The refugees reception challenges: call for design

The paper focuses on reception facilities arranged by transit and arrival countries to provide adequate standard of living for needy asylum seekers and refugees. The objective is to analyze the urban and spatial dimension of reception, focusing on actual practices and how they involve the use of the built environment. An introduction describes the dimension of forced migration phenomenon and its impact at European context as “refugees crisis”. The first part concerns the right of asylum as stated by the European asylum system. The second part is dedicated to the Italian reception system and its articulation in relation to housing provision. The third part looks at the spatial dimension of reception as a critical one, focusing on architectural and urban problems related to the use of the built environment in the Italian reception system. Finally the study individuates some architectural and urban issues, related to regeneration, temporariness and social innovation, able to cope with the complexity of the theme.