"The open space of the medium-sized European city is recognized as a psychological, sociological and aesthetic high-quality space. For this reason, it can be considered a resource to consciously conserve and develop and as model for valuing the livability of the urban anthropic environment within a global strategy of sustainable development.The ARCHEA project relies on the constructive cooperation and integration of five universities, research institutes and organizations, all providing strong expertise in the field of urban studies and space quality evaluation, urban design and teaching/learning activities.During the program, the ARCHEA project developed, tested and implemented a higher-education program structured into a flexible, blended learning path on the study and design of the open space of the medium-sized European city, which combined e-learning courses (OER-MOOC) and practical, in-person activities (Intensive Programs for Learners such as Architectural Design Workshops).The ARCHEA project followed the guidelines of the new EU Modernization Agenda for Higher Education (2017) whose objectives include, in addition to the obvious goal of growing the participants’ abilities and high-quality skills in their relative field of study, an increase in the open education and innovative practices in the digital age and above all, the goal of a project which combines teaching and research, meaning that teaching and research “are mutually reinforcing.” The conceptual core of the so-called “ARCHEA method” follows a further indication of the EU Agenda: the transition from STEM to STE(A)M, i.e., integrating interest in the scientific disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math with the ""A"" of Art. This novelty involves the passage from exclusive interest in a purely technical-scientific model to a system that establishes a dual condition, in which intuition and creativity can balance the predominance of the deterministic component. The result of this reasoning was a fundamentally binary base framework, which included an Urban Theory Design course delivered online via the platform Moodle (IO2) on one hand, and the practical-creative experience of the international Architectural Design Workshops on the other (C2, C3); hence the experience of distance learning on one hand, and students’ in-person participation with the development of face-to-face activities on the other. In this binary framework divided between theory and practice, science and art, a third element was added - critical redrawing (IO1) - which shifts the ARCHEA method towards the greater complexity of a tertiary structure.The intellectual outputs produced are: IO1 – Re-drawing the open space of the medium-sized European city IO2 – ARCHEA online course - MOOC IO3 - Manual of best practices for a blended flexible training activity in architecture HEI IO4 – Scientific researchDuring the design workshops, remote interaction and critical review methods were experimented through the use of new technologies (digital pens & electronic tables). The outbreak of the pandemic forced this process to then experiment with virtual architecture exhibitions that involved both the cities under study - Bologna and Aachen - and other case studies and which were streamed on different dissemination channels (social media, websites). More than 60 students and 20 teachers from the schools of the partnership participated in the architecture workshops, as well as scholars from other national and international universities, numerous stakeholders (professionals belonging to the order of architects) and policy makers. The municipalities of Bologna and Aachen were involved in the choice of study areas and in the seminars. The collaboration with “FAmagazine. Research and projects on architecture and the city”, media partner of the project, contributed to the dissemination of the events and results of ARCHEA to more than 2,500 people in the academic world and in national and international architecture.The IO4 Scientific research, published in Open Access mode with an academic publishing house at the top of the world ranking, has allowed the diffusion of the research overseas. In addition, the book “Mapping Urban Spaces. Designing the European City” has already been adopted as a reference book in several study courses.The interdisciplinary cooperation across EU borders throughout a strategic partnership involving high education institutions and urban development stakeholders can contribute to defining the structural features of the urban space, and furthermore to improving its quality and livability with regard to some of the critical issues that have emerged in recent years."

In order to renew the ongoing ideas about the model of a sustainable city, the project proposes a research strategy based on the 3 following principles : To note, firstly that the ?urban fabric stock' currently consisting in all of the existing residential areas, is one of the most crucial work subjects : Because of its significant scale and scattering, that qualify, almost just by themselves, the whole urban spread phenomenon, which in itself, has been the most significant element of the evolution of cities over the last few decades. Because of its specific location in the centre of the aspirations and paradoxical rationales - of the inhabitants, whom, for most of them, long for individual housing forms, - of their elected representatives who mostly feel powerless in front of the global rationales responsible for the urban spread, - of the urban planners, whose community has scarcely ever taken any direct interest in the question of the evolution of residential areas. ` Because of the current moment in its life cycle, not only the durability and the evolution of the pattern of the residential areas but also the point of view of the inhabitants, indicate a growing discrepancy between, on one hand, the evolution of people's lifestyles at various stages in life, and on the other, the ability to fulfil their new needs and expectations. To consider, secondly, that most of the ?Sustainable cities' that could emerge from these residential areas, will result from continuous transformation and regeneration processes, from mutation processes, rather than from acts of ex nihilo creation : By processes of densification rather than by the creation of blocks of flats, as one can notice far too often for the construction of whole residential areas on former industrial wastelands, or on sites that had been preserved from any form of urbanisation. By processes of morphological, functional and social differentiation, rather than by planned densities, set social diversities or limited functional diversities. By processes of polarisation of economic activities, incorporation, redistribution, and relocation of the services, shops and facilities, by processes of gradual redevelopment of the transport networks rather than by the creation of artificial new central locations and the drawing of networks beforehand. To focus the research. Within the framework of this project, it will be done following a set of targeted phenomena, raising relevant issues, themselves drawing various hypotheses of precise answers : At the scale of individual plots of land. To study the opportunity and feasibility of making the capital available, represented by ownership over a detached house, by asking the owners to sell a part of their land which, once joined to corresponding part of the neighbour's land, would create a new building space. That is to say, building a house between two or next to existing houses, by dividing the land. At the scale of an area.. To apply this model to a wider range of possibilities of mutations by local iterations: division of houses into apartments, extensions and functional diversity, demolition and reconstruction, creation of new land etc. To determine to what extent an increase in the housing density would enable some shops and neighbourhood services to improve their profitability, to create a phenomenon of urban centralities, to increase the town's population, activities and income. At the scale of a town. To develop tools in order, not only to enable and increase that growth by successive stages, but also to keep it in control and direct it, so that it could be used for wider town-planning strategies of reorganising the urban territories, developing structured transportation networks, especially the ones offering alternative approaches to the use of cars. The BIMBY projects aspires to seize the opportunity to define the both complex and generic character of the theme of transformation of residential areas in order to build the theoretical and pragmatic groundwork of that truly systemic approach of urbanism. This approach is based on the creation of multi-faceted models, that recognise the generic character of the contemporary suburban urbanisation forms. This creation would be shared and co-developed by various professionals, and would be based on the principles of the systemic modelling relying on computer tools providing help to build strategies of transformation of the current urban landscapes.