Post-Office Turn investigates how work digitalization is reshaping the urban and architectural landscapes of Milan and Turin. The research combines urban-scale analysis with building-scale observation to understand the transformative potential of the ordinary office stock. It integrates mapping, morphological study, policy analysis, and design-based inquiry to explore how existing buildings can “learn” to become residential or hybrid spaces in response to structural shifts in work patterns. By framing adaptive reuse as both an environmental necessity and an opportunity for low-carbon urban regeneration, the project aims to contribute to contemporary debates on the future of cities and the sustainable reactivation of their built legacies.

Aims and Objectives

This research focuses on the adaptive reuse of ordinary buildings, with particular attention to office stock as a key site of transition in cities undergoing economic, social, and environmental transformation. Vacancy, obsolescence, and changing work practices make office buildings a crucial testing ground for contemporary reuse strategies.
The project investigates emptiness as both a physical condition (vacant surfaces, underperforming structures) and a systemic condition (changes in labour, policies, governance, and markets). It examines how reuse practices unfold across different scales and how design, policy, and environmental knowledge interact in shaping new transformation pathways.

Objectives:

• Detect and analyze spatial patterns of vacancy in office building stocks in Italy, with a specific focus on Turin and Milan.
• Document reuse and conversion practices, identifying technical, social, economic, and regulatory drivers in a comparative perspective.
• Connect architectural transformation with urban governance, planning frameworks, and collaborative design processes.
• Assess the environmental, social, and economic implications of reuse, with particular attention to embodied carbon, material cycles, and lifecycle performance.

Methods

The project employs a multilayered comparative framework, integrating different forms of knowledge production and representation:

• Urban data analysis to detect vacancy patterns and characterize office stocks at multiple scales.
• GIS mapping to visualize spatial distributions, morphological structures, and transformation potentials.
• On-site fieldwork to document architectural conditions, ongoing interventions, and local practices.
• Comparative architectural redrawing, focusing on typology, depth, façade systems, circulation, and spatial adaptability.
• Historical and policy research linking macro-urban narratives with building-scale transformations.
• Environmental and energy analysis, assessing embodied carbon and lifecycle implications.
• Design-based inquiry to explore adaptive reuse strategies and prototype transformation scenarios.

The methodology builds upon the Manhattan pilot study developed for the 14th São Paulo Biennale (2024–2025), which tested mapping protocols, analytical tools, and documentation methods. The Italian study will:

1. Test the transferability of these tools to metropolitan regions characterized by different governance structures, building stocks, and regulatory conditions.
2. Challenge and refine the methodology, producing a context-sensitive framework adaptable to diverse urban legacies.

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A second training module entitled ‘Protecting the Future’, organised by PoliTO per il Sociale, will illustrate theories and practices on the themes of participation and co-design.

The addressees of the initiative are young administrators, under 35 or newly appointed, and young people under 29, in order to approach active citizenship paths by reducing the gap between politics and institutions, addressing topics that aim to increase passion for the common good, public commitment, value ethics and aimed at deepening topical issues.

At the end of the cycle, FULL issues a report to summarise the themes and methods of the initiative, a charter of intentions with the motions expressed by the course participants to be submitted to the administration, and the four-episode podcast ‘Zeta’.

Course program

March 21, 2025 – Visions for a fairer future

• At OGR
• Loris Servillo, Mauro Fontana, Erica Mangione, Manuela Ronci – Polytechnic University of Turin/FULL
Presentation of the course program and objectives.
Lecture on the challenges of planning and managing contemporary cities and the importance of thinking about the city of the future in the context of the “just city,” in line with SDG 11 of the UN Agenda: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.”

March 28, 2025 – Regeneration of urban spaces & community spaces

• Presso Scuola primaria “G. Parini” – Corso Giulio Cesare 26
• Cristiana Rossignolo – Politecnico di Torino, Monica Postiglione e Anna Pratt – esperte della materia
Spazi di comunità come hub ibridi sociali-culturali.
• At the “G. Parini” Primary School – Corso Giulio Cesare 26
• Cristiana Rossignolo – Turin Polytechnic, Monica Postiglione and Anna Pratt – experts in the field
Community spaces as hybrid social-cultural hubs.
The presentation will explore the role of urban regeneration of common goods in Italy, analyzing approaches, policies, and tools available to cities and citizens. We will start from the experience of community spaces as cultural hubs, highlighting their impact on urban dynamics and social and institutional innovations. Within this framework, we will present the results of the SPAZI DI COMUNITÀ (COMMUNITY SPACES) research project, carried out in 2024 by NUVAP (Nucleo di Valutazione e Analisi per la Programmazione, Evaluation and Analysis Unit for Planning) at the Department for Territorial Cohesion of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, as part of the SI.VALUTA project. The research analyzed these practices at the national level, with a focus on significant experiences in the Turin area.

April 11, 2025 – Space justice and social justice in the transition towards fairer roads.

• At the Mollino Room of the Valentino Castle
• Gabriele D’Adda and Elisa Vitale – Polytechnic University of Turin/FULL
Reflections, starting from the “Just Streets” project, on spatial justice and social justice in the context of the transition to active and sustainable mobility and the creation of fairer streets. In order to make the transition from car-dominated streets to public spaces characterized by active mobility and a variety of uses, it is essential not only to take into account but also to prioritize the needs and visions of social groups that are often underrepresented in urban planning. A “critical walk” is planned in the pedestrianized area of San Salvario.

May 9, 2025 – Green/blue infrastructure and the environmental transition

• At OGR
• Manuela Ronci and Tymon Wolender – Polytechnic University of Turin/FULL
Strategic planning in river environments
The first part of the meeting will take the form of a lecture and will consist of a theoretical introduction, an overview of the evolution of the main planning approaches, and an in-depth analysis of international case studies, characterized by different focuses and scales of intervention.
The second part of the afternoon will be dedicated to workshop activities. Starting from a reflection on key issues in the transformation of urban river areas, related to the content of the lecture and applicable to the context of Turin, the workshop will aim to identify areas with regenerative potential and to develop macro-objectives/strategies/actions that could potentially be applied in the river areas of the city of Turin.

May 23, 2025 – Digital infrastructure

• At OGR and the nearby Energy Center
• Maria Ferrara – Polytechnic University of Turin/FULL/EST@EnergyCenter team
Digital Twin and climate city contract
The meeting aims to outline the potential offered by digital twins on an urban scale to support the design, implementation, and monitoring of sustainability policies for cities. In this regard, the European context will be analyzed, and in particular the response of pilot cities to the EU Mission “Climate Neutral and Smart Cities,” including the City of Turin. The meeting will conclude at the Decision Theater of the Energy Center of the Polytechnic University of Turin, with a demonstration of the current capabilities of the digital platform under development to support the drafting and monitoring of the Climate City Contract of the City of Turin, outlining its potential for further development and replicability in other urban contexts.

June 6, 2025 – Intangible culture – data and citizen science

• At Officine Creative (Cecchi Point)
• Sofia Fellini and Tommaso Listo, Polytechnic University of Turin/FULL
Data and citizen science
The meeting will be structured as follows: 1) a theoretical lesson on citizen science as a practice of knowledge construction and exchange between the public and institutions; 2) a visit to La Biblioteca dell’Aria, a citizen science project based at Officine Creative; 3) a workshop activity, in which participants will be asked to work in small groups and propose a possible citizen science project on issues relevant to their local areas, to be discussed collectively.

June 13, 2025 – Young people and public engagement

• At OGR
• Loris Servillo, Mauro Fontana, Erica Mangione, Manuela Ronci – Politecnico di Torino/FULL
Final lesson in which participants are guided through a review of the course content, with the aim of presenting their images of the city of the future through two in-person activities:
• Drafting a letter of intent to be presented to the City of Turin
• The creation of an informative podcast together with a radio communication expert

PROTECTING THE FUTURE – curated by PoliTO for Social Issues

June 19, 2025 – Theories and practices on participation and co-design
• At Castello del Valentino or online

June 26, 2025 – Practical workshop on participation and co-design
• At Valentino Castle

The post Challenges for the contemporary city appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

Specifically, this paper takes Nanjing Xiaoxihu Historic Block as the core case and proposes the Cross-Scale Topological Network Model to construct a multi-level spatial structure covering street nodes, front-door spaces, courtyard nodes and functional room nodes.System.Through historical data analysis and field reconstruction, we recovered six morphological stages of six representative plots (Plots 1-6) of Xiaoxihu from 1930s to 2010s, and accordingly drew cross-scale network topology maps and J-Graph maps to quantify their structural depth, node coupling relationships and link path changes.

Based on this, this paper proposes Structure Evolution Degree (SED), which measures the evolution of the network in time series from three dimensions: node type variation, path depth perturbation and spatial function reorganization.Instead of relying on the field-of-view analysis, SED is based on the graph structural features to capture the “structural tension” of the urban evolution process.Instead of relying on visual field analysis, SED is based on graph structural features to capture the “structural tension” and “systematic rupture” in the urban evolution process.

In order to further explain the social mechanism behind the spatial evolution, this paper introduces the Multi-layered Graph Framework, which constructs a triangular structural model consisting of Urban Morphology Layer, Interaction Layer and Social Behavior Layer, and identifies the social mechanisms behind the spatial evolution.We introduce the Multi-layered Graph Framework to construct a triangular structural model consisting of “Urban Morphology Layer”, “Interaction Layer”, and “Social Behavior Layer”, to identify the “Key Subgraphs” generated by the social forces embedded in the spatial structure, and to systematically develop the analysis of the “Urban Morphology Layer” and the “Social Behavior Layer”. The study identifies the “Key Subgraphs” generated by the embedding of social forces in the spatial structure, and systematically develops a social mapping explanation of “how space changes”.

On the theoretical level, the study integrates Lefebvre’s theory of “spatial production”, Bourdieu’s theory of “Habitus and field” and Foucault’s “spatial mechanism of power” to construct a graph structure to explain the encoding paths of institutional regulation, residents’ habitus and community negotiation in the nodal space.The mechanism analysis of Plot 3 and Plot 5 shows that the spatial reconstruction process of Xiaoxihu presents a hybrid system of mechanisms consisting of Permanence, Variation and Permutation, and its evolution is not linear, but rather consists of multiple social mechanisms focusing on the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door, the space in front of the door and the space in front of the door.social mechanisms focused on nodes such as front-door space, courtyard junction, and functional room paths, forming structural responses in the topological map.

At the methodological level, this study bridges the path break between typological and structuralist approaches, and proposes a graph structural system that can be used for spatial transformation analysis, social mechanism identification and design strategy prediction, which serves both micro-node analysis and has the potential to be translated to machine learning (e.g., graph neural network) models.

At the empirical level, the study reconstructs the topological mapping of Xiaoxihu Block at six stages, and analyzes the SED trend, P/V/P type and key sub-maps of typical plots against each other to reveal the topological responses of residents’ behavior, property rights transfer and institutional intervention in the spatial structure, providing concrete paths to understand how the “Reality” is generated and identified in the spatial hierarchy.This provides a concrete path for understanding how “social reality” is generated and recognized in the spatial hierarchy.

In summary, the methodology system of “cross-scale graph structure + social mechanism modeling” proposed in this paper not only expands the toolbox of urban morphology research, but also provides the theoretical foundation and technical framework for the identification of spatial strategies and expression of negotiation mechanisms in the future scenarios of community governance, urban regeneration, participatory design, and morphology intelligent generation.

The post Mathematics of urban morphology appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

PROGRAM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

Participation is free of charge, subject to availability.

Period: March – June 2025
Format: Online and/or in person
Duration: 9 sessions, each lasting 3 hours
Places available: 15 young people aged between 20 and 29 + 15 local administrators under 35 or newly appointed
Venue: OGR Tech and other locations (see program below)

Credits: Students enrolled in Architecture, Design, Environmental and Land Engineering, Planning, and Urban Design courses at the Polytechnic University of Turin who complete the program can earn 2 credits, subject to participation in the meetings and production of the required assignments.

info: full@polito.it

As part of the “Zeta lab” project, promoted by the City of Turin and funded by the Piedmont Region, FULL is delivering seven workshops in a training module called “Imagining the future.” The aim is to promote the acquisition and deepening of knowledge on issues related to the practice of good and sustainable administration of the common good and the methods and strategies, including innovative ones, for implementing public service policies and actions, improving their nature and quality. The training is practical and experiential in nature and will be held both in the classroom and “in the field,” at sites undergoing urban experimentation or at cutting-edge monitoring and management platforms.

A second training module entitled “Protecting the Future,” organized by PoliTO per il Sociale, will illustrate theories and practices on the topics of participation and co-design.

The initiative is aimed at young administrators under the age of 35 or newly appointed administrators and young people under the age of 29, with the aim of encouraging active citizenship by reducing the gap between politics and institutions, addressing issues that aim to increase passion for the common good, public commitment, ethical values, and focusing on highly topical issues.

PLEASE NOTE – It will be possible to follow the meetings remotely, but given the experiential nature of the course, it is strongly recommended to participate in person, particularly for the meetings on April 11, May 23, June 6, and June 26.

Training course dedicated to YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER THE AGE OF 29 interested in issues of active citizenship and urban transformation. Through workshops, lectures, and practical activities, participants will explore the main challenges facing contemporary cities, with a particular focus on ecological, digital, and social transition.

The post Challenges for the contemporary city appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

What defines cities today is the paradoxical co-existence of often invisible threads of ecological fragility and social vulnerability, on one hand, and the conspicuous and rapid high-tech urban developments (smart technologies, AI-driven planning, IT infrastructures), on the other.
The agenda of the Invisible Cities Lab at Politecnico di Torino is motivated by the desire to trace the entanglement of technological, urban, and ecological networks that define the current conditions in cities and thus to unpack design and urban planning process in their complex social ecologies.

The event is organized by the DAD department, and session 1—The Ecological Crisis and the Practice of Architects—features a discussant who collaborates with FULL in all three cases.

The post Fragile Cities appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

The emergence of urban morphology as a distinct strand within architectural literature, focusing on core components like streets, buildings, and blocks, sets the context for this study. Among these elements, urban blocks hold a pivotal role due to their central position and interactions with other components. This research concentrates on urban blocks, specifically focusing on their detection and classification using machine learning techniques. It delves into the interplay between urban morphology and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to integrate these fields to gain deeper insights into urban form elements.

In addition to the introductory chapter, this study is organized into three distinct parts, each with a specific focus and set of objectives. The first part is devoted to developing a theoretical framework on the mapping of urban morphology in relation to AI applications, emphasizing the contemporary shift towards quantitative and data-driven approaches in analysing urban form. This part delves into the quantification of urban form, the role of data-driven studies in urban analysis, and the critical impact of AI and remote sensing technologies in this field. It also presents a comprehensive review of various definitions found in the literature and introduces a novel, systematic approach for defining this concept. This part includes chapters 1 and 2.

The second part, representing the core of the thesis, centres on the model application, offering a detailed workflow, analytical framework, and insights into the extraction process, delving into the detailed application of a model incorporating deep learning on exemplifying urban block detection and classification. This part includes chapter 3.

The final part focuses on the practical application of the method developed in this study. It delves into the urban block classification, analysing the results derived from applying the model in different cities. This section examines the use of predefined metrics, conducts comparative analyses of clusters both within and across cities, and extends into the taxonomic comparison of two approaches, the conventional method, where blocks are defined based on their constituent elements (streets, plots, buildings) and classified based on their shape and size and the AI-driven approach. Additionally, it includes a thorough discussion on the feasibility and implications of this approach, thereby offering valuable insights into the future intersection of urban morphology and machine learning. This part includes chapters 4 and 5.

This research leverages high-resolution satellite imagery, capturing an extensive and diverse spectrum of urban forms from cities across Europe, America, and Asia. These images are accurately labelled to create a training dataset, an indispensable element in machine learning applications. In fact, the premise of supervised machine learning lies in training a model on a subset of data for which the variables of interest, those to be predicted, are known. In this study, the training dataset comprises a large collection of urban form images, with the urban block, the primary variable of interest, explicitly identified and marked by the researcher. Once the model ‘learns’ from this set of data, it can be used to make predictions on the presence or absence of urban blocks in previously unseen data, where the variable of interest is initially unknown.

The outcomes of this study delineate a comprehensive path for urban researchers to detect and classify urban forms. The results include the development of a taxonomy and a detailed analysis of its indicators, grounded in relevant literature. Beyond its conceptual contributions, the preliminary findings offer a glimpse into the outcomes of training and the evaluation of the supervised machine learning model utilized for the prediction and classification of urban blocks. This research marks a significant advancement in the integration of AI and machine learning techniques with urban morphology practices, laying the groundwork for a novel trajectory in future studies at this intersection. The study not only contributes to theoretical frameworks but also provides practical insights, exemplifying the potential of advanced technologies in reshaping urban research methodologies.

The post A comprehensive methodology for detecting, classifying and comparing urban blocks with Artificial Intelligence appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

10 April – SMART MOBILITY

with P. Deflorio, M. Rapelli, F. Arneodo (CTO of 5T)

11 April – ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

with M. Filippi, E. Fabrizio, M. Capozzoli, D. Truffo (Head of BD&T AirZone Italy)

12 April – CONNECTIVITY

with P. Giaccone, M. Boldi (TIM), M. Augus (TIM), A. Basso (MiTO Tech)

The post Three meetings on the theme of “Smart Cities” appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

Turin, with its ToMove project, has been selected for the realisation of a Living Lab aimed at promoting the co-development and testing of new scenarios and solutions for autonomous, connected and cooperative mobility (so-called CCAM technologies) in close relation with the MaaS services that will be developed in parallel within the ‘TorinoMaaS4Italy’ project.

The project is funded by the Department for Digital Transformation as part of the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) and is coordinated by the City of Turin in collaboration with UniTO, PoliTO and local actors such as 5T and Links.

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Conceived to accompany Biennale Tecnologia 2024 with the intention of depicting a series of realist utopias, the exhibition brings together emblematic images that suggest various possible futures. The narrative crosses many fields of knowledge, thanks to the now permeable boundaries between scientific and humanistic disciplines, in order to interweave the reconstruction of the past, the description of the present and the imagination of potential scenarios to come.

There are four paths, complementary and never alternative, each identified by a keyword characterising a potential definition of the future: ecological, productive, digital, accessible. Along these paths are presented investigations and proposals, intuitions and good practices on which polytechnic research is confronting in order to sift through hypotheses and find solutions that, every day more and more, succeed in designing and building scenarios where nature, technology and society find peaceful, inclusive, equitable and sustainable ways of living together.

The exploration of such futures cannot be constrained in unambiguous trajectories, but must be able to rely on the ability to make logical, geographical and temporal leaps that are often very significant. Visiting does not allow for reassuring positions, consolidated on commonplaces, but rather invites one to open one’s mind to horizons that are always new, different, unexplored, sometimes still completely unknown. This can only happen if one considers the presence of the one red thread that guides the visitor through the tour, given by the strategic role that research plays, inside and outside the universities. Polytechnic cultures create and/or face new challenges on a daily basis, destined to produce realities that today can often only be guessed at.

A protagonist on the international academic scene, the Politecnico di Torino draws on the knowledge and experience of scholars and scholars who live day-to-day in teaching, research and technology transfer, to be represented here through evocative images that highlight the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach of a university that is increasingly sensitive to seizing opportunities, developing knowledge, building techniques and governing advanced processes.

Link to the Biennale website

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With Luca Vergano, innovation and design strategist.

The post The city as Interface. appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.