Based on a humanistic approach, and through collaborative innovation, starting from the culture of places and guided by a problem orientated pragmatic approach, CiTUA vision is driven by the following main principles:

• the significance of the material and immaterial legacy of natural and man-made territories, which provide a basis for developing diachronic (historical) representations of urban and architectural phenomena, understanding past dynamics and trends towards a major efective longterm changes;
• the necessary reconstruction of the relationship between the global and the local scale of urban territories from economic, social, political, technological, cultural and environmental perspectives;
• the significance and dynamic condition of the local dimension of urban territories, with its distinctiveness, represent a potential for creating, maintaining and dignifying livable, self-sustainable, and adaptable solutions that are fully adjusted to the specificity of the site and the socioeconomic and governance context.

CiTUA’s outputs will serve to highlight general empirical spatial and social patterns showing how urban territories function, and to demonstrate the diversity of territories based on the analysis of deviations from these patterns but will also serve to inform and validate new approaches and models concerning future territories.

This approach avoids “exceptionalism” (i.e. all territories are different and no general proposition can be formulated about them) and “determinism” (i.e. a unique principle governs how territories function, regardless of time and place) emphasizing pluralism, knowledge and continuous (instrumental and conceptual) learning (i.e. changes that leads to modification of policies and changes in beliefs).

The faculty and students working with CiTUA take an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary problems and pursue innovative solutions by leveraging the assets of Tecnico, a research school located in a dynamic and diverse metropolitan city.