Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper: towards an Urban Activism Manifesto Luisa Bravo*, Camilla Carmagnini** and Noa Matityahou***

At the beginning of the new Millennium global transformations of urban territories have opened the way,

quite inevitably, to more and more complex and profound considerations about the places that surround us,

the places that we have built, the opportunities we have missed, and those ones we must, instead, learn to

grasp. Common ground, common places, common people, common sense, common tradition were the

declarations of the 13.International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2012. It is by now a widely shared

fact that cities are a common good, so actions devoted to its transformation, requalification and valorisation

should involve everyone. Ideas coming from citizens, associations, residents and ordinary people are easily

available and shareable through the virtual world, thus causing drastic changes in the way of thinking and

acting in the urban realm. We witness a raising phenomenon of initiatives and ideas in urban planning and

design as an expression of that «knowledge society» defined by UNESCO World Report (2005).

We are in the midst of an unprecedented moment in planning. Although signs of hardship are all around, we

see the emergence of a powerful, networked, creative movement of people who demonstrate that place-based

and people-oriented actions are possible, despite economic or political obstacles.

Reconnecting citizens to public life in Bologna: the Via Emilia project The present work tries to examine these emerging issues and to develop a proposal for the city of Bologna,

always been known for its innovative approach towards urban planning and design.

Like many other European and Italian cities, Bologna is characterized by the presence of an historical core

with a recognizable collective value and a sprawled, suburban area which is considered as a quite anonymous

entity. The image of the suburban environment could be described as a patchwork of a multiplicity of urban

settlements, varying in characteristic, density, function and identity.

The major criticism related to suburbs is the lack of identifiable public spaces, or their failure in creating

functional social places. While in the city centre the square represents the most traditional and identifiable

form of public space, designed for that precise purpose, in the periphery this role has been mainly given over

to green and residual areas within the new residential settlements. The set of these dispersed suburban

publics, despite sometimes lacking any designed purpose, is embedded with hidden potentialities, as the

Everyday Urbanism (Chase - Crawford - Kaliski, 2008) movement declares. Instead of criticizing the

absence of social qualities in these existing spaces, or suggesting the realization of new ones, this work tries

to embrace the new bottom-up concepts in urban planning and design and to take the challenge of creating a

network of urban sequences: using only the spaces we already have, every public place can be reinforced by

participating in a wider system and through the use of «lighter, quicker, cheaper interventions», as defined by

the non-profit Project for Public Spaces organization, based in New York.

We argue that it is nowadays essential for urban planning policies, aimed at regeneration activities, to keep

considering people as the main reference point. Society and its needs are continuously changing and

updating, so that any fixed solution is no longer achievable. The only way to maintain the rhythm is to use

people and communities as the primary resource for developing and discovering the best solutions to

accomplish their desires. The prescription’s system and big intervention projects have to be substituted with

a lighter, less strict and more flexible approach, capable of understanding the changeable needs of the 2.0

society and to transform them into acupuncture interventions.

The PSC (Piano Strutturale Comunale), adopted in 2008, shows an innovative interpretation of the city of

Bologna through the image of the «Situations». The most significant aspect of this innovative form of urban

subdivision lies mainly in the fact that the situations are proposed as an alternative and a different description

of the territory in order to overcome the outdated morphological and functional aspects in favour of a more

detailed description which highlights, in particular, social, historical and identifiable characteristics of the

urban territory. The morphological and administrative boundaries in fact, ignore by their nature the intrinsic

differences of the urban environment, especially the social aspects, which are instead taken into account by

the «Situations».

 

The urban regeneration proposal in Bologna takes place along the 12 km of the urban segment of the Via

Emilia, as a symbolic and representative axis that crosses the city, recognized also as a backbone for the

whole regional territory. The Via Emilia in Bologna crosses eight PSC «Situations» which were taken and

used as the starting point of the project.

This work struggles to discover the embedded potentialities of the Via Emilia’s public spaces. The urban

strategy aims to improve the existing public places, intended as any place worth of value, such as green

areas, bicycle paths, parking lots and infrastructures, creating active networks that would stitch the dispersed

tissue of the area in a way that its flaws would become its virtues.

Figure 1 - The Via Emilia axis in Bologna. The public space network was created selecting potentials and opportunities of different

places, applying the «lighter, quicker cheaper» method and using references from existing successful examples such as Neighborland

association creative proposals.

In order to bring back citizens to their public spaces it is necessary to create the favourable conditions so they

could recognize them as a shared good and have the possibility to improve them. A successful example of

these kind of interventions is the Dutch concept of Woonerf, and its international parallels such as the

English Home Zones or the American Complete Streets, which aims to the transformation of neighbourhood

streets from vehicular based conduits to pedestrian friendly places, where social life could spread as widely

demonstrated by Jan Gehl’s studies (2010).

New connections within the city space could also be generated by using neglected and abandoned

infrastructures that are not being perceived as functional public places, transforming them into new

neighbourhood techno-hubs. «Infrastructure can be discovered by designers, worked on by them, and framed

into a mode of appreciation» (Ingersoll, 2006). This is also an opportunity to demonstrate to municipalities

that welfare services could be perceived in new forms: instead of consolidated needs, basically referred to

standards and measurable facilities, such as green spaces, to be put on a map, we should start thinking on

new desires expressed by contemporary society. Local communities need not just physical but also spiritual,

social and technological services. This means to employ a new methodological approach that connects new

 

media, community intervention and urban studies paradigms (Foth, 2009). The resulting cross-disciplinary

framework, designed to stimulate socio-economic innovation, will lead to urban sustainability and healthier

local economies. It will also develop knowledge of how social, cultural, economic capital can be of service

in encouraging public consultation, civic engagement and debate, and assist people to be creative and

innovative in everyday life. This will lead to greater social inclusion, fair access to and smart use of local

information and services.

Embedding an innovative approach into ordinary practices Nowadays it is quite evident that public administrators and architects have to adapt their procedures to a

different way of action, based not only on urban design activities but highlighting what makes that design

activities successful. This means a new way of thinking about the urban realm, mainly based on contexts and

places, to be explored not looking at a map but through in-deep site analysis and investigations, able to

reveal potentialities and opportunities (Lydon, 2011) and to promote smart urban visions, based on an

updated set of contemporary community needs and values. Bottom-up processes of transformation, made by

people, are then developed not following consolidated rules, but through real participating events made by

sharing and appropriation.

Results of this kind of approach are not outside general requirements of urban plans and codes. On the

contrary, they could be a significant tool of the Piano Strutturale Comunale for the city of Bologna,

embedding, in what they define as “Situations”, practices of social engagement as a means for regeneration

processes and for public space networking enhancement. Public administrations should hopefully embrace

such urban trends, as an antidote to the crisis of the contemporary world, through an innovative sustainable

action of governance.

So the present work is just a starting point of a wider research aimed to define «Urban Design and

Placemaking Guidelines in Bologna», for the urban and the suburban city, containing a general strategy able

to generate places, acting on local and social capitals, towards a renewed urbanity (Bravo - Crawford, 2013)

and a more comprehensive urban experience.

Acknowledgments

This research work is part of a graduation thesis entitled «Urban design and Placemaking in Bologna»,

successfully discussed by Camilla Carmagnini and Noa Matityahou on 19th

September 2013 at the University

of Florence, Department of Architecture, iCad - International Curriculum on Architectural Design,

Supervisor prof. Saverio Mecca, Co-supervisor prof. Luisa Bravo. The authors would like to thank prof.

Saverio Mecca whose kind collaboration, precious advices and effective assistance made this work possible.

Notes * Department of Architecture, University of Florence, luisa.bravo@unifi.it

** Department of Architecture, University of Florence, camillacarmagnini@hotmail.it

*** Department of Architecture, University of Florence, noayahoo@gmail.com

References

Bravo, L. - Crawford, M. (2013), Publics and their spaces: renewing urbanity in city and suburb, in ISUF

2012 – New Urban Configurations conference proceedings, TU Delft (forthcoming)

Chase, J. L. - Crawford, M. - Kaliski, J. edited by (2008), Everyday urbanism, Monacelli Press, New York

Comune di Bologna (2009), Bologna. Leggere il nuovo piano urbanistico, Edisai, Ferrara

Foth, M. (2009), Handbook of research on Urban Informatics: the practice and promise of the real-time city,

Information Science Reference, New York

Gehl, J. (2010), Cities for people, Island Press, Washington DC

Ingersoll, R. (2006), Sprawltown. Looking for the city on its edge, Princeton Architectural Press, New York

Lydon, M. (2011), Tactical Urbanism 2. Short-term action, long-term change, Street Plans, Miami-New

York, available on line

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2005), Toward knowledge societies.

UNESCO World Report, Imprimerie Corlet, Conde-sur-Noireau, France

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: CONTROVERSIES, CONTRASTS and CHALLENGES

543

GENIUS LOCI AND GENIUS SAECULI: A SUSTAINABLE

WAY TO UNDERSTAND CONTEMPORARY URBAN

DYNAMICS

Luisa BRAVO, Dr.

University of Bologna, Italy

luisa.bravo@unibo.it

ABSTRACT

Recent literature shows the limits of modern town-planning theory in front of the

complexity of a new world which is the result of political and economic transformation:

globalization, new forms of marginalization and exclusion, the advent of so-called ―new

economy‖, the redefinition of the production base and labour market have built a different

city structure, based on transactions and symbolic exchanges rather than processes of

industrialization and modernization towards which modern city was oriented. At the same

time complexity is also expressed by contemporary urban populations through upheavals

taking place in the social context: intermittence of citizenship, so that cities are

increasingly experienced and enjoyed by citizens of the world (tourists and/or visitors,

temporarily present) and common citizens (suburban, provincial, metropolitan), the

irregularity and flexibility of timetables, agendas and rhythms of working population, social

mobility, so that individuals have life trajectories and everyday practices less determined

by their social origins, compared to what happened in the past, the radical transformation

of family structure, the growth of the elderly population, the rise of the education level,

then the increased demand of culture, a strong social individualization.

The historic city, that lives in the present time, can be proposed as a sustainable model,

able to collect and contain all instances of the contemporary world, to transform and

express them through the continuity of architectural language inherited from the past. The

historic city retains a character of great attractiveness and fascination, lived as a place

suspended in a timeless universe, capable of representing the public membership

recognition to civitas: genius loci, the spirit of place in the historical dimension of the city,

is what survives to the ever changing functional structures and confers an indelible

character to the city and the urban landscape, through different urban phenomena but

part of a single and recognizable experience. Civitas of the historic city establishes

feeling of its identity, its own genius, on collective themes that a common visitor can

understand as a local version of representative buildings, recognizable in other world

cities.

The contemporary dimension of historical city, namely genius saeculi, the spirit of time,

requires a continuous updating of the collective themes, of public spaces, places of

human relations, and contents that are assigned to the historical forms from people who

lives and inhabit those places, and the inclusion of new meanings, new values, new

forms of social life. In the contemporary city we are experiencing the onset of new public

spaces, linked to globalization phenomena: time-space acceleration, multi-presence,

dissolution of personal relationships, space of flows, new information and communication

systems, experiences related not to sites but to images, way of quick, visual, not physical

knowledge, loss of old solidarity forms and knowledge (family, community) and birth of

new ones (distance and confidence), different and non-fixed scale social places.

Hence this is the challenge for the new Millennium: conciliating the spirit of place, genius

loci, with the spirit of time, genius saeculi, retrieving history values through their

preservation and combining them in the present time through a sustainable model.

14th IPHS CONFERENCE 12-15 July 2010 Istanbul-TURKEY

544

PAST AND PRESENT OF LIVING CITIES

The city is the human settlement‘s place within territory, it is the transformation of

natural landscape into built environment, according to certain morphology and urban

arrangement, repeatable with different models and shapes, time after time in different

territorial sides, subject to foundation and expansion, defined and edged by specific

administrative codes.

The historic city is that built environment‘s portion which history passed us on as a

legacy and heritage of the past, it is the consolidated face of our culture, result of a

superimposition over centuries, it is the best expression of our cultural identity.«For a

thousand years all over Europe – as Romano points out – citizens inside the city formed

a collective entity pictured as a real holistic subject, an organism endowed with an

identity and will of its own, with a superior order in comparison to every single member

and, while in other civilizations the city is essentially a geographical episode, only in the

European context it refers mainly to morality, a holistic civitas». This means that in

Europe individuals are socially established persons as components of cities. «Civitas

bases its identity upon collective themes which appear to be a local vision of important

buildings to visitors, recognizable in other world‘s cities, even if they actually have a

different meaning, because they not only evoke a ritual behaviour but they show the

civitas identity related to its citizens, comparing their material consistence with other

European cities» (Romano, 1993).Collective themes inside the city – churches, walls,

buildings, theatres, museums, public gardens – acquire their own autonomy as

symbolic language‘s marks, valid as an instrument aimed to portray the urban beauty of

a place. At the end of nineteenth century, far-seeing essays by Camillo Sitte (Sitte,

1889) and Charles Buls (Buls, 1893) expressed the widespread demand to keep

aesthetics and urban composition into the design of the city, besides technical

requests.The desire to build a beautiful town shows itself through the arrangement of

collectives themes, they all related and compared into the urban mass: they are placed

into the dense urban tissue not randomly, but following precise principles underlining

the aesthetic purpose, ordered in authentic sequences, in a studied and pondered

hierarchy. These sequences are possible in Europe due to their huge emotional impact

because of thematic streets and squares built nearby collectivethemes, namely urban

places able to mutually connect themthroughsequences, able to fix highly expressive

objects with a place which elate its significance: these are main squares, market

places, monastery squares, church squares, monumental squares and streets, the

promenade and the boulevard, the tree-lined avenues. The historic city project is

characterized by a deep connection between urban central sequences and distant,

peripheral quarters so that the equality principle among citizens belonging to the

civitasis clearly defined. The beauty of a city reflects this way the primary social purpose

which is, as Romano explains, «the making of urbs intended as the appropriate habitat

for the civitas, opened, dynamic, democratic and egalitarian». Collective themes and

thematic squares or streets, each one with its own name and easily recognizable

among others, represent a sort of catalogue to flip through in order to plan a beautiful

city, a common list for every European city, slowly generated over the years and

enriched gradually, generation after generation. The historic city retains a character of

great attractiveness and fascination, yet topical and ready to answer to the present

generation desires, lived as a place suspended in a timeless universe, capable of

representing the public membership recognition to civitas: the genius loci (Norberg-

Schulz, 1979), the spirit of place in the historical dimension of the city, is what survives

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: CONTROVERSIES, CONTRASTS and CHALLENGES

545

to the ever changing functional structures and confers an indelible character to the city

and the urban landscape, through urban phenomena, wich are different in time and

shapes but part however of an unique, recognizable experience. Genius loci is a

Roman concept: according to an ancient belief, every ―independent‖ being has his own

genius, his guardian spirit. This spirit gives life to places and people, bringing them

from the cradle to the grave, determining their character or essence1.

The modern city, or rather the modern idea of the city, is founded on order, regularity,

tidiness, equality and good government, aimed to the maximum wellbeing of singles

and community, conforming to real people‘s needs. The modern world vision is based

on valuable concepts and conjugated through paradigms of progress, universality of

rights, work, factory, house, welfare state, family and freedom. Modern town planning

turns to a society which has not yet completely expressed its needs, which hasn‘t

voiced a request for services: urban planning counts services diffusion from

neighbourhood to quarter to territorial scale, following a serial standard model, suitable

for every place and contest. Inside the city it‘s possible to focus on four different

functions: living, working, recreation and circulation2. The city, through the creation of

independent zones, is rationally planned and organized by specialized and functional

parts – houses are pulled apart from production activities, from offices, commerce and

leisure too – connected and bound by a strong, hierarchical mobility system. People

and things orderly moves in clearly defined and recognizable places, every citizen

explores restricted and connoted sides of urban space (bourgeois or working quarters,

industrial areas, trade centers, theatres, restaurants, shops along elegant downtown

streets, canteens or outlying public facilities). The welfare state action is addressed

toward social security (developing the pension system), public health, base level

instruction, house policies, protection of working class in case of unenmployment.

These principles has been enacted with wide architectural and urban plans all over

territorial expansion areas, outside the historic city, following methods and criterions

quite common in several European cities. However this planning action turned out weak

and incapable to transfer historical genius loci values, producing as a result debased

peripheral quarters, from physical, social and environmental point of view.The problem

concerning outskirts is due to the fact that they have been conceived and realized as

something completely different from the rest of the city: in this direction, the English

meaning for sub-urb and the French one, ban-lieu, remove the misunderstand the

italian term periferia could represent, if merely intended in a geographical sense,

namely a spatial dimension of living far away from the centre. The uncontrolled and

unplanned growth of territorial settlements, according to the sprawl(Ingersoll, 2006)

phenomenon intended in its double meaning of diffuse city3 and urbanized countryside

4,

has generated morphologically and architecturally homogeneous suburbs, mostly

residential and inhabited by the same social or ethnic group, giving up that weave of

1 Regarding the interpretation of the concept of genius loci, see the opening address by Michael

Petzet at the 16th General Assembly of ICOMOS, GENIUS LOCI – The Spirit of Monuments and

Sites, Scientific Symposium, Quebec, 30 September 2008.

2 So we read in IV CIAM proceedings in Athens (1933), ―Constatations du IVeme Congres‖,

chapter entitled ―The present situation of cities and their needs‖.

3Expression coined by Francesco Indovina in 1990 to describe the central area of Veneto Region

(Italy), as a consequence of the occurrence of visible signs of urban sprawl and low density, in

which the hierarchical relationship with the centre is very attenuated or even reversed. 4Kind of urbanization linked to dispersive processes concerning residence and productive areas of

Tuscany (Italy), which has a polycentric settlement character referred toa pre-district type.

14th IPHS CONFERENCE 12-15 July 2010 Istanbul-TURKEY

546

public and private functions and activities that characterize the historic city. Modern city

appears, therefore, as something much more different from the historic city, not

qualified to answer to old and consolidated needs – the efficient, functional, productive,

accessible city – but first of all unable to provide an answer to new questions, needs

and wishes, either for consolidated services or for new ones – beautiful, usable, safe

and sustainable city. Modernity‘s crisis in its ideals, instruments and representations,

shows the powerlessness to define in its several aspects the present city and to edge it

in a new post-modern or contemporary5 universe, which is investigated with inefficient

and not precise knowledge.

The contemporary city, from the morphological point of view, is the place of

discontinuity and diversity: it‘s recognizable the centre, intended as the historical one,

the centre of civitas and collective themes, while the rest of the urban structure seems

to be blurred, not clearly defined, deprived of reference points but mainly lacking in

collective themes. Urban dimension has a policentric structure, resulting from political

and economic transformations – globalisation, new forms of marginalisation and

exclusion, the advent of so-called ―new economy‖, the redefinition of the production

base and labour market – in a wider and surely over municipal scale, in opposition with

the monocentric one, pertaining to the historic city, so that geographic city doesn‘t

overlap with the institutional city anymore. From the social point of view, contemporary

city can be defined on transactions and symbolic exchanges rather than processes of

industrialization and modernization towards which modern city was oriented. Elements

at the base of this twisting are several: intermittence of citizenship, so that cities are

increasingly experienced and enjoyed by citizens of the world (tourists and/or visitors,

temporarily present) and by common citizens (suburban, provincial and metropolitan);

the radical family structure transformation, so that the family-standard couple with sons,

solid reference for economy and politics, is nowadays a minority; irregularity and

flexibility of timetables, agendas and rhythms of the working population; social mobility,

so that individuals have life trajectories and daily practises less determined by their

social origin, compared to what happened in the past; the elevation of the education

level together with increasing of cultural demand; the growth of elderly population and a

strong social individualization; the rise of poverty over the middle class, under

economic pressure and almost in total absence of welfare policies, due to structural

employment market modifications, origin of uncertainties and frailty for family systems.

Besides, the more or less peaceful presence of contemporary minorities and majorities

makes contemporary city a place of contradiction and conflicts: the relevant presence

of immigrants inside consolidated communities, intended as citizens but different, less

willing to exchange their own cultural identity with acceptance, according to Glazer‘s

model of melting pot(Glazer and Moynihan, 1970) – which unifies diversity by virtue of

powerful integration means – seems to generate new social forms and new examples of

fruition for urban public spaces. In this sense, the theory which consider contemporary

city as a cosmopolis(Sandercook, 1998) constellation is interesting. According to the

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD), cosmopolis stands for

a«big city populated by people from different countries» (1992), namely by several

structures which are expression of difference-based urban condition, intended as

5The term contemporary refers to a system that is no longer modern, thatdoesn‘t possess anymore

the structural characteristics on which it was formed. Contemporary, therefore, must be

understood as synonymous of post-modern acceptation by J. F. Lyotard (1979) and C. Jencks

(1977), as an expression of a real transition age.

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: CONTROVERSIES, CONTRASTS and CHALLENGES

547

cultural difference. It‘s not surprising, therefore, someone proposed to change three

main principles of modern cohabitation – freedom, equality and brotherhood – into

freedom, diversity and tolerance.

SPACE VERSUS TIME

In the global era the conception of time and space has deeply changed: the world

seems smaller and bigger than ever because everyone can easily reach any place or

have information about it, the way of living and experiencing cities is influenced by

images, reproduced and sold through the web, so that consumption of places is

detached from a slow and physical knowledge, erasing affection and care. According

to the model proposed by Francois Ascher (Ascher, 2000), cities are undergoing a

complete metamorphosis, taking ever more on the character of metapolis: the

transportation system and telecommunication software techniques, the so-called

telematic agora, are the new social glue of a multitude of different individuals, replacing

the square of ancient villages. Society of metapolis has a hypertext-based structure6, a

network of social links which are established between individuals, so that society is

organized and operates through series of multidimensional and interconnected

networks that provide an increased mobility of people, goods, information, where

individuals move between both in a real and virtual way into separate social worlds,

several times a day.

The contemporary society is made up of multi-owned individuals who are able to

belong to multiple different social fields: family, work, leisure, neighborhood, religious

and socio-political organizations. However not all individuals, for various reasons but

largely related to their personal history, have the same opportunities to build n-

dimensional social spaces or to pass easily from one dimension to another. For

someone, the stratification of network membership is completely flattened: inside

metapolis they are not multi-owned, often inhabit large blocks of public housing, meet

people from their district or neighborhood, so their business, family, local, religious

areas are largely overlap each other. This means that the possibility of moving in a

range of different field creates opportunities that are not accessible to everyone. To

keep away and separate all differencesthere are not only social or geographic barriers:

the global dimension of the contemporary city is characterized by a secular

acceleration concerning capital, people and information movement, continuously

expanding through geographical space, so that everyone can inhabit more than one

place at the same time and can live experiences in a physical and not physical

dimension, erasing memories of slow times of daily living. The contemporary city is, as

Giddens argues (Giddens, 1990), stretched in space and time.An example is NYLON

(New York - London), unified transnational space designed by academics and

mainstream media: the annual flow of passengers on the London - New York air route,

which currently is the busiest route in the world, is the expression of a set of economic,

social and cultural interactions between the two urban centres, a vast urbanity which is

the basis of a rebirth of the two cities, both developed after years of decline, hosting

rich and heterogeneous immigrant populations that contributed to the vitality of their

6 Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references (hyperlinks)

to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress

sequence. Hypertext is the underlying concept defining the structure of the World Wide Web,

making it an easy-to-use and flexible format to share information over the internet platform.

14th IPHS CONFERENCE 12-15 July 2010 Istanbul-TURKEY

548

culture and economy (Burdett and Kanai, 2006). The experiment of a city as a result of

two purely geographical urban centres is not new: during 80‘s the mayors of Milano and

Torino dreamed the meta-city called MITO, a continuous urban form within the same

urbanized area, the vast megalopolis extending in northwest padana valley of Italy7.The

proposal of Franco Purini at the Biennale of Architecture in Venice (2006), at the Italian

pavilion, follows the same philosophy: he designed a new city, located between Verona

and Mantova, near the intersection of railway European corridors Lisbon-Kiev and

Berlin-Palermo, called VEMA. This is a total experiment, which explores every area of

urban planning: VEMA summarizes and proposes, in a more complex structural key,

embedded in European and global dynamics, the urban world of the padana valley,

marked by a strong environmental and architectural uniformity, contradicted by specific,

subtle differences and animated by powerful monumental presences (Purini, Marzot

and Sacchi, 2006). VEMA aims to become, in its whole, an out-and-out think tank, a

mental engine of society, through the application of the ―three T‘s‖ theory by Richard

Florida (Florida, 2002), namely talent, technology and tolerance: the first one clearly

understood in the creative sense, the second one mainly in the computer science

aspect, the third one in a social sense and, specifically, open to diversity.

The contemporary city has developed the ability to build its three-dimensional image

through powerful spatial representations, searching for a new language and a new

expression, which is closely dependent on technology, real urban high-impact utopias

towards social, emotional and cultural imaginary, far away from everyday reality.

Opportunities are offered by large voids left by the end of industrialization city

processes, in large areas in different parts of central Europe, namely urban

transformations through which rebalance the physical and functional structures of the

existing city. Time, the fourth dimension in urban design projects, seems to be an

elusive variable, flowing faster if technology that feeds it is high-speed and advanced,

difficult to harness in a grid of predetermined factors, but capable of altering the

physical enjoyment of urban places. Time, evolving through daily physical forms of the

city, is linked to personal clocks of individuals – timetables, agendas, rhythms - and to

modalities through which, during daytime and at night, the city offers itself to people,

able to give services and to amaze at the same time. This duality in the contemporary

world is strongly influenced by technological innovation that turns urban spaces into

highly sophisticated and competitive places, in a global sense. But time is also

intended as genius saeculi8, the spirit of time, the dominant spirit of our contemporary

age, able to change the normal perception of things and of the whole world. The city,

the place of humanity and society par excellence, is the truest physical representation

of inner-time universe.

7The growth patterns of the last two decades, however, show that MITO does not really exists,

although the two cities show the presence of forms of economic and functional interdependence

and are supposed to be further influenced by the high-speed railway line under construction in this

part of Europe.

8Spiritof time, Zeitgeist in German, is an expression adopted in the eighteenth century philosophy

which indicates the dominant cultural trend in a certain historical period. The term is found almost

unchanged in a sentence of Mephistopheles in "Faust" by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Was ihr den

Geist der Zeiten heißt –it has been the spirit of times), but it is mainly known in the field of analytical

philosophy of history, through Hegel thought and his lectures on the subject. The concept of

genius saeculi is used in this paper referred to social and cultural practices related to a specific

context.

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: CONTROVERSIES, CONTRASTS and CHALLENGES

549

LOOKING FOR BEAUTY AND URBAN WELLBEING

In the contemporary city it is possible to identify four dimensions related to different

ways to experience and enjoy urban places: real city, living city, imagined city, dreamed

city. The living city does not necessarily coincide with the real city: everyone, in fact,

daily lives, passes through, uses spaces and places inside the city, but everyone, in a

unique way, composes each day his own city, defining the mesh of paths and

connections, based on his place of residence, his working time and life, choosing

entertainment and leisure places on his habits and needs. Everyone moves in an urban

endless continuum, where public aspects, related to relationships, sharing,

participation, social practices, mix up with private aspects, related to individuality,

diversity, lifestyles. Everyone is inclined to build his own neighborhood, drawing in the

real city a tailor-made city, a city a la carte. So the boundary between reality and

image/imagery is increasingly blurred: dreams, fashion, myths, illusions, desires have

become powerful factors in shaping the real city. No longer, therefore, a city of

numbers, multitudes, actors, entrepreneurs, interests, according to a Cartesian and

overhead model.The urban planning culture today, more than ever, is committed to

respond to a demand of beauty and attractiveness, both in its physical and

morphological dimension, offering attractive models of transformation of places

throught huge, futuristic, powerful symbolic-architectures, self-expression of a specific

language design and strong visual sign in the urban landscape. The mayors of many

Italian and European cities establish a direct relationship with the renowned architects -

so-called archistars (Lo Ricco and Micheli, 20039) – in charge of performing major

public works or spectacular infrastructures, because their implementation is considered

exceptional and therefore it follows special procedures. Trade journals, but also mass

divulgation magazines, tend to evaluate and enhance projects as such, its intrinsic

value rather than its relationship with the existing built environment. The most significant

evidence of new urban centrality are represented, as well as from established structures

such as theaters, cinemas, museums, parks, also from new forms of entertainment

shops - shopping centres that also offer recreational activities and games - or

edutainment places - places of entertainment related to education - which require to

come out the isolation and the puntual location in order to access the network, which is

the city. The cityscape - physical landscape of the city - thus assumes new

connotations, more ultramodern, technologically functional, projected towards the

conquest of the coming future. At the same time public spaces needs to host new

representations of leisure, entertainment, consumption, flanerie, in order to satisfy a

wide dimension of pleasure, expression of freedom, all rights and all needs. The

mindscape(Amendola, 1997) - symbolic and mental landscape of the city - materializing

into physical forms within the city, becomes synonymous of a widespread urban

weelbeing demand, intended both individual and collective coexistence, through wide

forms of social security. Security has always been regarded as the essence of the city,

already detectable in the fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1338-40) depicting the

―Allegory of Good Government‖, considered the most faithful description of the Middle

Age ideal city, the happy, beautiful and prosperous city. He puts an angel over the city,

9This interesting essay outlines details of a rising inexorable phenomenon, in the world of

Architecture: the term "spettacolo" (show business) refers to the jet-set cool atmosphere and the

copyright on the word "archistar" is an expression derived from the fusion between marketing and

culture, as well as the transformation of identity into a commercial brand which are dominant

elements in the contemporary economic society.

14th IPHS CONFERENCE 12-15 July 2010 Istanbul-TURKEY

550

Securitas, who brings a scroll on which it is written: «…senza paura ognuom franco

camini».

Contemporary public spaces, places of collective coexistence, are more and more

linked to globalization phenomena: time-space acceleration, multi-presence,

dissolution of personal relationships, space of flows, new information and

communication systems, experiences related not to sites but to images, way of quick,

visual, not physical knowledge, loss of old solidarity forms and knowledge (family,

community) and birth of new ones (distance and confidence), different and non-fixed

scale social places. They are scenarios of individuality, where the social dimension

doesn‘t exist anymore, «the non-place urban realm» (Webber, 1964)as defined by

Melvin Webber. Thus it is very clear and effective the distinction introduced by Marco

Cenzatti and Margaret Crawford (Cenzatti and Crawford, 1993) of «quasi-public space»

and «public quasi-space». The first ones, shopping malls, stations, airports and

convention centers, are private places but open to public use, accessible to all people

who have a credit card or can buy and spend money: they express a new form of social

space, something between the domestic and public space, with a strong mechanism of

inclusion and often, only formally, similar to squares. The second ones are sons of new

communication networks, electronic mail, fax, modem, telephone, TV and have no

relation between physical place and social experience: they create a new way of

looking at the city, not a static organization of physical objects around one centre or

more centres, but organization of networks, often invisible, able to multiply the

possibilities of communication and interaction at a distance and to eliminate the need

for a physical place. They represent new forms of place generated by the media and

increasingly sophisticated technologies, which promote an home-culture service and

contribute to the loss of all possibilities offered by interaction and conflict that generate

social growth.

However, it is just in the public space, the physical place of human relationship

between individuals, that the contemporary city can try to define its identity, because it

is the place where everyone can exercise the experience of autonomy and uniqueness

and at the same time of community, local and global, diversity, comparison,

hybridization, knowledge, contamination, socialization made of speech, listening,

game, rules, transgression, recognition. The place, therefore, where every individual

can be, where freedom and democracy are put into practice, where values of humanity

are exalted (Scandurra, 2003).

CONTEMPORARY HISTORIC CITY

Today half of the world‘s population lives in cities. The United Nation report ―State of the

World‘s Cities 2006/7‖ calculates that 75% of the planet in 2050 will live in cities, while

just a century ago only 10% lived in urban areas. In the light ofthe urban scenery

complexity emerging at the beginning of the millennium, it is clear how the

contemporary city has to reinvent and improve itself, acting on the growing demand

expressed by its inhabitants, trying to bridge the gap between «methods of thought and

methods of feeling» (Giedion, 1948) occurred in the previous century, trying to achieve

an intellectual, political and emotionalunityof culture. Such intervention requires

interrelation of micro with macro-social, of quality with quantity, through the use of

different and cross-learning knowledge related to urban planning discipline, in order to

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: CONTROVERSIES, CONTRASTS and CHALLENGES

551

reconcile physical city aspects to those related to the living cityand the subject

(intervention on the city) with the object (community).

But how to design places that can generate affectivity and satisfy forms of desire for

collective life within a complex global society that tends to level differences, that denies

forms of solidarity because it encourages isolation and loneliness? It is obvious that it‘s

not possible todesign places accessible to everyone, to all existing human diversity,

because exclusions should be inevitable. The paradigm of contemporary urban theory

is to reverse the classical concept of public space, intended as a place where people

gather to discuss the facts of the city, according to an ideal of political life based on

dialogue and reasoning, and consider urban place as a comparing space between

differentpeople with the same rights, inside which everyone feels free and safe having

dealings with others. The project of agora, namely the place of public-private urban

sociality, and ecclesia, namely the public-public place of political power, must be

closely linked to the oikos, namely private place of home and family, because the public

decision affects in some waythe private life, and at the same time the private sphere

does not guarantee socialization of individuals (Castoriadis, 1998).In addition to being

regarded as the first aggregation element in the overall design of the city, the house

must be systematized with all the functions of the city. In European urban culture, since

the late twentieth century, life style and behaviour of the inhabitants depend very largely

on the geographic location of their houses, which is no longer regarded as the place of

permanent residence but as an extension of the city: houses must therefore be able to

meet the same requirements of beauty, usability, attractiveness, safety that

contemporary city has to satisfy, must be technologically equipped, through an efficient

system of networks and of energy savings of consumption.This need is reflected in an

increasingly housing disorder: the upper-class housing estates, gated communities,

restored blocks in the historical centre inhabited by bourgeoisie, degraded (sometimes

historical) central areas, suburban middle-class neighbourhoods, popular quarters

without services, semi-central autonomous districts, dormitoryslats, emergency houses

in the extreme periphery, barracks. The unequal spatial distribution of residences not

only draws a physical geography of the city but also a social geography which is

projected into the material concreteness of the city.

It is necessary to look at the city and its genius loci through new eyes, «the question of

whether you can see and think differently from the wayyou think and see, is essential to

continue to look at and reflect»(Foucault, 1984). This means to start a real

epistemological revolution, which aims to establish a new knowledge able to

understand our inner-world, consisting of our thinking and our feeling, the genius

saeculi, that guides us in reflecting these thought and feeling in the historical built

environment. The parameter is no longer Man, with capital M, intended as in traditional

normative and universalistic models of Humanism, but people, with the lowercase p

and in a plural sense, which means different populationsliving together in the designed

city, intended for what they really are and not for what they should be. The imperative is

to design the city with people in mind, having people as datum-point, getting into the

diverse humanity that constitutes the contemporary social world, in order to answer to

the growing desire to live and enjoy the city, as an expression of that «right to the city»

mentioned by Henri Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 1968) forty years ago.

So the historic city could be the instrument of a new genesis, an order-setting element

inside complexity because it can collect and contain all instances of the contemporary

world in the consolidated urban grain. Genius saeculi, the spirit of time, requires an

14th IPHS CONFERENCE 12-15 July 2010 Istanbul-TURKEY

552

update of public spaces content and collective themes, which are read and assigned to

the historical forms from people who live and inhabit those places, and the insertion of

new meanings, new values, new forms of environmental exploitation. The historic city is

able to translate this need and to express it through the continuity of architectural

language, inherited from the past, and through identity values of community, according

to a sustainable model that has already demonstrated its effectiveness through history,

adapting itself andcreating layer upon layer, century after century. It can act as a

centrifugal force to which all peripheral appendages converge, in order to connect all

public spaces into one network, defining a system of sequences from the urban centre

to outdoor districts, activating regeneration and rehabilitation processes of degraded

areas, defining new focuses, becoming a hierarchical and scalarprinciple. It is able to

generate a spatial oneness, in which different parts interact through the interconnection

of public spaces, updated and adapted to new forms of social life, forming an evolved

narrative plot, turned to a new ethical, functional and aestheticaldimension. The historic

city is able to awake the sense of belonging of the contemporary man to the world that

he has builthimself, which is the purest reflection of his social evolution. Because the

world that history has consigned us is a long processresult, bound to change again

and again by introducing new variables, where the only constant is and has always

been man. And it is only through a comprehensive and clear knowledge of the human

real world that it is possible to return to work on the city and to identify the meaning and

value of all things. «For a split second, between the loss of everything that I knew

beforeand the purchase of all that I would have learned later, I was able to embrace in a

single thought the world of things as they were and things as they could have been,

and I realized that a unique system held everything» (Calvino, 1967).

REFERENCES

Alexander, C (1987) ―A new theory of urban design‖, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Amendola, G. (1997) ―La città postmoderna. Magie e paure della metropoli

contemporanea‖, Laterza, Roma-Bari

Amin, A. and Thrift N. (2001) ―Cities. Reimagining the Urban‖, Polity Press, Cambridge

Ascher, F. (2000) ―Le nouveaux principes d‘urbanisme―, Edition de l‘Aube, Paris

Augè, M. (1992) ―Non-lieux‖, Edition du Seuil, Paris

Bauman, Z. (1997) ―Liquid Modernity‖, Polity Press, Cambridge

Buls, C. (1893) ―L'Esthetique des Villes―, Bruyland-Christople, Brussels

Burdett, R. and Kanai, M. (2006) ―La costruzione delle città in un‘era di trasformazione

urbana‖, Catalogo della 10. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura. Biennale di

Venezia, ―Architettura e società‖, Marsilio, Padova

Calvino, I. (1967) ―L‘origine degli Uccelli‖ in ―Ti con zero‖, Einaudi, Torino

Castoriadis, C. (1998) ―De l'autonomie en politique. L'individu privatisé―, Le Monde

diplomatique, février, 23

Cenzatti, M. and Crawford, M. (1993) ―Public Spaces and Parallel Worlds‖, Casabella,

597-598, pp. 34-38

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: CONTROVERSIES, CONTRASTS and CHALLENGES

553

Cullen, G (1961) ―Townscape‖, The Architectural Press, London

Durkheim, E. (1970) ―La Science sociale et l‘Action―, Presses Universitaires de France,

Paris

Florida, R. (2002) ―The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work,

Leisure, Community and Everyday Life‖, Basic Books, New York

Foucault, M. (1984) ―L‘usage des plaisirs‖, Gallimard, Paris

Friedman, Y (1974) ―Utopies Réalisables‖, Editions de l‘éclat, Paris

Geddes, P. (1915) ―Cities in evolution‖, Williams and Borgate, London

Gehl, J. (1987) ―Life Between Buildings. Using Public Space‖, Van Nostrand Reinhold,

New York (first edition)

Giddens, A. (1990) ―The consequences of modernity‖, Polity Press, Cambridge

Giedion, S. (1948) ―Mechanization takes command: a contribution to anonymous

history‖, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Glazer, N. e Moynihan, D. P. (1970) ―Beyond the melting pot‖, MIT Press, Cambridge

Indovina, F. (2006), (edited by) ―Nuovo lessico urbano‖, Franco Angeli, Milano

Ingersoll R. (2006) ―Sprawltown. Looking for the city in its edge‖, Princeton Architectural

Press, New York

Jacobs, J. (1961) ―The death and life of great american cities‖, Vintage Books, New

York

Jencks, C. (1977) ―The Language of Post-Modern Architecture―, Academy Editions,

London

Koolhaas, R. (2001) ―Junkspace‖, Project on the City 2/Harvard Design School, ―Guide

to shopping‖, Taschen, Köln

Lefebvre, H. (1968) ―Le droit à la ville‖, Antrophos, Paris

Le Galès, P. (1995), ―European Cities‖, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Lo Ricco, G. and Micheli, S. (2003) ―Lo spettacolo dell‘architettura. Profilo

dell‘archistar©‖, Bruno Mondatori, Milano

Lynch, K. (1981) ―A theory of good city form‖, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets

Lyotard, J. F. (1979) ―La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir―, Les Editions

de Minuit, Paris

Martinotti, G. (1993) ―Metropoli. La nuova morfologia sociale della città‖, Il Mulino,

Bologna

Mela, A. (2006) ―Sociologia delle città‖, Carocci, Roma

Mumford, L. (1938) ―The culture of cities‖, Hartcourt Brace & Co., New York

Norberg-Schulz, C. (1979) ―Genius loci. Paesaggio ambiente architettura―, Electa,

Milano

14th IPHS CONFERENCE 12-15 July 2010 Istanbul-TURKEY

554

Park, R. E., Burgess, E. W. and McKenzie, R. D. (1938) ―The city‖, The University of

Chicago Press, Chicago

Purini, F., Marzot, N. and Sacchi L. (2006), (edited by), ―La città Nuova italia – y – 26.

Invito a Vema, Il padiglione italiano alla 10. Mostra internazionale di Architettura‖,

Compositori, Bologna

Romano, M. (1993), ―L'estetica della città europea‖, Einaudi, Torino

Rossi, A. (1966) ―L'architettura della città‖, Marsilio, Padova

Sandercook, L. (1998), ―Towards cosmopolis. Planning for Multicultural cities―, John

Wiley & Sons, New York

Sassen, S. (1991) ―The Global City‖, Princeton University Press, Princeton

Scandurra, E. (2003) ―Città morenti e città viventi‖, Meltemi, Roma

Sen, A. K. (1993) ―Capability and wellbeing‖, Nussbaum, N. and Sen, A. K. ―The quality

of life‖ Clarendon press, Oxford

Sitte, C. (1889) ―Der Städte-bau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen―, Verlag von

Carl Graeser, Wien

Webber, M. (1964) ―The Urban Place and the Non-Place Urban Realm‖ Explorations

into Urban Structure, University Press of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Wirth, L. (1938) ―Urbanism as a way of life‖, American Journal of Sociology, 44

urbanistica DOSSIER online

006Rivista monograficaonlineISBN 978-88-7603-101-4

INUEdizioni

CITTÀ OPEN SOURCESPAZIO PUBBLICO NETWORK INNOVAZIONE SOCIALE

a cura di Ilaria Vitellio

ATTI WORKSHOP BIENNALE SPAZIO PUBBLICO 2013

PresentazioneMARIO SPADA

IntroduzioneILARIA VITELLIO

L’Infoscape Open Source delle CittàSALVATORE IACONESI, ORIANA PERSICO

La Città Open SourceILARIA VITELLIO

Multiwalks. Passeggiate artistiche nelle città europee DAMIANO RAZZOLI

Performing Media per l’Urban Experience. La via ludico-partecipativa alla cittadinanza educativaCARLO INFANTE, SAVERIO MASSARO

Il suono dello spazio pubblico: camminare e ascoltare per rivivere la cittàCAMILLA CROSTA

ITI Itinerari Turistici IndustrialiCATERINA TIMPANARO

In viaggio attraverso geografie emozionali e paesaggi sonori urbani: la mappa sonora tenera di FirenzeANTONELLA RADICCHI

STAMPAXI+SARDARCH, FRANCESCO COCCO, MATTEO LECIS COCCO ORTU, NICOLÒ FENU

Il Progetto Artena ANGELO ABBATE, ANTONIO CAPERNA, ANGELO GENTILI, GIACOMO GRAZIOSI, ANGELICA FORTUZZI, GUGLIELMO MINERVINO,

STEFANO SERAFINI

Sequenze urbane. Unità minime di conversAzione sullo spazio pubblicoMATTIA LEONE, DANILO IACONE, VITTORIO SANTANGELO, FRANCESCA NICOLAIS, VALERIA SCIALÒ, GUIDO ACAMPA

Spazio pubblico figitale: una convergenza tra luoghi e comunità attiveGIUSEPPE ROCCASALVA, SIMONA VALENTI

Mapping MarinaLORENZO GRUSSU, PATRIZIA SULIS

INDICE

1 | SOFTWARE CITY

01030511

16202429334048

6055

66

El re-uso como clave para una regeneración urbana sosteniblePATRIZIA DI MONTE, IGNACIO GRÁVALOS

citymakers GT, produrre giocando!TIZIANA AMICUZI, GIULIO PASCALI

Urban hacktivism e locative media. Strategie di riappropriazione dei paesaggi dell’abbandonoALESSANDRO CARIELLO, ROSSELLA FERORELLI, SMALL: SOFT METROPOLITAN ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE LAB

[im]possible livingDANIELA GALVANI, ANDREA SESTA

MICROSPAZI-MI: crowdsourcing e crowdmapping per la qualificazione partecipata e sostenibile dello spazio pubblico latenteMARCO VEDOÀ

La governance tra progettazione partecipata e metodologie open: il progetto “E tu cosa ci vedi?”ANDREA CECCHIN, ANNA AGOSTINI, MICHELE SBRISSA, MATTEO BRUNATI

EMERGING FORMS OF LIVING COLLECTIVELY THE CITY. The experience of LOCAL SQUARES in community-driven spaces in Madrid

GIULIA MOLINENGO, LENA HUMMEL

NON RISERVATO dal web alla piazza e ritornoNICOLA CIANCIO, ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE EX-VOTO MILANO, GIOVANNA CRISAFULLI

Riformulazione urbana attraverso nuovi spazi di co-workingDANIEL ESGUEVILLAS

Il Sabato alla BovisaDAVIDE FASSI, ROBERTA MOTTER

Spazi urbani e vita pubblica. Azioni ed esperimenti di “social engagement”LUISA BRAVO

Piattaforme ibride per moltiplicare le possibilità: diventare segugi urbani con CITY-HOUNDNina Artioli, Alessandra Glorialanza, Eliana Saracino (T SPOON)

INDICE

72798187889295

105100

109114119

2 | CITY 2.0

INDICE

Coltivando. L'orto conviviale al Politecnico di MilanoDAVIDE FASSI, ALESSANDRO SACHERO

Agriculture as peace infrastructureMIRKO ANDOLINA

Un frutteto a MetropolizMICHELA PASQUALI

Nuove pratiche di riconfigurazione dello spazio pubblico per contrastare gli effetti del cambiamento climaticoVALENTINA CRUPI

La generazione CO- e i processi di riqualificazione del Terzo PaesaggioDANIELA PANARIELLO

Sensibilità collettiva e smart cities. Una proposta di metodo per tenere bassi i costi dell’errore nel progetto dello spazio pubblico

ALICE ALBANESE

Intercultural garden: strumento per costruire appartenenzaELIANA SARACINO

Mappare l’interazione sociale negli spazi verdi: strumenti di visualizzazione analiticaGIUSEPPE ROCCASALVA, WALTER CAVALLARO

La prossimità dell’agricoltura periurbana tra criticità e potenzialità; quale prospettiva?GINA FURIA, LUIGI NEFASTO, DANIELA D’ARGENIO

Tecnonatura: processi di Land Art come generatori di energiaELISA CRISTIANA CATTANEO

125129135138142146

151

157156

162

3 | RE-IMAGINING THE COMMONS FIELDS

5INDICE

Sezione A. Architetti e ingegneri / la Categoria 1. La città sociale A.1.1_Estonoesunsolar_Patrizia di Monte, Ignacio Gravasol

A.1.2_Una tartaruga in Piazza Venerio-Udine_Gruppo Bedawang_Luca Gremese, Luigi Montalbano, Alessandro VeronaA.1.3_MACH MANN HEIM Urban Innovation Platform Empowering Mannheim's Citizens_Daniela Patti, Radostina Radulova, Esaú Acosta Pérez, Mauro Gil-Fournier Esquerra, Miguel Jaenicke Fontao, Wulf Kramer, Franziska Bettac, Leo Grosswendt,

Jaro Eiermann A.1.4_Paesaggi (ex)industriali - dalla dismissione alla città_Marino la Torre, Alberto Ulisse A.1.5_Piazza Vittorio Partecipata_Franca Marina Fresa, Ilaria Rossi Doria, Sonia Sabbadini

Sezione A. Architetti e ingegneri / Categoria 2. La città Open Source A.2.1_Un Central Park tra Torino e Milano? Uno spazio pubblico per Expo 2015_Andrea Rolando, Stefano Di Vita

A.2.2_Catania in Realtà Aumentata_Giordano Salvatore, Rosario Rapisarda A.2.3_City-Hound: social network per la trasformazione temporanea degli spazi urbani sottoutilizzati_Nina Artioli,

Alessandra Glorialanza, Eliana Saracino_TSPOON environment architecture A.2.4_Vitamina C: manifestazione fisica din una identità virtuale_Stefano Piraccini

A.2.5_Share the City!_Fabio Mancini

Sezione B. Studenti e altre discipline / Categoria 1. La città sociale B.1.1_WUNDERKAMMER. Recupero degli ex magazzini fluviali di Ferrara _ Aps Basso profilo

B.1.2_1xCoworkerSTORE: la vetrina di maker_Mod-oB.1.3_Dal Borgo al Carcere. La riappropriazione dei luoghi attraverso la riabilitazione dell’uomo_Gionata Rizzolini, Derek

Andrea Piemonti B.1.4_Riqualificazione architettonica ed energetica a basso costo partecipata degli spazi occupati della città: la Casa

delle Donne “Lucha y Siesta”_Alessandra Marsiglia B.1.5_Progetto “Ex Prima Classe”_Margherita Belgrano, Mattia Galliano

Sezione B. Studenti e altre discipline / Categoria 2. La città Open Source B.2.1_FLPP–IL FRONTE DI LIBERAZIONE DEI PIZZINI PIZZONI: la rivoluzione che arriva dal futuro_Tamalacà B.2.2_ChipIn. Un gioco urbano per sincronizzare la città_gruppo Tulup_Emanuela Caponera, Federica Fava,

Dorotea Ottaviani, Elena PeruzziB.2.3_PopHub, una piattaforma di mappatura e riattivazione per innovatori urbani_Silvia Sivo, Luca Langella

B.2.4_SEETY Milano: strumento di partecipazione all’illuminazione urbana_Daria CascianiB.2.5_Milano Stòri. Creazione di un hub culturale dove i flussi urbani diventano storia, memoria e azione creativa_Eugenia

Montagnini, Alice Selene Boni

167

181

194

205

4 | CALL FOR IDEAS

114

Spazi urbani e vita pubblica. Azioni ed esperimenti di “social engagement”

Nell’era della tecnologia digitale, la percezio-ne e la conoscenza della città e dei suoi spazi è in parte scollegata dalla sperimentazione fisica diretta: i cyber-utenti, come veri e propri flaneur, interagiscono nel web 2.0 in modi e forme del tutto simili a quelle consolidate nello spazio fisico reale. Questa fruizione virtuale del mondo ha progressivamente rilanciato una rin-novata esigenza di vivere e godere fisicamente gli spazi della città: le azioni informali di design urbano alla piccola scala e gli interventi spon-tanei di micro-urbanistica, sempre più pervasivi nella pratica urbanistica, hanno trovato terreno fertile di visibilità e diffusione attraverso il web. Si tratta per lo più di pratiche di condivisione, trasformazione, appropriazione e partecipazio-ne dello spazio, che mettono insieme pubblico e privato in una rinnovata uguaglianza urbana e sociale. Spesso i risultati sono temporanei ma hanno la capacità di imporsi fortemente, dal punto di vista emotivo e partecipativo, median-te una promozione basata anche sul social-net-working, perché in grado di dimostrare ciò che la città potrebbe essere riattivando un coinvol-gimento sociale dei cittadini.

Ripensare la città e lo spazio pubblicoNegli ultimi decenni, nei saggi di molti autori e in generale nella letteratura relativi ai sistemi urbani, il termine “città” è stato spesso accompagnato da un aggettivo, attraverso il quale si intendeva connota-re, dare consistenza e specificità alla sua condizio-ne fisica o teorica: la città è stata, di volta in volta, bella, ordinata, ricca, efficiente, invisibile, disfatta, dispersa, diffusa, infinita, immateriale e, strettamente legata alla cultura dominante, pure multiculturale, globale, virtuale, universale, in rete, digitale. Tanti aggettivi che hanno progressivamente conferito alla città un’essenza tendenziosa, avviando un inarre-stabile processo di perdita di identità (Purini, 2004). Non solo, tanti aggettivi che hanno reso evidente, da un lato, la difficoltà di comprendere e di definire compiutamente la complessità dell’oggetto “città”, nella sua dimensione contemporanea, e l’evoluzione dei suoi valori, come esito della crisi della moderni-tà; dall’altro la mancanza di un convincimento forte nell’interpretazione delle trasformazioni politiche, economiche e sociali che hanno investito la società e il mondo nel secolo scorso (Indovina, 2006). A questa difficoltà teorica di tipo disciplinare si è aggiunta, già a partire dagli anni Novanta, una difficoltà operativa dell’azione progettuale, generata dall’irresistibile pervasività di una pratica burocratica sempre più basata sull’inflazione normativa e sulla ridondanza delle verifiche quantitative. L’affastellarsi delle regole, dei piani e delle norme ha prodotto una progressiva caduta di legittimazione dell’urbanisti-ca, come strumento, ed ha aperto la strada ad una stagione di sostanziale impotenza dell’urbanistica praticata, imprigionata e quasi paralizzata da una struttura fatta di vincoli, divieti e procedure sempre più complesse e standardizzate, in cui poco spazio veniva lasciato alla componente creativa. Mentre i ritmi dell’azione urbanistica, teorica e pratica, progressivamente rallentavano, perdendosi nella gestione dei processi, anche a seguito della crisi del welfare state e dei modelli di governance, le città iniziavano a cambiare e ad aumentare la loro com-plessità, a seguito di profonde e rapide trasformazio-ni: nuovi gruppi sociali, nuovi conflitti urbani, nuovi problemi di cittadinanza e di coesione, di marginaliz-zazione e di esclusione, nuove condizioni di disparità e d’insicurezza, nuovi stili e modi di vita. All’inizio del nuovo Millennio è apparsa indispensa-bile una penetrante riflessione critica a tutto campo, a cui accompagnare politiche innovative, volte a sperimentare modalità di intervento meno convenzio-nali, basate su una capacità tutta nuova di ascoltare, di comunicare e di condividere. Una riflessione, sviluppata da storici, sociologi, antropologi, geografi, economisti, linguisti, filosofi, scrittori, artisti, architetti, urbanisti, ingegneri, imprenditori ed amministratori locali, che ha dovuto necessariamente interrogarsi sulla ri-definizione della città, declinata attraverso le nuove istanze e le molteplici espressioni riferite al contemporaneo.L’elemento che ha rappresentato un punto di rottura

115

che è piuttosto difficile oggi ricostruire e comprendere quando questo passaggio è avvenuto. Sappiamo solo che è diventato ineludibile perché troppo eviden-te per essere ignorato. Le pubbliche amministrazioni, avendo inteso la potenzialità di questo fenomeno, tale da imporsi come risorsa preziosa, hanno iniziato a promuovere bandi e attività di sostegno alle libere forme associative, vale a dire forme semplici di ag-gregazione civica. In tempo di crisi, nella precarietà del lavoro nelle sue vecchie e consolidate strutture, le nuove generazioni hanno così trovato forme smart di micro-impresa, legate alla costruzione di una rin-novata consapevolezza e cultura delle città mediante progetti che trovano spazio di finanziamento in Euro-pa e visibilità nel mondo. In questa complessa operazione non sempre gli architetti, e i progettisti in generale, hanno avuto un ruolo: prendersi cura della strada di fronte alla pro-pria casa, promuovere campagne di intervento per la riqualificazione di un giardino o di un parcheggio, organizzare eventi creativi di uso e consumo comu-nitario dello spazio pubblico non richiede nessuna specifica competenza.

Everyday Urbanism ovvero la quotidianità dell’ur-banisticaIl padiglione degli Stati Uniti, alla Biennale di Ar-chitettura “Common ground” (2012) ha celebrato le azioni di attivismo urbano di tipo bottom-up, mediante la presentazione di 124 progetti (tuttora consultabili nel sito www.spontaneousinterventions.org/interventions), sul tema “Spontaneous Interven-tions: Design Actions for the Common Good”. Il progetto di esposizione, curato da Cathy Lang Ho e promosso dall’Institute for Urban Design di New York, organizzazione non-profit presieduta da Michael Sorkin (Sorkin, 1992), ha valorizzato efficacemente le azioni informali di design urbano alla piccola scala e gli interventi spontanei di micro-urbanistica pre-sentando gli esiti di processi sviluppati anche senza uno specifico progetto firmato da un architetto o approvato dalla pubblica amministrazione3: nel loro carattere instabile e amorfo queste azioni di do-it-yourself urbanism o tactical urbanism (Lydon, 2011) sono espressione di un’esigenza di partecipazione democratica e di un desiderio di libertà, che vive e si alimenta anche attraverso le reti sociali stabilite a li-vello virtuale. Molto spesso esse prevedono interventi “lighter, quicker, cheaper”, come definiti dagli esperti di placemaking dell’organizzazione no-profit “Project for Public Spaces” (www.pps.org), con base a New York. Nell’ottica di agire in proprio per il benessere

3 Il padiglione USA è stato premiato con una Menzio-ne speciale dalla giuria della 13. Mostra Internazionale di architettura, Biennale di Venezia 2012. Dal 24 maggio 2013 (e fino al 1 settembre) la mostra “Spontaneous Interventions” è stata presentata per la prima volta negli Stati Uniti presso il Chicago Cultural Center. I contenuti sono stati aggiornati con 84 progetti, di cui alcuni dall’area di Chicago e altri selezionati dall’esposizione di Venezia, e con una “outdoor living room” nel Millennium Park, progettata da MAS Studio.

e di istantaneo superamento degli strumenti consoli-dati del passato è stato la costituzione del cyber spa-ce delle reti (Mitchell, 1996). Alla complessità fisica e fisiologica dell’organismo urbano, si è sovrapposto, in forme sempre più pervasive ed efficaci, il layer delle comunità virtuali, in cui gli utenti, come veri e propri flaneur, esplorano la riproduzione digitale del mondo: passeggiano nelle piazze, visitano musei, comprano nei mercati interattivi, dialogano con le istituzioni, si incontrano nelle agorà telematiche dei social networks, interagiscono con amici e scono-sciuti, proprio come avviene nello spazio fisico reale. Oggi un quarto della popolazione mondiale (circa 2 miliardi di persone1) è connesso alla rete. La tecnolo-gia ha prodotto, in tempi brevissimi rispetto a quelli attraverso i quali la città fisica costruisce se stessa, un vero e proprio passaggio d’epoca, definendo una nuova conformazione dell’urbano, fruibile a tutti e a vari livelli. Le pubbliche amministrazioni hanno dovuto adeguare i loro modelli di funzionamento alle nuove esigenze richieste dalle cyber communities, costruendo piattaforme di comunicazione e dialogo con i cittadini e gli utenti, che a vario titolo esplorano le reti istituzionali, e mettendo a disposizione strut-ture sempre aggiornate per la condivisione di dati e informazioni (open data2). Così mentre la fruizione della città e dei suoi servi-zi, pubblici e privati, è diventata sempre più facile, attraverso anche i dispositivi mobili, l’interazione sociale ha creato connessioni fra i diversi utenti, che dal mondo virtuale si spostano al mondo fisico e vi-ceversa: il sistema delle reti digitali non ha prodotto, come inizialmente molti teorici sostenevano, indivi-dualizzazione e isolamento, anzi, ha rilanciato con forza una socialità vivace e una rinnovata esigenza di vivere e godere fisicamente gli spazi della città. In questo senso, di fronte all’inerzia delle pubbliche amministrazioni nel gestire l’azione sul territorio, è cresciuta l’esigenza, da parte dei cittadini, di rientrare in possesso della città, per modificarne lo spazio di relazione della vita collettiva, per migliorarlo o adat-tarlo a nuovi usi. Diversi soggetti, come singoli o come associazioni, come tecnici o semplicemente cittadini, hanno comin-ciato a ragionare sulle potenzialità di trasformazione, ri-uso, riqualificazione di edifici, aree abbandonate, di piazze e spazi pubblici, hanno presentato progetti e immaginato relazioni per poterli realizzare, hanno reso pubbliche le loro opinioni, attraverso blogs e social networks, hanno sensibilizzato le coscienze su temi di attualità, portando avanti petizioni e manife-stando il proprio dissenso, sono cioè diventati attori protagonisti della scena urbana, capaci di lavorare in un’ottica attenta e costruttiva, perché radicati nel territorio e nelle sue problematicità. Dal virtuale al reale il passo è stato breve e quasi immediato, tanto

1 Fonte: Internet World Stats – www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.2 Si veda, a titolo di esempio, il progetto “Open data” del Comune di Bologna: http://dati.comune.bologna.it/

116

della collettività, le risorse economiche sono limitate mentre la creatività e la cooperazione trovano ampio spazio: i cittadini, intervenendo come principali per-formers, attraverso progetti di tipo pop-up, investono il loro tempo e le loro capacità con generosità disin-teressata, caratterizzata, quasi sempre, anche da una componente ludica che invita alla partecipazione, senza distinzioni di età, e diventa motore di consen-so, partecipazione e di approvazione. L’attenzione nell’individuare e scoprire potenzialità urbane non va rivolta solo agli spazi riconoscibili come luoghi di aggregazione pubblica, ma anche a luoghi banali, aree vuote non compiutamente progettate o a spazi non immediatamente percepibili per un uso collet-tivo, come marciapiedi, cortili, aree di parcheggio (Ben-Joseph, 2012), che generalmente sono utilizzati per usi privati o commerciali. Questi luoghi possono diventare o sono diventati spazi di attività collettiva, legati alle molteplici esigenze della vita comunitaria, anche se solo per alcune ore del giorno o per alcuni giorni della settimana o del mese. I risultati, spesso temporanei, hanno avuto la capacità di imporsi forte-mente sulla comunità, dal punto di vista emotivo e partecipativo, perché in grado di dimostrare ciò che la città potrebbe essere riattivando un coinvolgimento sociale dei cittadini. L’origine di queste pratiche di attivismo urbano si può rintracciare in buona parte in esperienze Nord Euro-pee, come complemento di politiche promosse dalle pubbliche amministrazioni per il miglioramento della mobilità urbana e per la valorizzazione dello spazio pubblico di relazione. Dalle esperienze del woonerf in Olanda alla fine degli anni Sessanta (legittimate e regolamentate a partire dal 1976) alle Home Zones tedesche e inglesi degli anni Settanta (Biddulph, 2001) - sperimentate anche negli Stati Uniti a partire dal 2002 – in Europa inizia un graduale processo di ridefinizione concettuale delle strade, intese non più come luoghi dei flussi a priorità carrabile, ma sempre più organizzate e progettate per una percor-ribilità pedonale e ciclabile, quindi intese come spazi pubblici e come occasioni di vita pubblica. Oggi diverse città europee hanno rinnovato la loro im-magine pedestrian-friendly, promuovendo politiche mirate alla riduzione del traffico veicolare e avviando progetti e azioni di condivisione della strada con altri tipi di utenza. L’eredità teorica di Jan Gehl 4(1971), e di ben noti studiosi americani come Jane Jacobs (1961) e William H. Whyte (1980), è tornata così prepotentemente alla ribalta: guardare la città e i suoi spazi attraverso gli occhi degli abitanti permette di evidenziarne le potenzialità di trasformazione per favorire l’interazione e coesione sociale. Bruxelles, secondo una ricerca del 2011 dell’azienda

4 Jan Gehl rappresenta sicuramente una figura di riferi-mento nel panorama europeo: il suo lavoro, dal famoso “Life between buildings” (1971) fino al documentario “The human scale” (2012) - presentato in Italia alla Mostra Internazionale di Architettura di Venezia “Common ground” – è l’esito di una approfondita ricerca sull’uso dello spazio pubblico. Si veda: http://www.gehlarchitects.com/

dei navigatori TomTom, è la città più congestionata d’Europa: la velocità media del 70% del traffico vei-colare non supera i 5 km/h. Ma negli ultimi 10 anni il traffico delle biciclette è aumentato dall’1 al 4%, come risposta ad una esigenza di riappropriazione dello spazio e a un desiderio di cambiamento. Un documentario dal titolo “Brussels Express”5 racconta le imprese eroiche di questi bike messengers, che percorrono distanze fino a 180 Km al giorno, defi-nendo un trend che trae origine dalla percezione e fruizione dell’ambiente urbano alla scala umana e sociale. A Parigi, dopo la sperimentazione del programma “Condividere la strada” avviata nel 2012 nel 10° ar-rondissement, l’amministrazione cittadina ha imposto su un terzo delle vie urbane, a partire da settembre 2013, il limite di velocità di 30 Km/h: saranno inte-ressati dal provvedimento un centinaio di zone resi-denziali, 1300 scuole della capitale francese e anche alcuni assi di scorrimento declassati dal municipio a strade di quartiere. Un’ulteriore limitazione della velocità, a 20 km/h, interesserà 23 “zone d'incontro”, in prossimità di centri commerciali, scuole e universi-tà - come il quartiere Marais, dove i pedoni e i ciclisti che vanno a passeggiare o a fare shopping hanno sempre la precedenza - che si andranno ad aggiun-gere alle 15 già esistenti. Parigi potrà dunque contare su 560 chilometri di strade a velocità moderata, il 37% del totale della rete stradale cittadina, e divente-rà quindi il paradiso dei ciclisti e dei pedoni6. Nel 2008 la Monacelli Press di New York pubblica il volume dal titolo “Everyday urbanism”7, a cura di John Leighton Chase, Margaret Crawford e John Kaliski. L’Everyday urbanism promuove un concetto alternativo di urban design, un nuovo approccio, basato su Lefebvre (1971) e de Certeau (1984), per riconnettere la ricerca e il progetto dell’urbanistica con l’esperienza umana e sociale. Tale approccio è finalizzato da un lato ad approfondire la città esisten-te e la vita pubblica che in essa si svolge quotidiana-mente, secondo pratiche formali o informali (Ba-nerjee, 2001), dall’altro a proporre nuovi e imprevisti significati ai luoghi ordinari, intesi come parte dell’e-veryday space, attivando una sensibilità specifica verso un substrato di contenuti intangibili. L’Everyday

5 http://www.brusselsexpressfilm.be/6 Attualmente a Parigi, all’interno dei 20 arrondissement, il 60% della popolazione si sposta a piedi, il 27% col trasporto pubblico, il 7% in macchina e il 4% in bici. Il sindaco Bertrand Delanoë ha anche chiesto al governo una modifica del codice della strada che gli consenta di abbassare la velocità sulle grandi arterie di scorrimento intorno alla capitale a 70 km/h.7 Si tratta di una expanded version del volume dallo stesso ti-tolo, pubblicato nel 1999. L’introduzione di Margaret Crawford, nell’edizione 2008, chiarisce le origini teoriche alla base della definizione concettuale dell’Everyday urbanism, individuando anche studi, ricerche ed eventi che già negli anni Novanta confluivano nella stessa direzione, con particolare riferimento all’area di Los Angeles e del sud della California; riporta inoltre le critiche all’EU, anche da parte di noti studiosi, per lo più ac-cademici, che avevano probabilmente sottovalutato l’importan-za di un fenomeno che stava crescendo al di fuori degli schemi e delle prassi consolidate dell’urbanistica.

117

urbanism è basato non più sull’idea convenzionale di “spazio pubblico”, morfologicamente definito e iden-tificato, ma su una molteplicità di “publics”, legati ai ritmi temporali e agli itinerari quotidiani degli utenti, di tipo sia pubblico che privato, in grado di generare multiple occasioni di vita collettiva (Bravo e Crawford, 2013). Esso lavora sia in senso bottom-up (riferita al soggetto) che top-down (utilizzando conoscenza e tecniche sofisticate), vale a dire sia in senso tattico (mediante azioni informali non autorizzate dalla pubblica amministrazione) che strategico (mediante la formulazione di progetti e piani da parte degli enti preposti). Uno degli esiti più soddisfacenti del volume – scrive la Crawford – è stato il crescente entusiasmo da parte di architetti, urbanisti, studenti, persone e gruppi like-minded, che hanno accolto il metodo di lavoro proposto, adottando di conseguenza un nuovo approccio progettuale. L’Everyday urbanism ha così dato un nome a pratiche innovative già in corso e ha definito un concetto al quale un numero sorprendente di persone ha potuto identificarsi. Attra-verso la ricerca di un ordinary magic, in circostanze che molti progettisti definirebbero poco promettenti, l’Everyday urbanism diventa espressione di un intento visionario di trasformazione, più di altri paradigmi dell’urbanistica contemporanea. Emblematica, in questo senso, è stata la recente riqualificazione di Times Square a New York, forse il luogo più fotografato al mondo, nell’ambito del progetto “PlaNYC. A greener, greater New York”, promosso a partire dal 2007 dal sindaco Michael Bloomberg: al traffico automobilistico si è sostituito uno straordinario spazio pubblico di circa 1,8 acri (quasi una volta e mezzo un campo da calcio), in grado di accogliere gli oltre 350.000 pedoni che lo affollano ogni giorno, con molteplici aree di sosta e una solida ed estesa infrastruttura di piste ciclabili, accessibile attraverso una rinnovata ed efficiente rete

di bus pubblici. Questo ha significato anche un mi-glioramento del traffico veicolare, maggior sicurezza urbana e potenziamento della struttura commerciale. Stessa fortuna ha avuto il progetto di trasformazione in un parco lineare di una porzione di oltre 2 km del-la rete ferroviaria sopraelevata “High Line” nel Man-hattan West side village8: avviato a seguito dall’inten-sa attività di un gruppo di residenti, già a partire dal 1999, che si opponevano alla sua demolizione, oggi la High Line si è imposta nell’immaginario collettivo come luogo simbolo di una vincente politica urbana. Molte sono le iniziative negli Stati Uniti basate su un approccio people-oriented. Significativo in questo senso è il progetto “Park(ing) day”, avviato a San Francisco nel 2005 dallo studio di progettazione Re-bar (http://rebargroup.org/). In un giorno prestabilito dell’anno gli spazi di sosta per le automobili si tra-sformano in spazi pubblici temporanei, in modi e for-me estremamente creative: è l’occasione per ricoprire l’asfalto di tappeti verdi e sistemare tavolini e sedie di cafè e ristoranti all’aria aperta, in uno spazio ben delimitato e separato dal traffico veicolare, mediante interventi low-cost design. Gli attori di questa trasfor-mazione sono artisti, progettisti e cittadini, impegnati ad affermare la necessità di maggiore spazio urbano per le attività della vita pubblica. L’evento ha avuto un tale successo da essere replicato in moltissime città in tutto il mondo, in forme indipendenti rispetto al progetto originario ma basandosi su linee guida condivise: il Park(ing) day del 2011 ha visto coinvolte 975 locations, 162 città, 35 paesi, 6 continenti9.

8 Fu costruita nei primi anni Trenta, poi abbandonata nel 1980. La storia di questa straordinaria esperienza di rigenera-zione urbana è ben documentata in David, J. and Hammond, R. (2011), High Line. The inside story of New York City’s park in the sky, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.9 Anche l’Italia ha aderito al Park(ing) Day con diverse loca-tions: nel 2009 a Roma e Firenze, nel 2010 a Fiesole, Pisa e

Alcuni esiti del progetto “Parklet” promosso a San Francisco da “Pavement to parks”, finalizzato alla creazione di luoghi di sosta e incontro, al margine di strade carrabili (http://sfpavementtoparks.sfplanning.org/)

118

Altro esempio è il movimento “Guerrilla Gardening”: nato a Manhattan nel 1973 dall’iniziativa di un grup-po di residenti che, volontariamente, avevano creato un’oasi di verde laddove prima era tutto cemento - il primo giardino comunitario in uno spazio pubblico - è divenuto presto il simbolo di una spontanea ribel-lione ad un sistema che negava la possibilità di poter coltivare in città piante e fiori. Da lì in poi la comunità dei “guerriglieri da giardino” è cresciuta in tutto il mondo: oggi il gruppo più forte è quello inglese, ma le comunità locali sono fiorite ovunque, Italia inclusa.

Un nuovo modo di lavorarePer raccontare la città contemporanea, in tutte le sue molteplici espressioni, è necessario connettersi con la dimensione globale e con il sistema delle reti attraverso cui viaggiano le informazioni, tenendo in considerazione la complessità di valori e desideri, riflesso di una società non più assimilabile a modelli precostituiti, e la capacità di diversi soggetti di pro-muovere pratiche innovative in grado di conquistare larghi consensi e visibilità. Così mentre sempre più si affermano progetti internet-based di crowdsourcing o crowdfunding, per la documentazione e trasfor-mazione del territorio, dell’architettura e dello spazio urbano, appare sempre più squilibrato il rapporto fra l’azione legittima promossa dal governo pubblico, di tipo top-down, e l’intervento spontaneo di tipo bottom-up (Ring, 2013): il sistema delle regole e dei grandi interventi viene scardinato da una nuova strut-tura agile e fresca, basata su una volenterosa deter-minazione a dare il proprio contributo, sulla capacità di promuovere e utilizzare idee e strumenti creativi e di agire in risposta ad una precisa domanda in uno specifico contesto, potendo contare su ridotte risorse economiche. Appare ormai condivisa ampiamente la consa-pevolezza che la città è un bene comune (Porrino, 2013): l’azione di trasformazione, riqualificazione o valorizzazione di parti di essa è aperta a tutti, in termini sia ideativi che operativi. In questo senso la “Biennale dello spazio pubblico” ha meritoriamente accolto e valorizzato le molteplici istanze che anima-no e arricchiscono la disciplina urbanistica e il “fare” urbanistica (Gabellini, 2010), nella complessità della dimensione contemporanea. La condivisione di idee fra i diversi attori che agiscono sulla scena urbana è infatti lo strumento chiave dell’azione progettuale, so-stenuta e amplificata dal social-networking: architetti, ingegneri e progettisti sono chiamati a confrontarsi con le dinamiche prodotte dalle nuove tendenze, seguendo un approccio riflessivo e precauzionale, flessibile e dinamico, aperto, partecipativo e multi-competente, integrandosi come parte attiva all’inter-no di un processo che persegue come fine ultimo la qualità del vivere urbano.

Ascoli Piceno, nel 2011 a Torino. Per maggiori informazioni: http://parkingday.org/

LUISA BRAVODipartimento di Architettura, Università di Bologna,

luisa.bravo@unibo.itCity Space Architecture, Associazione culturale,

www.cityspacearchitecture.org

BibliografiaBanerjee, T. (2001), The future of public space: beyond invented streets and reinvented places, APA journal, 67(1), pp. 9-24Ben-Joseph, E. (2012), Rethinking a lot: the design and culture of parking, MIT Press, Cambridge Biddulph, M. (2001), Home Zones: A planning and design handbook, The policy press, BristolBravo, L. e Crawford, M. (2013), Publics and their spaces: renewing urbanity in city and suburb, ISUF 2012 – New Urban Configurations conference pro-ceedings, TU Delft (in corso di pubblicazione)Chase, J. L., Crawford, M., Kaliski, J. (a cura di) (2008), Everyday urbanism, Monacelli Press, New Yorkde Certeau, Michel (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berkeley (prima edizione in francese, 1980)Gabellini, P. (2010), Fare urbanistica. Esperienze, comunicazione, memoria, Carocci, RomaGehl, J. (1987), Life between buildings. Using public space, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York (prima edizione in danese, 1971)Indovina, F. (2006), La nuova lingua della città, in Indovina F. (a cura di), con Fregolent, L. e Savino, M., Nuovo lessico urbano, Franco Angeli, MilanoJacobs, J. (1961), The death and life of great Ameri-can cities, Random House, New YorkLefebvre, H. (1971), Everyday life in the modern world, Harper, New YorkLydon, M. (2011), Tactical Urbanism 2. Short-term action, long-term change, Street Plans, Miami-New York, disponibile on lineMitchell, W. J. (1995), City of bits. Space, Place, and the Infobahn, MIT Press, CambridgePorrino, C. (2013), La città come bene comune. Qua-lità urbana al tempo della crisi, Alinea, FirenzePurini, F. (2004), La fine della città, in Purini F., Albero R., Tronchin V., Città e luoghi. Materiali per la “Città rimossa”, Gangemi, RomaRing, K. (2013), Self Made city. Berlin: self-initiated ur-ban living and architectural interventions, Jovis, BerlinSorkin, M. (a cura di) (1992), Variations on a theme park. The new American city and the end of public space, Hill and Wang, New York Whyte, W. H. (1980), The social life of small urban spaces, The Conservation Foundation, Washington DC

DOSSIER urbanistica online

INUEdizioni

Marzo 2014

Editore: INU Edizioni Iscr. Tribunale di Roma n. 3563/1995;Iscr. Cciaa di Roma n. 814190

Codirettori:LAURA POGLIANI E ANNA PALAZZO

Coordinamento segreteria generale:MONICA BELLIinued@inuedizioni.it

Consiglio di amministrazione di INU Edizioni:M. FANTIN (presidente)D. DI LUDOVICO (consigliere delegato)F. CALACE, G. FERINA

Redazione, amministrazione e pubblicità:INU Edizioni srlvia Ravenna 9b - 00161 Romatel. 06/68134341, 06/68195562fax 06/68214773, http://www.inuedizioni.com

Comitato scientifico e consiglio direttivo nazionale:CHIARA AGNOLETTI, ENRICOAMANTE, CARLO ALBERTO BARB-IERI, DOMENICO CECCHINICLAUDIO CENTANNI, ENRICOCORTI, GIUEPPE DE LUCA, GIORGIODRI, ROBERTO GERUNDO,MAURO GIUDICE. LUCA IMBERTI,LA GRECA PAOLO, ROBERTO LOGIUDICE, FRANCO MARINI, DANIELMODIGLIANI, FEDERICO OLIVAMARIO PICCININI, PIERLUIGIPROPERZI, RAFFAELLA RADOCCIA,FRANCESCO ROSSI, LORENZOROTA, ANDREA RUMOR, VINCENZORUSSO, NICOLO’ SAVARESE,SILVIA CAPURRO, STEFANOSTANGHELLINI, MICHELE STRA-MANDINOLI, MICHELE TALIA,CARMELO TORRE, CLAUDIA TRILLO,GIUSEPPE TROMBINI, GIOVANNAULRICI, SANDRA VECCHIETTI,PIERGIORGIO VITILLO, SILVIAVIVIANI, COMUNE DI LIVORNO(BRUNO PICCHI), PROVINCIADI ANCONA (ROBERTO RENZI),REGIONE UMBRIA

Progetto grafico:ILARIA GIATTI

DOSSIER urbanistica online