Verso lo spazio libero: dalla piazza configurata ai nuovi luoghi di incontro

To what extent does public space design affect the behaviour of people living in the city? What is the balance between design and the free use of a loose and unconfigured space? Can we still talk about spaces dedicated to a specific function? This work is a reflection on the new forms of living in the public space of the contemporary city, and on the evolution of meeting places following the expansion of the metropolises and the new social phenomena taking place, including mass tourism and migratory pressures. The concept of “square” as it was understood in past centuries, has now been overcome by an idea of free, fluid and elastic space, with which people have tried to respond to the need for aggregation and identity that the newly configured spaces can no longer reflect. In this paper, we reflect on the possibility of deepening the analysis of his new “informal” public spaces through a research that, starting from the Roman territory, goes to identify, map and categorize these realities, in order to develop an awareness to find the tools for the design of contemporary public space, in order to meet the needs of modern society.