Un modello integrato di accoglienza come strumento per la rigenerazione urbana. Il centro storico di Sassari

Despite its historical and cultural values and its central position, the old town center of the city of Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) should be considered as a deprived urban area. In fact, the neighborhood is affected by the presence of a multiple contribut- ing factors which tend to combine with others to create a vicious cycle of social/spatial segregation: physical decay, inade- quate urban services, urban poverty, depopulation, many people - mainly immigrants - that experience housing issues, and the presence of a significant amount of abandoned buildings and spaces. The paper illustrates the results of a research project aiming at defining an innovative Plan for the old town center of the city of Sassari. The Plan mainly focuses on those issues that significantly foster this vicious cycle of marginalization and that, at the same time, could be addressed through planning and design: among these, the presence of a significant amount of abandoned buildings and spaces is the most relevant problem. The size of this unused building stock and the number of ne- glected extra-small spaces is rapidly increasing. A real and long-lasting solution is needed to reverse this trend. The Plan, and in particular its guidelines for designing policies and projects for social and collaborative housing, will significantly contribute to this purpose.