Milano Urban Campus

RESPONSE

We started by benchmarking Milan against international talent hubs competing for talent. Milan’s talent ecosystem is rich but because of the low number of English-taught programmes is not very accessible and spatially disconnected from the urban fabric of the city. Blossity curated a number of best practices in the space of university-led urban regeneration, international branch campuses, and talent-oriented city branding.

We then brought together a powerful coalition around the concept of the ‘urban campus’. The urban campus places the university at the centre of urban regeneration, leveraging the power of talent as a catalyst for transformation. We challenged the coalition with a few ‘What-if’ questions: What if innovation becomes the norm and learning an essential part of our ‘working’ life? What if future skills in a changing labour market require life-long learning? What if Città Studi would function like the MIT of Italy? What if the Parsons School of Design would open a branch campus in the army barracks of Milan Lambrate? What if we develop ‘negative zoning’ describing what a plot should not become?

Finally, we used our futuring methodology and co-created a framework for Milan as a city-wide talent ecosystem. This became a guide for the three urban campuses, rooting them functionally in the Milanese ecosystem. In a series of hands-on workshops, we then formulated spatial scenarios for Porta Romana, Scalo Farini, and the connection between Città Studi and Lambrate. These scenarios were translated into a set of tangible strategies and policy recommendations on city branding, urbanism, and public-private investment.

THE IMPACT