The SSD – Smart Sustainable Districts project, promoted by Politecnico di Milano and coordinated by Consorzio Poliedra, started in 2021 and it involved more than 100 researchers from all the Departments and Consortia of the Politecnico (Polimi System).

The project has aimed at tackling the needs and has intented to suggest actions for the sustainable development, the ecological transition and the  enhancement of resilience of places and communities at a local scale, considering the objectives set by the UN 2030 Agenda, the Green Deal and the Recovery plan for Europe (NextGenerationEU). Moreover, the pandemic has seen the occurrence of further challenges in urban contexts, that proved to be sometimes inadequate in lockdown periods – the SSD project has aimed to find possible solutions to such challenges too. For all the reasons above, the SSD research has defined a series of paths, actions and tools to deal with urban transformations at a local scale, proposing sustainable and smart solutions.

  • The adjective Smart wants to underline the ‘intelligence’ in adopting innovative and integrated approaches, that are flexible, multidisciplinary, multilevel and also evolutionary, dynamic, incremental and replicable.
  • With Sustainable the project refers to all the social, environmental, economic aspects that contribute to reach and maintain a high quality of life, health and wellbeing in the environment and the community, considering climate change and the preservation of natural capital and, at the same time, creating social opportunities and equity for people.
  • The scale of the study (the District) was chosen because it represents the best project dimension for the administrative management and for the monitoring of the actions, considering the three dimensions (environmental, social, economic) and their consequences, both at a spatial and at a social level.

The SSD project has led to the preparation of a White Paper (in Italian), that aims to draft some practical guidelines to deal with the different phases of urban transformation during regeneration and ecological transition processes. The White Paper gathers together technical-scientific approaches with humanistic and social ones, proposing methods and solutions that work together at a different scales, considering material and immaterial assets and suggesting how to direct urban regeneration processes, coordinating different plans and proposing integrated tools.

The Pillars included in the SSD White Paper are:

  • Collaborative and active citizens
  • Social inclusion and integration
  • Resilient service systems
  • Public and private spaces quality
  • Quality of the environment and the landscape
  • Mobility
  • Energy
  • Financial models
  • Business models
  • Local economies
  • Data management and use

The SSD – Smart Sustainable Districts project aims to speak to local authorities and to all the different actors that are active in urban and districts regeneration, also considering the current policy scenario and the financial and funding instruments.

Please contact us for more information:

ssd-poliedra@polimi.it