Housing quality and evaluations of decision-making phases in current multiscalar and multidimensional scenarios

Social changes and “new expectations”, developments in technical knowledge, and an awareness of the importance of environmental factors are some of the determinants that give the structure of the housing system a connotation of the progressive inadequacy of customary solutions, particularly if not “inclusive” of multidimensional relations. In particular with respect to current social dynamics, indeed, an evaluation of “building quality” cannot obliterate multiscalar relations and synergies, at least up to the level of the micro-urban system. These necessary “steps of scale” validate inescapable connections in terms of the assessment and foreshadowing of the “overall” performances with regard to the latest expectations (in terms of morphology, city effect, etc.), moreover modernizing traditional assumptions and factors of “quality” in altered scenarios dense with interactions. Changes in scale, greater or smaller, also result in characteristics that are not merely spatial (or merely quantitative) but multidimensional and therefore also in need of a multidisciplinary approach. In this sense innovation aimed at seeking original solutions, in response to “new” problems, is a key device (in particular during decision-making processes), and measured according to the specificity of the project (“even” in relation to the rational, efficient and economically sustainable management of the project). Tools to assist ex-ante decisions are particularly important in planning, the latter understood as a process capable of producing social and economic development, competitiveness and the enhancement of resources. Similarly intervention processes, which in the programming phase provide for technical, economic, and managerial evaluations, represent a formal guarantee of the pursuit of quality, usefully supporting the operators and decision-making phases. Detailed evaluations, including multidimensional parameters and factors, help to define project strategies that tend to be optimal, mitigating the non-quality risks even in the current scenario connotations.