Regenerating Public Spaces Considered as Non-Places: A Case Study of a Collaborative Project Between a Cooperative of Independents and a Diverse Female Network of Lighting Designers in Genoa

Sustainable Development Goal 11 aims to develop cities that are inclusive for all, safe, resilient, and sustainable. To ensure social cohesion and environmental respect, cities are investing in urban transformation policies (Scorpio et al., 2020), placing sustainability at the heart of their strategy (Vojnovic, 2014). Recognizing that public spaces are crucial for the well-being of urban residents, cities have decided to focus their efforts on their development. However, access to public spaces, which are supposed to be accessible to all, is sometimes limited to certain categories of people. This has earned them the designation of "non-places" (Augé, 2020). To address this issue, we studied lighting design as a tool for urban regeneration, transforming these non-places into lived and frequented spaces by residents. We studied the case of Women in Lighting Italy in their participation in the Lighting for Genova project which aims to enhance the heritage value of ten squares in the degraded neighborhoods of Genoa's historic center, inviting lighting designers from the Women in Lighting Italy network to participate in the intervention. This article attempts, through qualitative interviews, to understand how the intervention of a diverse female network of lighting designers can regenerate public spaces considered as non-places. The results show that thanks to the network, the lighting designers benefited from logistical and consultative support, skill exchange, and increased creativity, allowing them to overcome the challenges they faced during the project's conceptualization. Diversity also seems to make lighting designers more capable of transforming a non-place into a public space. By introducing women into the group of urban decision-makers, a feminine vision and sensitivity acquired by navigating a city imagined for men are introduced. Working on accessibility, the sense of security, and the perception of the environment, the lighting designers are thus able to transform poorly frequented areas into inclusive public spaces. However, the project does not fully benefit from a diversity of viewpoints due to the lack of gender diversity.w;,