Pamphlet 05. The Caring city. Thinking, Learning from and Designing to Care

The Design Laboratory of the Contemporary City questions the ideas, principles and strategies for designing a Caring City. Firstly emerged during the late ’90 and informed by the gender perspective, the paradigm of the Caring City – understood as the spatial dimension of everyday collective practices of caring – gained a renewed attention during the irruption of the pandemic crisis. Rethinking contemporary cities from the perspective of care seems relevant to face urgent societal challenges by design, according to the principles of spatial justice and social and environmental sustainability. What is the spatiality of collective caring? How do we design it? The exhibition showcases the Laboratory’s design experimentation in the neighbourhood of Campagnuzza and Sant’Andrea/Štandrež in Gorizia. Three sections structure the exhibition, highlighting the Laboratory’s teaching method and process. The first section Thinking displays the theoretical discourse around care and the city. The second section Learning from shows the students’ re-drawing exercises, collecting urban design case studies. The third section Designing exhibits the design projects for the Caring City. The students’ design interpretation of care focused on three design cores to shape a Caring City, enhancing communities’ well-being and collective living experience, leaving no one behind. These include a generous spatial quality of open public space, a diffused and porous system of collective social infrastructure and an active and sustainable mobility network. Rather than focusing on the individual results, the exhibition offers a multifaceted understanding of the process of systemic inquiry and design synthesis, forming the Laboratory’s collective discourse and design practice of caring.