CALL in Palermo for the Italian National Conference of Urban Planners

On 10 to 12 June 2026 in Palermo, CALL took part in the 28th Conferenza Nazionale della Società Italiana Urbanisti (SIU), titled Future Places. Learning together to imagine our living (“Luoghi futuri. Apprendere collettivamente, immaginare spazi di vita”).

The three-day conference focused on topics particularly close to our work at CALL: learning and imagining together, and supporting forms of public action that are responsive to local contexts. As always, it was a valuable opportunity for dialogue and exchange.

The research group, represented by Elena Acerbi, Matteo Giacomelli, Maryam Karimi, Irene Bianchi and Valeria Fedeli, presented contributions related to several ongoing and past research activities, showcasing five of our research projects.

• Managing the two-faced nature of the digital transition. Strategies for locating data centres in Europe (“Gestire la natura bifronte della transizione digitale. Strategie di localizzazione dei data center in Europa”). Valeria Fedeli, Grazia Concilio and Daniele Viarengo presented the DIGIREG project, with a focus on the digital transition and data centres.

• City science: between innovation and managing fragility – the Amsterdam urban laboratory (“City science tra innovazione e governo della fragilità: il laboratorio urbano di Amsterdam”) was presented by Anna Moro and Daniele Viarengo and covered themes of city science and urban innovation for enabling institutions.

• Urban planning for climate neutrality: an integrated framework combining urban metabolism, governance and experimentation (“Urban planning for climate neutrality: un framework integrato tra metabolismo urbano, governance e sperimentazione”) showcased the CLIMABOROUGH project, and was presented by Matteo Giacomelli and Grazia Concilio.

• Co-creative action for sustainable landscapes: the experience of the PALIMPSEST project (“Azione co-creativa per paesaggi sostenibili: l’esperienza del progetto PALIMPSEST”) offered a retrospective on the PALIMPSEST project, specifically sustainability transition through co-creation. It was presented by Irene Bianchi, Talita Medina Amaral and Grazia Concilio.

• Local civic ecologies. Environmental infrastructure and knowledge communities in Milan’s 9th municipal disctrict (“Ecologie civiche di prossimità. Infrastrutture ambientali e comunità di conoscenza nel municipio 9 di Milano”) was a focus on IFe Civic Lab project, civic infrastructure and public space by Anna Moro, Irene Bianchi and Elena Acerbi.

• What tools for city science address inclusion? Planning a collaboration with the Casa dei Diritti in Palermo by Maryam Karimi, Grazia Concilio from CALL and Angela Errore from Casa dei diritti – Comune di Palermo utilised the learnings from the easyRights project and more specifically mediation grammar that sets paths for the creation of a European standard for evaluating public services and guiding public administrations to design and deliver services that enable migrants to exercise their rights.

Stay tuned, the full papers will be published in the conference proceedings over the coming months and will be available on the Planum Editore website!