Since 2020, the rapid expansion of remote and hybrid work has profoundly reshaped office markets worldwide, accelerating vacancy trends and compelling cities to rethink the role of central business districts. The decline of demand for traditional workspaces intersects with growing pressures on housing supply and evolving environmental commitments, prompting renewed interest in adaptive reuse as a strategic tool for urban transformation.
Northern Italy — particularly the metropolitan regions of Milan and Turin — mirrors these global dynamics while exhibiting specific territorial trajectories. Both cities display increasing segments of underused office stock, much of it built between the 1960s and 1990s and now struggling to respond to contemporary spatial, environmental, and technological requirements. At the same time, housing demand continues to rise, intensifying the mismatch between unused commercial surfaces and unmet residential needs.
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:
- Test the transferability of these tools to metropolitan regions characterized by different governance structures, building stocks, and regulatory conditions.
- Challenge and refine the methodology, producing a context-sensitive framework adaptable to diverse urban legacies.
