Design for Emergency: Inclusive Housing Solution

Abstract

The paper describes a study on the growing emergency of homelessness, of which alarming data are estimated at national and European levels and which the Cohesion policies of the European Community are addressing. Thanks to the recent launch of the Collaboration Platform on Homelessness to stimulate dialog, improve data collection and monitoring and strengthen cooperation between all actors involved in the fight against the phenomenon. The emerging concept of ‘Design for Emergency’ highlights the historical link between temporary and emergency living regarding the welfare and health implications of the weak. The aim is twofold: to define a theoretical and design model that can be repeated, contributing on the one hand to a process of social reintegration for fragile realities and on the other to the circularity of construction processes and the recovery of resources and components, through innovative housing solutions, with characteristics of modularity, disassembly and dry connections. The results, deriving from a deductive scalar methodological approach, concern: (i) data collection is inherent to the issues addressed, the emergency conditions; (ii) a critical analysis of the data acquired and systematized; (iii) methodological and design experimentation. The research hopes for repeatable results in diverse marginal contexts, respecting the disparate needs not only of the users but of the place where the temporary installation will be needed. This is an aspect in which the intervention of the municipal administrations and all possible stakeholders involved is fundamental and which at the moment may represent a limitation, albeit a surmountable one of the research.