Designing Inclusion. Redefining paradigms, categories, and methods

After more than half a century, the concepts developed by H. Lefebvre in Le Droit a la Ville are still embarrassingly valid. The rapid, sudden, and overwhelming changes that have characterised our cities and societies continue to challenge the statutes of all disciplines that deal with the urban question, from philosophy to political science, from sociology to anthropology, from geography to ecology, from architecture to urban planning. Over the last thirty years, the phenomena of social exclusion and spatial segregation (never completely resolved) have progressively worsened. Investing the global world with similar characteristics, these problems have crystallised in the physical form of cities, becoming evident in the neighbourhoods and housing estates promoted by the welfare state, in “temporary” solutions for communities and ethnic groups, seasonal workers or migrants, and in the “informal” development of peri-urban fabrics. In this framework, the proposed contribution describes some design experiences of urban regeneration developed within the Instituto de la Espacialidad Humana of the University of Buenos Aires and conducted on the popular habitat, articulating design practice and research. The exposition focuses on the methodological aspects of the experiences as occasions for the verification and redefinition of tools, categories and models of inclusive and sustainable urban planning and design, highlighting the potential of urban design practice as a tool for the empowerment of citizenship and the activation of policies.