Design for Age-Friendly Spaces

In the contemporary society three are the most crucial features: a) the role of the metropolitan areas–where the dichotomy public/private is totally deconstructed by digital communication opportunities; b) the constant growing of a multigenerational population–which refuse any standardization of services and products; c) the need to develop a more sustainable way of life–especially considering the relationship between human behaviours and environment rhythms . The paper reports a research project which focused on these topics in order to identified and investigated a new meaning of public. The ‘outdoor’ space has been choice as consumption context, where re-discovering a different public dimension thanks to products and services developed according to three key words: sociality, wellbeing and energy. Energy, in the outdoor context, has been linked to nature as resource in terms of sustainability and conservation. Wellbeing has been considered as mental factor connected with concept of awareness. Sociality, as a spontaneous human action, has been investigated for its possible critical points: especially the safety of living among other people.