Slow regeneration: liveable places for all

Nowadays, a big challenge is to meet the demands of the different stakeholders in order to put in practice theoretical principles concerning liveability and health, all often in limited spaces. Public space requires different approach according with social, physical, political or financial questions, which can weight in the general design not always in the same way. The important, as declared by Sauders, is that the general objective is to create public spaces which work better for people and are healthy and liveable for all. Many approaches to a liveable and healthy design can be included in what can be defined as slow regeneration. Indeed, there exist important factors which create good interactions between places with behaviours, such as: the promotion of daily activities such as walking or cycling which help people in having a healthy weight; the facilitation to easy access to healthy food; and the promotion of connected neighbourhoods and economic development. The Richard Crappsley approach to healthy design is mainly focused on streets and includes: improving both the quality of footway zones and furniture and making easier for all age people to cross the streets; making bicycle infrastructures safer and more confortable; improving environmental elements; making safer the streets; and making streets welcoming for all, improving accessibility. Beauty, quality and place identity mixed with a necessity of encounter the contemporary urban challenges are factors that have to be considered as well. Starting from this premises aim of this work, carried out in the framework of the IRISS CNR research project "Contemporary urban landscape design: place identity, happiness, liveability, health and sustainability" (with the author' s responsibility), is to illustrate how a project of slow urban regeneration can be focused on healthy design and improve the liveability of the new place. An emblematic case study - based on the results of different kinds of surveys and questionnaires to users of place - will be showed.