After the success of the first edition in 2024, Utopian Hours – the international festival of city making and urban innovation by Stratosferica – returns to Milan.
On 29th May 2025 from 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, high-level international speakers and Italian innovators will talk about a new way of making cities between accessible housing, placemaking, open source construction and transitional uses.
Milan, a reference city in Italy for the debate on the urban future, is hosting a rich programme, punctuated by prominent international names such as Sam Rosenzweig of the non-profit association Communa.
Communa is building a European network of transitional uses for social purposes. By mapping the heritage of unused buildings in Europe, the agency promotes innovative models and practices to reactivate places and put them at the service of local communities, third sector entities and civic organisations.
The building of the future is open source, low emission and energy efficient. Taking advantage of digital-manufacturing, WikiHouse – represented at Utopian Hours by Mel Esquerre – makes advanced construction technologies with a reduced environmental impact accessible. An open design model that, using sustainable materials and AI, realises housing units while reducing time, costs and environmental impact.
Jette Hopp will represent Snøhetta, one of the most influential names on the international architecture and urban design scene. With its work over the past decades, the practice has redefined the way we think about public spaces by integrating architecture, landscape and innovation in a multidisciplinary approach to city design. Snøhetta imagines open, accessible places where design and sustainability become tools for creating meaningful relationships between people, territories and communities.
The programme of the event includes DEEP DIVE / Progettare sperimentando, an in-depth discussion dedicated to the theme of transitory uses curated together with Fondazione Cariplo and KCity to reconstruct the three-year journey of the call Spazi in trasformazione. Talks, debates and dialogues in which the stages of the call will be retraced, delving into the innovative method of the eleven projects implemented in Lombardy and Verbano Cusio Ossola.
The No Need to Leave: Affordable Milan panel – with the participation of Lombardini22 – proposes a constructive burst of optimism. Starting from virtuous experiences in Europe and in Milan – where Lombardini22 itself is experimenting with new approaches to remedy the problem – a multi-voice panel will recount concrete solutions and scalable models to counter a phenomenon that risks reversing Milan’s ability to attract talent.
The 2023 edition of Utopian Hours launched a call to produce a Manifesto for a New City Making inviting international guests to propose keywords for a new way of conceiving urban evolution. The call continued during Utopian Hours 2024, collecting more than fifty keywords from architects, innovators, designers, activists and city officials from all over the world, who from the stage of Utopian Hours told their vision for a better urban future.
The manifesto will be presented at the Fabbrica del Vapore on 29 May. Festival co-directors Luca Ballarini and Giacomo Biraghi will present the book at the start of the event, involving various figures who have contributed to the transformation of Milan over the last twenty years.
The event will award 4CFP to architects.
For more information visit www.utopianhours.it.
