile work on the physical space of the city, workplaces, and domestic environment. This contribution focuses on the design experience developed in February 2025, involving students from the Politecnico di Milano (Architecture and Design) and the University of Cagliari (Architecture and Sociology). The main goal was to explore the transformation of the ground floors of two existing buildings – one in Milan and one in Cagliari – into Carespaces: new shared environments integrated at the neighborhood scale, capable of responding to emerging needs for care, work, and social interaction. The choice to intervene at the ground floor level is not incidental but strategic. Ground floors, often overlooked or underused in existing residential or mixed-use buildings, represent a crucial threshold between the private and public spheres. They are transitional spaces with the potential to activate new forms of proximity and community life, especially in dense urban areas where the need for flexible and accessible environments is growing. Reclaiming these levels as places for shared functions – such as remote work, caregiving, or neighborhood services – means reimagining them as connective tissues within the urban fabric. By working with existing buildings, the project also requires students to approach the broader theme of adaptive reuse and spatial resilience, proposing sustainable, low-impact interventions that enhance the social infrastructure without consuming additional land. The transformation of ground floors into Carespaces thus becomes a design strategy that reconnects domesticity and urbanity, offering inclusive, multifunctional spaces that respond to the complexity of contemporary life.