The narrative of experiences placed between the past and the future determines for architecture a unique means of exploring the relationship between existing and new, ancient and modern, memory and innovation, history and contemporaneity. A thematic furrow of decisive confrontation and debate, aimed at feeding the articulated sphere represented by the theoretical-design contributions on the subject, by means of a dialogic practice aimed at mastering the complexity of the contemporary urban phenomenon.

Specularly, in the context of designing sport and its infrastructures, the architecture of the city remains the point of reference and observation of a reality in the making with a common value: a physical and social entity whose planning conveys the livability of the same.
A reality designed by an articulated territory of networks, services and public spaces, towards which urban and architectural research stimulates the implementation, within urban regeneration policies, of recovery and enhancement of existing spaces and containers, in parallel with the addition of new architecture capable of reactivating energy and relationships.

In harmony with these assumptions is the present collection of a substantial number of theories, researches, architectures as testimonies of the didactic work carried out within the framework of our dissertation laboratory, elaborated and discussed at today's School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, concerning themes related to architecture referring to sport in its articulated profiles.

This volume elects the culture of sport and the cultured management of leisure time as an interpretative barometer of the definition of models and strategies of urban and social regeneration of built environments. Places and spaces that sport transforms into cultural assets to be shared and enhanced, analyzing the repercussions that this variable expresses on the transformation of the urban fabric, in line with the trends and furrows of research taking place in the most evolved anthropized and natural scenarios.

The context of architecture shows actions of renewed transformation and strategic settlement of multipurpose sports facilities that increasingly assume a decisive and significant role in the configuration of cities and the territory.
The selection of works, within the broader panel of dissertations developed on the theme, is rooted in the pedagogical interest of the dissemination of outcomes of excellence and in their positioning, by method and cultural attitude, in an innovative way towards urban dynamics that are often static and no longer suited to an open and inclusive interpretation of sport and its declinations. The studies return design experiences that are aware of the complexity of the architectural and constructive phenomenon: in this area, historical research, the study of the social and cultural context, artistic sensitivity, constructive verification and compositional instances come together in an integrated synthesis competence from which, the student-designer, draws to configure the transformative hypothesis of a place through the enhancement of a primary function such as sport turns out to be, today recognized as foundational for a renewed society.

In contemporary architecture, the design of sports infrastructures, even in their declination as privileged areas suitable for hosting major events, offers an opportunity, often unique, for the transformation and strategic revaluation of the city and the territory. Identifying new forms of multifunctional urban development, it is unavoidable within the need to outline, by means of a patient activity of analysis and research, the peculiar characteristics and potentialities of the territorial fabric in which they fit.

The sports infrastructure, therefore, interpreted as an important opportunity for architectural, design and technological experimentation: in this logic, the volume intends to promote an action of awareness and promotion aimed at the design enhancement of sports infrastructure, interpreted as a cultural asset of a civilization, by means of the analysis of its physical factors, intangible ones and the figures suitable for their design, construction, management.