Accelerating Innovations. Wellbeing and Requalification of School Buildings after the Pandemic. Towards a “New Extraordinary”

The lockdown caused by the COVID-19 emergency has emphasised why the school is a physical realm of learning spaces influencing cognitive, emotional and affective relationships that cannot be surrogated by distance learning technologies Besides, the subsequent need of physical distancing has highlighted the lack of resilience of Italian school buildings Given that Health is not only safety but also wellbeing, the quality of spaces is crucial for learning, wellbeing and inspiring behaviours Yet, the pre-pandemic “ordinary” of school buildings and debate in Italy was marked by endemic inadequacies and cliches respectively, which are discussed by the paper in relation to their poor resilience to physical distancing and on the base of the fieldwork conducted for Milan Municipality Considering the new requirements of health measures as a potential accelerating factor, the authors delineate new principles of spatial setting and adaptive strategies for school buildings’ resilience to meet the new requirements while overcoming the endemic need of innovation and requalification of Italian schools, moving towards a ‘new extraordinary’ © 2020 Festival Architettura Edizioni All rights reserved