Sidewalk Cafe: Analysis of Safe Solutions for Customers

Faced with the epidemiological situation we have been living with in the last two years and which has necessarily limited and modified our daily habits, the working group focused on how urban spaces can respond to changing needs. Specifically, think of the catering activities that after the succession of closures during the imposed lockdowns, during the reopening phases cannot meet the demands of the changed needs, above all because it does not have open spaces. This criticality is even more felt in an urban environment, where the conversion of public land into "commercial" spaces is difficult if not in some cases not applicable, precisely due to the lack of available spaces. However, in many Italian situations, the municipal administrations, in order to meet the needs of restaurateurs penalized by these circumstances, have, notwithstanding the regulations of public land concessions, offered in concession spaces on the carriageways, converting in some cases parking stalls into refreshment areas. This solution, despite having solved the problem of those activities that only indoor spaces in the best of conditions must give up a percentage of the capacity of customers, poses two problems: the first is in safety, since the solutions adopted are exposed to vehicular traffic , the second the fluidity of pedestrian passages. This is the scenario on which the research group carried out a study by examining the contingent situation in the reality of the Sardinian capital city, Cagliari, evaluating alternative and definitive solutions for the redevelopment of urban spaces