Spazi Ibridi (Hybrid Spaces) Network Milan brings together independent sociocultural centres operating across the city. Created through the collaboration between the City of Milan and a network of local organisations, it promotes open, accessible and multifunctional spaces working across culture, social life, education and neighbourhood services.
The network connects a wide range of organisations: cultural centres, community spaces, educational venues and places dedicated to local care, cultural production and civic life. Some operate mainly at the neighbourhood scale, while others develop activities with a city-wide, national or international reach.

The project emerged from the need to make this distributed geography visible. A constellation of places that often escapes conventional maps, yet produces culture, services, relationships and forms of citizenship every day.
The platform is built around a device that allows users to explore the city through the spaces that inhabit it. The map and navigation tools reveal the extent of the network and the diversity of activities these places make possible: events, workshops, repair cafés, study rooms, sports, welfare services, community initiatives and cultural programmes.

One of the main challenges was developing a system capable of celebrating this diversity while allowing each organisation to preserve its own identity. The platform acts as a hub that connects and guides visitors while directing them to the spaces’ own channels, maintaining their autonomy and relationship with their communities.
To represent the hybrid and multifunctional nature of the network, we developed an identity based on a series of coloured building blocks. Each space becomes a totem composed of activities, services, values and cultural initiatives. An open system that reflects the complexity of the network without reducing places to a single function.
From a technical perspective, the website integrates a synchronisation system that automatically imports information and content from the spaces’ existing channels. This reduces the workload required to maintain the platform, avoids adding extra responsibilities to the organisations and keeps a direct connection with the people running the spaces.

The project developed over more than three years, accompanying the evolution of the network and the institutional changes affecting Milan’s sociocultural spaces. A long-term process based on listening, mediation and continuous adaptation.
Working on cultural and civic projects means engaging with complex organisations, multiple stakeholders and evolving decision-making processes. Our experience in the cultural sector allows us to support these projects with sensitivity, an understanding of social dynamics and the ability to build shared tools over time.