Our proposal first expands the definition of co-living, focusing on more than providing a shared shelter for its users. Living is also about learning, entertaining, making, designing, and producing. The pursuit is to conceive neighborhoods that are productive, ones where users actively live and shape the communities they live in.

Our plan is to propose five urban design principles that allow Rome to optimize productive co-living: making, learning, and growing together. These principles are: overt, mixed, intelligent, contextual, and sustainable. The terms ‘product’ and ‘productive’ refer here to a methodology which envisions the city as a ‘product’ designed and tested for its users, the residents. Productive neighborhoods output indirectly through its users’ goods, services, knowledge which benefit its community and society. Our proposed set of principles for Rome will help it become a platform for productive co-living.