OFFICINA* is selecting contributions for the journal 2025 issues 48 and 49.
The participation in the OFFICINA* editorial project is open to professors, researchers, postdocs, PhD students, students and professionals, of every disciplinary sector.
The deadline for the draft submission of the abstract is scheduled for June 15th 2024, according to the method indicated below. Any other method of sending the proposal implies its exclusion.
Each abstract will be evaluated through a double-blind peer review procedure by two members of the OFFICINA* Scientific Committee. They will evaluate the originality of contents, the research methodology and exposition clarity. The selection results will be communicated to the participants on July 22nd 2024 by e-mail.Authors will receive useful information to proceed with the full paper subscription. The full paper will be submitted to a second procedure of double-blind peer review by the Scientific Committee of the journal.

48 – Fragile (to be released in February 2025)
Edited by Alberto Cervesato
Le Corbusier defined architecture as “the construction of a refuge” where “body, heart and thought are sheltered” (Le Corbusier, Il “Vero” sola ragione dell’architettura, 1937). Post modernity has then discovered the fragility of the great narratives - including that of the Modern - which today is translated into an awareness of the ecosystems’ fragility (Mosco, Fragilità, 2023). Thinking about a project as if its result was something fragile may be paradoxical, almost a defeat, but it is a destiny from which it is not possible to escape: we can therefore strive to coexist, collaborate and include in the design and the project this condition, which can become a resource rather than a criticality.
The 20th century has produced the architectural agenda of the 21st century: the types of artefacts that have given structure and form to the city since the end of the 19th century now stand as available and complex “objects” to be reused (La Varra, Le vestigia della città paziente, 2023). Designing a modification implies to rethink the concept of “heritage”, from an inherited good to be preserved unchanged to its broader meaning envisaging both the present use and the transmission to future generations (Andriani, Il patrimonio e l’abitare, 2010; Ashworth et al., Senses of Place: Senses of Time, 2005).
Starting from these reflections, the aim of the call is to investigate the role that the f design disciplines can take on, calling for the spreading of new theoretical horizons, as well as new devices and tools, and welcoming cross-cutting perspectives as well. Undertaking this challenge means attempting to change the canonical approach to “beauty”: as in the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, beauty will then perhaps have to do with a certain amount of imperfection, irregularity and fragility, even from an architectural, technological and environmental point of view.
Can fragile become synonymous with beauty? “Yes, if we know how to recognise it: it is beauty that will save the world” (Zagari, Sul paesaggio. Lettera aperta, 2013).
Issue 48 of OFFICINA* is dedicated to the concept of FRAGILE. The issue aims to investigate fragility from a design perspective, to highlight its critical aspects and possible opportunities, opening up an interdisciplinary debate around the following topics:
1. EPHEMERAL PROJECT
Fragility can be interpreted as temporariness and “weak design” (Branzi, Modernità debole e diffusa, 2006), i.e. an updated design attitude that places the delicate challenges and current needs in the foreground, putting the authoritativeness of the work in the background, also through ephemeral, temporary, dismountable forms (Rocca, Lo spazio smontabile, 2017), and not excluding parasitic strategies (Marini, Architettura parassita, 2008). Fragility as a new archetype: what types of shapes does the fragility take in the project?
Keywords: sustainability; new archetypes; adaptability; awareness; space-time.
2. ANTIFRAGILE PROJECT
We must work in the direction of an enabling regeneration of the architectures, cities and spaces in which we live. In the current conditions, the project is mostly presented as a process of “high maintenance” through processes of stitching, repair and reconstruction (Gregotti, Dentro l’Architettura, 1991), even of the human. Architecture as a response to fragility: how can we heal what is fragile through design?
Keywords: maintenance; care; well-being; usability; accessibility.

49 – IntelliGens (to be released in May 2025)
Edited by Antonio Magarò and Michele Marchi
Future cities are structured around a wide range of criteria: material and immaterial infrastructure, environmental issues, accessibility and inclusion, quality of mobility, level of education and governance of resources. Each of these criteria involves a humanity-centred approach - as theorized by Don Norman - that enhances the individual and communities.
Therefore, the guiding principle of the future city must be the needing profile of the “a-Gente” (a term that in Italian refers to both people and the verb to act), in other words, the community is understood as a complex dynamic system made of individuals and the relationships among them. In this regard, people evolve into agents of change, demanding participation, awareness and sharing.
Relationships among people do not disregard the context: the environment is an extension of the human being, with which is interconnected through technologies such as ubiquitous computing, internet of things and mixed reality, that include, to an increasing extent, autonomy, and artificial intelligence.
The person is at the centre of the digital transition, which will culminate in the ongoing industrial revolution through the mass diffusion of artificial intelligence. The latter is the tool at the basis of a broad interdisciplinary field aimed at accelerating the construction of elementary ecosystems for the future city, such as cells moulded to the needs of users for improving quality of life. In this sense, the most current challenge is to overcome the dichotomy between natural and artificial intelligence, in favour of a collective intelligence. The latter is the evolutionary prerequisite of communities of individuals, capable of triggering actions and relationships aimed at the bottom-up construction of the future city.
Issue 49 of OFFICINA* is dedicated to the concept of INTELLIGENS. The issue aims to investigate the topic of humanity-centred design and the future city by means of different implementations of artificial intelligence, opening an interdisciplinary debate around the following themes:
1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INNOVATIVE MODELS OF GOVERNANCE AND SERVICE DESIGN
Through theoretical and applied research, this thematic area aims to deepen the relationship between people's needs and artificial intelligence, for the purpose of understanding how the AI has improved, or can improve, people's life quality or the management of the public goods, triggering new relational dynamics and/or participatory processes.
Keywords: Governance; Participation; Common good; Humanity-Centred Design; Service Design.
2. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND SUSTAINABLE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
The thematic area aims to examine innovative paths related to the use and conservation of resources with regard to sustainable development, especially in building processes - but not only, both from a regulatory perspective and in its assumptions and outcomes.
Keywords: Resources conservation; Sustainable development; Building process; Generative design process.
3. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
This wide topic seeks to identify the variety of technologies and tools that, transferred to the field of architecture and its branches, can generate virtuous mechanisms for improving strategic and design processes, triggering innovative dynamics even between dissimilar semantic fields.
Keywords: Ubiquitous computing; Internet of things; Mixed Reality; Intelligent environments; Additive manufacturing; BIM; GIS; Parametric modelling.