IMM is International and multidisciplinary Design Laboratory for Urban Sustainability. Our work is driven by the principle that urban design can directly affect the quality of our environment, improve the energy performances as well as the quality of our lives, our health making our future more sustainable and responsible. IMM is the acronym of Integrated Modification Methodology, an innovative design methodology based on a specific process with the main goal of improving the CAS’ (complex adaptive systems) environmental performance, through the modification of its constituents and optimization the architecture of their ligands. Its approach is fundamentally Holistic, Multi-Layer, Multi-scale. In this methodology, the city is considered to be a dynamic Complex Adaptive System comprised of the superimposition of an enormous number of interrelated components, categorized in different Layers or ‘Subsystems’, (also complex adaptive systems) which through their inner arrangement and the architecture of their ligands provide a certain physical and provisional arrangement of the CAS. Cities are very complex. They involve many systems, including energy, water and sewerage, food, transport, health and biodiversity, as well as economic, social and cultural systems. This network of systems, interconnections and flows can be described as a system of systems. The IMM investigates the relationships between urban morphology and environmental performance by focusing mostly on the ‘Subsystems’ characterized by physical characters and arrangement. The main object of this design process is to address a more sustainable and better performing urban arrangement.
IMM approach to sustainability is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030