What Happened to Empty Buildings and Homeless Youths?

Burning issues of homes, houses, cities, and their dwellers – of specific age groups – have, in various ways and with varying effects, been buried in their lives, experiences, and languages. Whilst rarely, both radical and moderate voices of the dwellers could be heard, these burning issues, quite often, emerged through the insights of a single-handed critic, a policymaker, a group, and/or groups of minds in urban and architectural discourses. All of them, however, stimulated discussions that may have gone on for years and then gradually faded from sight, only to appear again after decades and/or centuries. Two striking examples of these burning issues have been the prevalence of existing empty buildings in European cities and the challenge of youth homelessness. And perhaps not surprisingly enough, 2025 has been designated as a year of youth for several major international institutions, while a European Citizens Initiative aiming to propose bottom-up new and/or improved European Union laws and legislation that had created incentives priorotasing renovation and adaptation of existing empty buildings has been launched. Drawing on this, the works presented within this symposium explore youth homelessness and existing empty buildings through different practices of knowledge creation. Moving across disciplines and timeframes might offer a way to disrupt the narrative of fixity, thereby yielding new insights into policymaking and social, urban, and architectural processes.

Relatori: Anita De Franco, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies and University of Pavia, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture; Josiane Schmidt, ETH, station+ and HouseEurope!; Davide Landi, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies; Gianluca Gatta, Università degli Studi di Milano Statale, Department of International, Legal and Historical-Political Studies.

Responsabili: Davide Landi, Carolina Pacchi

Contatti: davide.landi@polimi.it