One of the great challenges of modern architecture is focused on recovering, regenerating and reusing notorious "non-places", an enlightened term coined by great architect Franco Purini and one that is highlighted by his school. The boundless suburbs of reinforced concrete that emerged in the years of post-war reconstruction, without any precise compositional-design logic, were the offspring of lightning-fast development, without infrastructural connections, that were destined to eventually become urban “ghettos” and “incubators” of the underworld. The examples of this are many and involve nearly every metropolis throughout Italy, from the infamous "Zen" district of Palermo, to the districts of "Scampia" and "Ponticelli" of Naples, up to the "Quarto Oggiaro" of Milan. The real theme, with which contemporary architects must now confront themselves, from today and for the near future, is to be found in restoring human, moral and social dignity that was raped for years by reckless suburban cementification with urban realities and its citizens often forgotten.
A solution to the huge problem can begin from virtuous and concrete examples of socio-urban rebirth, which is mending wise architectural recovery operations and acting as a driving force for redevelopment around which civil society itself can cling and autonomously restart. Sport, as a social aggregator, can be a keystone to this recovery. Think of the many sports stadiums that were built in the golden years of concrete and then left abandoned and neglected over time. An example of urban regeneration that began from Sport, is one that was implemented at the "Conocal" of Ponticelli, a run-down neighborhood located in the east of Naples, where the Santobono-Pausilipon Foundation, under the impetus of the National Anfimafia Prosecutor, Federico Cafiero De Raho, took positive and solid action which triggered an admirable example of this type of participatory architecture. Financing of the design and construction works was provided for the complete regeneration of the sports complex of the De Filippo school, which until then, was in a state of absolute architectural and urban degradation.