Search results for "Urban Design"

Programs and goals

2018

New Next Nature takes root in precise places and flourishes by exploiting the conditions of the “suspended” and “waiting” areas. OC OPEN CITY International Summer School has always had, since its first edition in 2010, a recognizable identity: to develop projects with global themes, experimenting and testing them locally, in the complementary landscapes that the particular urban and territorial condition of Piacenza gives us. The preparatory phase for OC2017 has further strengthened this double register by developing a rich and integrated background where the dense and stable parts of city is continuously compared with large areas (highlighted in yellow and black in the diagram alongside) a…

Mappe stellari e geometria sacra nel disegno delle città medioevali di Sicilia. Un’ipotesi archeoastronomica su Erice

2020

Already in his studies on the Middle Ages cities E. Guidoni suggested the possibility of an urban design governed not only by precise astronomical alignments, but by a figurative conception, of a zoomorphic or anthropomorphic type, whose aim was to reproduce on the ground the zodiacal constellations. The envelopes and sinuosities of the plots that distinguish the medieval cities would be dictated by an iconographic program in which certain emergencies (churches, towers, domes) and the main connection roads would be arranged in a mirror-or perspective-view of the celestial maps with respect to certain observation points at the meridian or on the horizon of the place. Some examples would be e…

Planning the Neocosmopolitan Habitat

2021

Reflecting on cosmopolitanism is a philosophical activity before it is a political, social or—as far as we are concerned—urban planning action. It requires a deep reflection on the meaning of being connected to a place and also to the whole world, of being individuals and also related to a planetary community and to the consequences of our inhabitation of the Earth (and the Cosmos). Nature, like us humans, is not made up of things in and of themselves, but of an entanglement of relationships and events, of evolutionary processes that take place in time and space. And even our cities do not escape this universal law: everything is correlation, flow, openness, vibration. In short, cosmopolita…

Planning Augmented Cities in the Neoanthropocene

2020

To improve the effects of the connecting “augmented urbanism”, I have set up ten keywords able to reset spatial planning for the Augmented City in the face of the 21st century challenges. The Augmented City’s practices grow with exponential progression doubling its components, connections and impacts seen in the last years, to one incredible and disruptive acceleration. We are surrounded by thousands of practices in the spread of sensors and intelligent devices, in collaborative design and return of urban manufacturing, in explosion of creativity and increase of resilience, and several experiments in recycling of everything, fluidisation and networking of cities, and adoption of incremental…

I luoghi periferici in cui si abilita intelligenza collettiva

2019

Nelle periferie urbane in cui coesistono ampi margini alla modificazione, un surplus di spazi interstiziali e marginali, negli ultimi anni si sta dispiegando la proliferazione di esperienze che aprono il campo a un diverso modo di trasformare le città, in una sorta di resilienza locale alla crisi e al conseguente vuoto di welfare sociale. Uno sguardo alle pratiche in corso sembra indicare una tendenza a spostare l'asset di sviluppo dalla patrimonializzazione immobiliare ad una economia della conoscenza, in cui i beni dismessi si offrano come piattaforme abilitanti dell'azione collettiva, dispositivi spaziali in cui incanalare l'innovazione attraverso il riciclo. Se il Piano Periferie promos…

Attori e processi per una nuova idea di spazio urbano. Due casi in Piemonte.

2014

Urban space and public space are far beyond to be just spatial categories. They are the expression of societies where their sets of values are displayed. Urban design participatory processes shouldn’t be taken as the expression of a professional abdication, but in the perspective where citizens are owners and users of public areas. Beside, administrators represent groups of citizens but hardly can convey the detailed level of knowledge about history, dynamics and issues of a place. Hence citizens are the embedded intelligence of an urban realm. This paper outlines the experience of a research group at Politecnico di Torino engaged on participatory urban design and planning processes in the …

Intangible smart city inside tangible historic city: smart heritage as regeneration of Euro-Mediterranean realities

2014

The proposed research examines how EU policy is facilitating the construction of smart cities that are confronted with a cultural heritage to be protected, as is already happening in some urban realities of the Euro-Mediterranean band. We will proceed by making comparisons between the strategies adopted, through the identification of the most common civic practices and of the virtual infrastructure used. This article will bring to light how the virtual city descends into the historic one, how these two realities complement each other and when the virtual city makes use of that historical and material one.

The Up-Cycle Beyond the Crime: The Productive Re-Activation of Confiscated Criminal Assets

La ricerca “The Up-Cycle Beyond the Crime: the Productive Re-Activation of Confiscated Criminal Assets” affronta il tema del reinserimento dei beni confiscati alla organizzazioni criminali in nuovi cicli di vita produttivi. La tesi è sviluppata attraverso tre parti principali. La prima parte è dedicata all’inquadramento scientifico del tema e all’apparato teorico, proponendo un regesto critico delle teorie e dell’evoluzione del concetto di riciclo della città e del territorio, con particolare attenzione alla modalità dell’up-cycle, attingendo sia alla letteratura delle scienze sociali, geografiche ed economiche sia alle pratiche relative alla riattivazione dei metabolismi territoriali. La s…

No more Masterplan: the Cityforming Protocol

2018

In Europe, the season of urban regeneration has produced important effects both in the review of the urban devices and in the rethinking of the settlement forms and their spatial and human relations. But it cannot be denied that certain diseases emerged which often have anaesthetised – if not cancelled – the regenerative effects envisaged. The urban transition, while it has increased the use of regeneration processes from the bottom, has at the same time extended the epidemic of failures derived from a top-down approach. The critical issues of hierarchical urban regeneration cannot be solved by revising the procedures for participation, improving design devices, or innovating implementation…

Management of the image of the city in urban planning: experimental methodologies in the colour plan of the Egadi Islands

2022

AbstractThe debate over the value of the image of a city, which since the 1960s has been gaining wider room for reflection, has arisen as a criticism against the reductionism of the Modern Movement and highlighted the value of the qualitative aspects of an urban landscape. The question asked is if urban planning can in some way govern the image of a city. An investigation into which tools and strategies are necessary to defend the narrative of a city, its identity and its genius loci against the homologating forces that are transforming contemporary cities. The article explores the theoretical principles and methods being experimentally used to qualitatively manage the urban environment. Re…