{"id":10518,"date":"2014-10-05T08:15:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-05T06:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/consolidated-city-and-design-in-action-2\/"},"modified":"2015-06-22T13:58:59","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T11:58:59","slug":"consolidated-city-and-design-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/consolidated-city-and-design-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Consolidated city and design in action"},"content":{"rendered":"

The identity of the public space in our cities is, from many points of view, hard to define and in continuous evolution. On the one side it is manifesting clear signs of fragility and of an inability to represent the social dynamics in progress; on the other the strategic dimension of the issue, associated with the exponential growth of the urban population, makes it clear that cities are and will continue to be places of experimentation, a fertile ground for the development of new phenomena and trends that are transforming \u2013 in ways that in some cases cause conflicts and in others a sharing of ideas \u2013 our urban condition.
\nIn the evolution of the current scenarios the public space is no longer only an urban space, it is the city itself, a space in movement, not just a physical territory but a stage for social, cultural and political exchange that tends to reform even in the lack of a stable architectural support, through an active relational system.
\nSpontaneous reactions of change are emerging to an ever-increasing extent on themes related to everyday life quality, as a manifestation of a wish to inhabit places and to give them a new meaning: people still want to meet and to share, and this is giving rise to a great many experiences, initiatives and actions aimed at restoring life to dormant spaces and times within the consolidated city. Many design disciplines have taken cognizance of the change of paradigm that is under way, including the field that centres on public spaces, which has appreciated the new opportunities offered by this change and is exploring different and sometimes divergent ways to identify instruments that lead to knowledge on relations and connectivity, that are accessible to anyone and that may be retraced in concrete situations, because they are not developed as ideas but as solutions to clearly defined problems.<\/p>\n

To start from reality, from the actual condition of consolidated urban contexts, enriches design methods with the assertion of a culture of reutilization and recovery, where elements that already exist, even if they have often been forgotten, may contribute with new ideas, pose new questions and develop connections between the different levels and spheres of various disciplines.<\/p>\n

Active networks<\/strong>
\nThe research ability which is linked to the strategic design vision which has been fine-tuned in the recent history of the discipline is distinguished by the method of working in interdisciplinary teams that propose a progressive reactivation, with a chain reaction, of an urban space that plays an active role and contributes to the urban quality because of the way in which it is lived and perceived.
\nThe design culture that distinguishes the initiatives ideated by these networks of artists, architects, designers\u00a0and performers on both sides of the Atlantic features an experimental process starting from a grassroots level to regenerate urban spaces with the contribution of their inhabitants through a capillary system of actions that assume importance due to the relationships created between them and reality, between the single initiatives and the public. We are thus witnessing the creation of objects, spaces and devices aimed at bringing about an interaction with people, to increase the inhabitants\u2019 feeling of belonging to their own places, in order to consolidate or evolve a cultural identity that may give rise to places where people like to live, specifically addressing those community values that the inhabitants perceive as builders of a sense of citizenship.
\nTo do so, the design of urban spaces calls for an interaction with the context that also involves technologies, images, information and signs, or in other words the artificial universe that determines how we perceive the urban reality.<\/p>\n

Mobile research workshops<\/strong>
\nThese instruments have been deployed by the very latest experiences with interdisciplinary research workshops that act in different urban territories, creating their own public and launching their own projects, experiments and\u00a0public discussions on themes associated with modern urban life, to develop projects aimed at making the city a better place to live in.
\nDesigning in this sense does not only means to give a direct response to the demands of people for solutions that are in line with the existing reality, but also to be able to formulate new questions and to develop open structures where the ability to interpret the situation becomes a means of tackling a new urban dimension where one must no longer focus only on the space of the formal city, but also on the human being, the citizen and his needs.<\/p>\n

Temporary solutions for the city<\/strong>
\nIn many cases a transition is made from the ideation of systemic solutions or general strategies to focused projects that occupy little space in places where the land value of the consolidated city causes project sites to be inaccessible. We are here aided by a method that makes it possible to interact with the user by creating a common information space, the articulation of which may reveal and analyse the identity of a territory, uncovering possible parallel scenarios between memory and the projection of a future development. Otherwise the activity of designing or redesigning anurban space may take on the appearance of a light, often temporary intervention that is superimposed on the current condition, thus making us see usual situations in a completely new light. The temporary character is often anything but a limit for such projects: the strategy of ad interim occupation of spaces has in recent years proven increasingly capable of altering town plans or turning into pervasive ideas, which may be replicated around the world on a do-it-yourself basis. A valid example of this is the experience of PARK(ing) Day, an annual event organized for the first time in San Francisco in 2005 on the initiative of the local Rebar group. Areas that usually serve as parking spaces against payment are, provocatively, equipped as spaces where people may relax, after having been leased for a few hours by paying the parking meters. This type of event has been held in many countries and the initiative has become part of a special program called Pavement to Parks, organized by the city of San Francisco to diffuse a temporary alternative use of these urban spaces, so-called \u2018public parklet\u2019, subtracted from the cars on the express demand of the citizens.<\/p>\n