**1. Introduction**

Corviale is Rome's most famous public housing district and enjoys an international reputation. Its size has always caught the interest of architects and the imagination of citizens. Its main features are length, almost a kilometre, and the concentration of all accommodations in a single building. For these reasons, it has already received much attention from researchers in the field of housing studies. Since 2019, a vital regeneration intervention has been underway for the 'Quarto Piano' of the building. Over time, a hundred families have settled illegally, converting the spaces intended for public services, shops and offices into self-built flats. Years after the start of this selfbuild process, the Lazio region has financed an intervention programme to stabilise the change of use. The self-built houses are being replaced by new houses designed from scratch. It is an intervention that is only partly constructional. Numerous impacts, including intangible ones, come into play and characterise housing policy today; at least, this is the thesis we want to support in this article. The article's structure describes public housing in Rome and how the Corviale neighbourhood fits into this long, not always linear history. It then recounts the history of the Corviale

neighbourhood, essentially its evolution over time and the processes of adaptation carried out by the residents, often as a rejection of the original project. It then describes the 'Quarto Piano' redevelopment project and its final conversion into flats, highlighting not only the structural aspects but also the social impact it has had. The chapter focuses precisely on these impacts by highlighting that today's housing issue represents a spectrum of situations far beyond the housing issue. From this point of view, the case study reproduced here presents the 'Laboratorio di Città Corviale' role in accompanying the redevelopment project. The laboratory, promoted by the University of Roma Tre, Department of Architecture, and supported by the Lazio Region, has played a role that should be known because of the results it has achieved in monitoring the implementation of the measures. The issue of housing, considered in the light of this case study, where we can not only look at the tradition but also the innovation of housing policy, and described in the final chapter, highlights some lines of action that can have a general value that goes far beyond the case reproduced here.
