"Habito - the search for the future of living" is a research promoted in 2012 by AIM with the collaboration of the University of Pavia, the Polytechnic of Milan, Cassa depositi e prestiti, Fondazione Housing Sociale and the involvement of trade associations , of the orders, of the building cooperatives, of the Chambers of Commerce of Milan and of other Lombard cities. The research intends promote the innovation of the Italian residential building system through the revision of the regulatory instruments. The first phase of the research focused on the proposed revision of building regulations to allow a new quality of living in the housing project with particular reference to the new construction taking as a case study the City of Milan. At this stage Habito supported the approval of the new building regulations of Milan (2014), which contains innovative elements compared to other national regulations, through the organization of conferences and meetings in the main Lombard capitals involving local administrators, professional associations, trade associations such as chambers of commerce and manufacturers' associations. Currently the Habito research group is working on the theme of living innovation through the regulatory review in the field of reuse in synergy with the administrations and the orders of Bergamo and Pavia.

The starting point is that most of the building best practices implemented in Europe over the past 10 years are not feasible in Italy due to regulatory constraints based on a prescriptive approach compared to the performance expected by almost all the other European countries. In particular, in the face of recent Community regulations in the energy field on buildings, which have profoundly changed the design approach, there has not been a revision of the regulatory systems to encourage innovative housing models. Starting from the analysis of international case studies, the research group of Habito has identified which rules and which articles hindered the design experimentation proposing the modification of the local building regulations to make a change of course immediately feasible. In particular, it is proposed that, in the face of the use of specific technological innovations, such as controlled mechanical ventilation, the parameters of the dwellings are redefined, with particular reference to air feedback, winding reports and minimum room requirements.