School squares is the title of the essay in which Paolo Pileri, Cristina Renzoni and Paola Savoldi tell, for Corraini, the dream of a transformation that is necessary in many respects: “The entrance to every school is a place with very high potential: it is in the space in front of the school that, experiencing the first moments of autonomy, we build representations and memories of the environment that surrounds us.

It is here that the younger generations have direct experience of the consideration that society has for their needs and rights.

This is why it is urgent to take care of school squares, often neglected today, by observing and rethinking them".

The essay draws on four virtuous international cases of fully realized school squares.

“Denmark cares about the health of the new generations, who are increasingly sedentary, and has devised a program involving several cities to create school squares capable of stimulating movement and physical activity through play: structural interventions that limit access by car, transforming the context around and in front of the school into a place where it is more fun to get around on foot.

In Spain we discover the determination of a large city like Barcelona in wanting to take care of every school in the area, about six hundred, so that children can stay in an environment feeling fully safe and at ease.

A plan spread over time provides for the creation of quality spaces with light and widespread interventions.

In western Germany, the municipality of Schermbeck has developed a regeneration strategy dedicated to the integration of school squares within an urban system of pedestrian paths and open spaces, so that children and teenagers can walk independently among the most important places in their city.