CUM-DIVIDO. Design paradigms for variable distance living

The sharing of collective places and moments and the instinctive distancing from the spectre of loneliness have always been living conditions pursued in both the public and private spheres. This aspect is common to different scales and contexts: starting from public spaces or public use, passing through collective housing systems and finally reaching the private dimension. The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic prompted a reassessment of the semantic, perceptual and functional dimensions of these spaces. It forced a redefinition of the boundaries between the realms of Estia and Hermes (Augè, 2008), with implications for how spaces, practices and temporalities are conceived and lived. In this transformative landscape, it becomes crucial to explore the role of architecture in preserving the existential need for togetherness, the political imperative manifested in the direct interaction of bodies in urban contests, and the pandemic-driven impulse towards distance and hostility. The central question revolves around understanding how architecture can contribute to post-pandemic reconstruction without compromising the fundamental essence of shared space. The exploration of thematic and conceptual design strategies becomes crucial. Can these strategies positively influence living practices, improve conditions and project the benefits of unrestricted living beyond the pandemic? Questioning how architecture can contribute to post-pandemic reconstruction, the research identifies four project paradigms: temporality, pulsation, reversibility and personalisation. These paradigms, considered at various scales, serve as adaptive tools capable of responding to cyclical phases of contraction and relaxation, responding promptly to danger signals, and re- establishing conditions suitable for periods of calm. The ability to induce and prefigure - amidst figurative invariants, typological hybridisations and new settings and categorisations - adaptable and polyvalent forms and spaces, also proves to be an aspect capable of satisfying contemporary needs that go beyond the contingencies of the health crisis, confirming the need for a methodological approach that absorbs and conveys broader instances, in which relations with spaces return to play a leading role in the project according to a renewed sensitivity.