Search results for " urban"

Geometry/Time Measurement/Sundials Graphical Resolution via Algorithmic and Parametric Processes

2018

Every people, in every historical period, developed methods to measure Time both at a daily scale and at a yearly scale. Some of them constructed sundials to represent the apparent trajectory of the Sun around the Earth, by using and developing tools from descriptive and projective Geometry, mainly. This subject acquired a great multidisciplinary interest since ancient times, also for Science of Representation applications. This study presents the first results of an ongoing research concerning some aspects related to Time Measurement. The geometric-spatial setting of the Sun-Earth system is described and is structured parametrically via algorithms, following the known conventions shared an…

The Colour Plan of Egadi Islands

2018

The Egadi Islands, at the western end of Sicily, preserve a peculiar architectural and environmental heritage. The work of people – related to tuna fishing, stone extraction and agriculture – has created, over time, an exceptional landscape. The nature, colour and texture of the local stone have given shape to a traditional architecture that, today, risks to disappear and to be replaced by new anonymous buildings. Furthermore, the pressure of tourism threatens to damage this delicate balance established, over centuries, between people and environment. Therefore, the Local Administration decided to adopt a Colour Plan to manage the inevitable processes of territorial transformations. The Arc…

Architectural Representation: a Tool for Urban Regeneration : the Colour Plan of Egadi Islands

2018

The Egadi Islands, at the western end of Sicily, preserve a peculiar architectural and environmental heritage. The work of people – related to tuna fishing, stone extraction and agriculture – has created, over time, an exceptional landscape. The nature, colour and texture of the local stone have given shape to a traditional architecture that, today, risks to disappear and to be replaced by new anonymous buildings. Furthermore, the pressure of tourism threatens to damage this delicate balance established, over centuries, between people and environment. Therefore, the Local Administration decided to adopt a Colour Plan to manage the inevitable processes of territorial transformations. The Arc…

L’Asilo, Napoli: Dall’ordine poliziesco della politica culturale al regime estetico della comunità che viene

2020

This paper presents and analyses the cultural and social centre "Asilo" in Naples as an urban commons and as an example of critical citizenship.

Urban gardens and institutional fences: The case of communal gardens in Turin

2017

Urban gardens take on different forms and meanings, which vary depending on the socio-economic context where they located/used and how it evolves over time. This makes a garden comparable to a micro-social ecosystem, different from other gardens and ever changing. As with every social-ecosystem resulting from a territorialisation process, there is a certain degree of social inertia that makes it difficult for outsiders with new motivations and demanding new spaces to enter into the "garden ecosystem". Drawing on existing literature and fieldwork in two urban communal gardens in Turin, the paper is mainly concerned with the spatiotemporal dimension of urban gardening, with a special focus on…

Social Space for Self-Organising: An Exploratory Study of Timebanks in Finland and in the UK

2018

The article examines the challenges to self-organisation and upscaling of alternative economies from the viewpoint of defending and negotiating social space. Timebanks in Finland and the UK are presented as examples, analysing the difference of defending such social space in the contexts of a traditional welfare state (in the case of Finland) and an austerity-driven government with a “Big Society” ideology (in the case of UK). Both systems of government present different kinds of pressures on timebanks, pushing them to a given ontological categories and to action in accordance with pre-defined political goals. This difference, along with timebank reactions and the question of prospects of o…

Active communities of interest and the political process in Italy

2014

Community Participation in Urban Suburbs: The Italian Case of Z.E.N. Slum of Palermo

2015

Based on Kurt Lewin’s Action Research theory, the paper focuses on an Action Research project issued in Southern Italy, in the disadvantaged suburb of Palermo (Sicily), called Z.E.N., sadly famous as a dangerous and “criminogenic” urban slum, in order to stimulate social participation and to develop social change. The principal goal was the empowerment of ordinary inhabitants, obtaining their collaboration through participation, giving them acquisition of knowledge for a real social change.

Communities, community action and planning

2014

Il gesto comparativo negli studi urbani critici

2021

Non tutte le città sono uguali tra loro, ma i processi che si verificano al loro interno sono assimilabili e analizzabili grazie a modelli più o meno universali. O almeno, per molti anni così si è sostenuto: più anni di quanti forse pensiamo, se consideriamo che ancor oggi diversi studiosi di fatti urbani sostengono posizioni universalistiche. Il confronto tra due testi, un classico di Ernest W. Burgess e una lettura più recente e alternativa di Jennifer Robinson, ha come scopo la messa in discussione di questo tema all’interno degli studi urbani critici. Not all cities are the same, but the processes that occur within them can be assimilated and analyzed thanks to more or less universal mo…