The early years of the second decade of the 21st century marked a profound change in humankind's living and interacting experiences. Humans' relationship with their surrounding environment - both natural and antropic - was vehemently challenged during the COVID-19 global pandemic and in the immediately following period that everyone is experiencing. These transformations will be threatened and altered again in the future by the risks posed by climate change and by economic, political, and social issues, and by other unforeseeable circumstances that delineate this historical period as one of great uncertainties.
In this context the constellation of spaces - both interior and exterior, both public and private ones - requires new approaches and systemic redefinitions that stems from their roots: design strategies, tacticts, processes, and practices for designing spaces, especially interiors, that are able improve the quality of people's living. The spontaneous questions that arise from this research are answered through the delineation of three macro-themes: sustainability, flexibility, and the role of perception.
The aim of this publication is to investigate how spatial design, and in particular interior design, has reacted and continues to respond to the everchanging transformations of the contemporary scenario, considering both the conceptual-designing dimension in the definition of spaces and the operational-executive dimension, which cannot be separated from the completion of a design process.
This research encourages analytical and critical reflection on contemporary design processes in order to support researchers and students, as well as practitioners in design and architecture, to experiment with and to innovate design processes and to implement positive paradigmatic transformations for sustainable models of living both in the present and in the future.

Elena Elgani, Ph.D. in Interior Architecture and Exhibition Design. Research fellow at Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Her research interests are in the field of interior design, with a focus on design for hospitality and environmental sustainability.

Umberto Monchiero holds a B.Sc in Interior Design and a M.Sc in Musicology, his researches focus on the relationships between sound and space.