Open Urban Space Regeneration Strategies Based on Urban Welfare: A Project and Experiment in the San Lorenzo District in Rome, Italy

The current socio-economic dynamics and the consequences induced by the pandemic emergency have generated a reflection on the need to recover the dimension of proximity and to share resources, spaces, infrastructures, and experiences. This solicits a remodelling of the system of public open spaces, based on a resilient, adaptive model; multifunctional and linked to the temporality of the functions that spaces can accommodate. The paper deals with the issues of planning and design of public open spaces around the needs of proximity and welfare. This is achieved through collecting and systematizing state of the art concepts on the role of public space within the urban structure of the city, and the formulation of guidelines for design, deduced from an empirical application conducted on a pilot district in the city of Rome. The paper aims to suggest to policymakers and planners a new approach and a path for future research and practice in the planning and design of more sustainable and inclusive green areas and public spaces, meeting the diverse needs of citizens. We undertook this objective through the experimental application of an intervention methodology on the public space system of the San Lorenzo neighbourhood in Rome.