Team

The Interuniversity Department of REGIONAL AND URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING (DIST) is the point of reference in Politecnico and Università di Torino for the areas of knowledge that study the processes of territorial transformation and government, both on a local and on a global scale. These processes are analyzed from a sustainability perspective in their physical, economic, social, political and cultural aspects, as well as in their interrelationships.
DIST promotes, coordinates and manages basic and applied research, training, technology transfer and services for the local community with regard to urban and regional sciences and policies, as well as to spatial, urban and environmental-landscape planning. Moreover, DIST research areas include: analysis, planning and government of the territorial context; urban planning and policies for sustainable development of the urban and rural areas; diagnostic and management of cultural, architectural and landscape heritage; human, economic and political geography; urban and environmental sociology and media; methods and techniques of survey and representation at urban and territorial scales; history and conservation of the architecture of the city and its territory; transport and logistics planning; technical and economic feasibility of urban plans and projects.
DIST encourages interdisciplinary activities focused on the enhancement of interactions among researchers coming from different cultural areas. DIST supports research activities linked to its scientific subjects and promotes relations with other sectors. DIST strongly promotes the participation to local, national, European and international research programs. Within its cultural areas, DIST organizes, manages and delivers high level teaching (three year Bachelor-level, Master of Science level, Master of I and II level, Specialization Schools, Doctoral Research) providing inter-departmental and inter-university courses. Furthermore, it promotes and sustains both professional education to public authorities and services to private companies, with specific training courses at various levels.
DIST coordinates the following courses at Master of Science level:

• Territorial, urban, environmental and landscape planning;
• Planning of green areas and landscape;

DIST promotes training activities based on testing thanks to the support of teaching and research laboratories as the Laboratory of Urban and Territorial Analysis and Representation (LARTU) and the Laboratory of High Quality (LAQ-TIP).
DIST researchers come from previous different departments of the Politecnico and Università di Torino; these Departments were active before the new Statute of the Politecnico came into force. In particular, DIST relies upon the interuniversity and interdisciplinary experiences of researchers of the former Dipartimento Interateneo Territorio and Dipartimento Casa-Città.

The term CESBA stands for Common European Sustainable Built Environment Assessment. CESBA is a collective bottom-up movement towards a harmonization of the sustainable assessment of the built environment in Europe. The inducement of CESBA in 2011 was the perception of actors from different EU-project that the variety and high number of assessment tools require for a harmonization. In April 2015, the CESBA Association was founded.

The Vision of CESBA is: A Europe where a high quality living in a sustainable built environment is the common standard practice.

The FASUDIR project was born to develop new business models and financial supporting tools, to support the necessary building-retrofitting market mobilization in Europe to fulfill EU-targets in 2020 and 2050. The key instrument will be the Integrated Decision Support Tool (IDST), developed to help decision makers to select the best energy retrofitting strategy to increase the sustainability of the whole district. With stakeholder feedback loops, training, and validation in three diverse urban areas, the IDST will ensure robustness and applicability in the entire value chain.