The paper proposes, through an experimental method, a conceptualisation of theoretical-methodological and practical guidelines for the project on the system of collective open spaces, residual areas, abandoned areas that characterise the contemporary city, both in the urban contexts of the historical city, and in the more marginal areas of the modern suburbs. This methodology was experimented on an historical neighbourhood in Rome (San Lorenzo discrict) starting from the results of some researches conducted in collaboration between Sapienza University of Rome and the Escuela de Architettura, Universidad San Jorge and some design experiments conducted by Gràvalosdimonte design studio. This methodology and experimentation combines the theme of the inter-scalarity of the project (territorial, urban and local scale) with the themes of the flexibility and proximity of functions with respect to local instances and contingencies caused by the pandemic situation and by the sustainability perspectives, with particular reference to the need for urban health, the dialectic between public and private space in the perspective of the notion of common good, the bottom-up project for the construction of proximity spaces and plurality in the decision-making process.

Recently, the concept of participatory democracy developed in the early 1970s has come back into fashion to revitalize the public involvement in political decision-making processes. Public par-ticipation in forest policy has been fully conceptualized by the scientific community in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but in many contexts the practical application remains unfulfilled. The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the participatory techniques used in literature to increase knowledge and facilitate its transferability into forest policies and strategies. A literature review was carried out to offer an overview of the participatory techniques adopted in the deci-sion-making process. At the end of literature review, 25 participatory techniques were identified based on over 2,000 publications. Afterwards, the participatory techniques were assessed using seven indicators (degree of participation, type and number of participants, time scale, cost, po-tential influence on policy). The results showed that the type of actors involved in the participa-tory technique is a key variable for the complexity and usefulness of the process, while the number of participants influences how information is disseminated. The Principal Component Analysis highlighted that the participatory techniques can be divided in three groups: the first group includes those techniques with a high degree of participation and a contextual high po-tential influence on policies, the second one includes techniques with a costs in terms of re-sources, while the third one consists of those with a large number of participants and reduced time requirements.