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News and events promoted by CRAFT and our partners

RESEARCH, TRAINING AND COMPETENCES FOR ANTI-FRAGILE TERRITORIES / A PERMANENT OBSERVATORY / AN ACCELERATOR FOR INNOVATION AND SUPPORT TO PUBLIC ACTION

RESEARCH, TRAINING AND COMPETENCES FOR ANTI-FRAGILE TERRITORIES / A PERMANENT OBSERVATORY / AN ACCELERATOR FOR INNOVATION AND SUPPORT TO PUBLIC ACTION

Work streams

Our generative spaces of ideas, projects and collaboration

The Competence Centre works on the development of methodologies and design approaches that help public administrations to make the most of uncertainty, complexity, fragmentation and to build enabling conditions.

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A space for debate and public discussion on territorial transformation processes, fragility and the means to activate antifragile resources.

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A hub of national and international relations and strategic alliances aimed at building stable and qualified research networks and open and collaborative production of research.

In Focus

Insights and recommended readings

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The Space of Inequality

As the 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition Inequalities approaches its conclusion, CRAFT and the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) invite international scholars, policymakers, and city representatives to a day of dialogue and reflection. The Space of Inequality, organized in collaboration with Milano MetroHUB Center and the UN-Habitat MetroHUB program, will take place on October 31, 2025, on the occasion of World Urban Day, the annual celebration dedicated by the United Nations to the role of cities in sustainable development. The conference will explore the many dimensions of inequality through four Urban Dialogues:  1 — Socio-environmental and climate inequalities How do environmental crises translate into social injustices? The first dialogue, coordinated by Farah Makki and Gloria Pessina, connects global and local perspectives to address climate inequality. With the contributions of Lyla Mehta (University of Sussex), Sarine Karajerjian (Arab Reform Initiative), and Valentin Bayiri (City of Ouagadougou), the session explores how environmental degradation and resource scarcity generate new forms of exclusion—and how cities can build resilience and justice through their responses.   2 — Mobility, migration and inequalities Mobility shapes access to opportunities, yet it can also be a site of exclusion. Coordinated by Paola Pucci and Giovanni Lanza, this dialogue will bring together Eda Beyazit Ince (University of Bristol), Martina Tazzioli (University of Bologna), and Cemil Arslan (Marmara Urban Union). Through their diverse experiences, the discussion will unfold around a key idea: mobility is not only about movement, but about the capacity to connect—to resources, services, and rights. Rethinking mobility through equity means reimagining how territories are planned and governed.   3 — Equity challenges of the digital transition The digital transition is reshaping how we live, work, and govern cities. But can innovation be inclusive? Coordinated by Mara Tanelli and Grazia Concilio, this panel will engage Oren Yiftachel (UCL), Layla Pavone (Municipality of Milan), and Oriol Illa (Barcelona Metropolitan Area) in a discussion on the social side of digitalization. They will reflect on how cities can turn technology into a common good—one that expands participation and access instead of deepening existing divides.   4 — Citizenship rights and urban services Access to services is one of the most tangible expressions of citizenship. In this dialogue, coordinated by Maryam Karimi and Marco Peverini, Claudia López, Sheela Patel, Teresa Sordé Martí, and Stephanie Loose will offer their perspectives from different global contexts. Their discussion will focus on housing, education, and welfare as crucial arenas where inequalities are reproduced or challenged every day. How can cities make rights visible, accessible, and real for all? A concluding roundtable Contrasting Inequalities: the role of cities and metropolitan areas, moderated by Valeria Fedeli and Antonella Contin, will open with a message from Stefano Boeri, President of Triennale Milano, and will feature representatives of UN-Habitat, EUROCITIES, METREX, ANCI, and Housing Europe. Together, they will discuss the evolving role of cities and metropolitan areas in confronting inequalities—from local initiatives to global agendas, from social innovation to institutional reform. Designed as an open conversation between research and practice, the event reflects CRAFT’s method: creating spaces where knowledge and action meet, where territorial challenges become opportunities for shared learning. The Space of Inequality stems from DAStU and CRAFT’s contribution to the 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition. Our researchers proposed a collective reading of inequalities from a territorial perspective. Key themes and issues are represented at two interconnected scales and through two complementary materials. An immersive installation of three short films gathers testimonies from international experts to illustrate environmental, mobility, and housing inequalities at the global level. At the same time, a physical model of the Milan metropolitan area, accompanied by the projection of maps and data, brings the discussion closer to home, showing how these same dynamics take shape in the local urban context. Through this dual representation—global narratives and metropolitan evidence—CRAFT and DAStU turn research into an experiential form of storytelling, making inequalities tangible and visible, and highlighting how cities can learn from their own fragilities to build shared generative learning supporting actual inclusion.   The exhibition is open until November 9, 2025
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Open School

Spaces for learning and experimentation

#enablingMarginalTerritories

Summer School of the Laboratorio del Cammino 2025

ENABLE MADONIE is the eighth edition of the itinerant Summer School promoted by the Laboratorio del Cammino (LdC), an inter-university network of researchers that develops research and teaching projects aimed at exploring the possibilities of walking in urban planning and design. The goal of this eighth edition is to understand how walking, seeing, listening, and slowly and deeply entering places are essential practices for cultivating an “alternative gaze” on inner peripheral areas—one capable of going beyond statistical normalization and stereotypes about “peripherality”. Accompanied by professors, researchers, residents, and local actors, students will be guided to produce a place-based knowledge that is situated, plural, and co-produced in the Inner Area of the Madonie. This will involve hybridizing methodologies and forms of knowledge to critically and constructively reflect on new forms of interaction between humans and nature unfolding along the mountain ridge. Through the lens of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES), participants will be encouraged to explore the values that connect people and nature within the area’s socio-ecological system. They will produce both relevant technical descriptions and conceptual maps of space in relational terms—highlighting conflicts and resistances, assembling data and perceptions, fragments and ferments of transformation.   The Summer School will take place from August 25 to September 4, 2025, and will consist of a walking journey across the territory, starting from Geraci Siculo and arriving in Cefalù (Palermo). A path from the "bone lands" of the Madonie hinterland to the "flesh territories" (Rossi Doria, 1958) of the Tyrrhenian coast, where participants will experience that “descending history” (Calvino, 1946) which has marginalized mountain-rural areas—bringing into question both the prevailing economic-cultural model and the alternative imaginaries produced along the route.   To apply, please send by Friday, June 6, 2025 an academic CV, a motivation letter, and two projects representative of your academic carrier, to the following email address: laboratoriodelcammino@gmail.com.
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Milano MetroHUB Centre

Politecnico di Milano and UnHabitat for metropolitan challenges

#craftinAction

Milano MetroHUB Centre on Metropolitan Dynamics

Milano MetroHUB Centre on Metropolitan Dynamics is an initiative of Politecnico di Milano and CRAFT (Competence Center Anti-fragilieTerritories) in collaboration with UN-Habitat, . Milano MetroHUB Centre focuses on addressing the complex challenges of urbanisation and leveraging metropolitan areas' potential as engines of sustainable development and human prosperity. The collaboration seeks to develop innovative solutions through knowledge exchange, research, and collaboration. Our mission The Centre's mission is to focus on three main interconnected goals: 1) Metropolitan learning circle and high-level education and training: Design and deliver new tailored learning spaces and tools open to master students, civil servants, experts, policymakers  2) Science for/in metropolitan diplomacy: Contribute to making visible the new metropolitan dimension of the urban and its implications in the research and policy arenas involved in urban transitions while collaborating with international networks working on metropolitan subjects. 3) Metropolitan research and practice interface/ pilot projects: Promote and support innovative research projects inspired by critical theory and interested in addressing operative policy questions and problems by promoting design spaces generated at the intersection of academics, policymakers, and civil servants. What we can offer: • We provide specialised research, capacity building, and consultancy expertise for metropolitan cities and city-regions, focusing on trans-scalar processes, the role of urban design and planning, new built form types of metropolitan architecture, urbanity through collective landscapes rethinking urban borders.  • We offer a trans-disciplinary, design-oriented and place-based approach oriented to social impact.  • We share networks and relationships. • We can provide low-cost or pro-bono input to local authorities across the world.
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Ampère 20

Our multipurpose headquarters

CRAFT's headquarters are located in Milan, via Ampere 20. It is a complex multifunctional space where higher education training, applied research and outreach come together and integrate. A building part of the university campus but open on/to the city, fueling continuous and open interaction between the university and society.

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