A step towards vibrant piacenza by Amr Ragaei Abdelwahab

TACTICAL PIACENZA Research work – A Step Towards Vibrant Piacenza History of Architecture in the Contemporary Age

Abdelwahab Amr Ragaei Alimardani Sara Loya Vishakha Molina Julieta

Purohit Sonal Shadman Haghighi Firoozeh Tirupathi Sneha Villalba, María Lucía

Abstract “In the twenty-first century, cities worldwide must respond to a growing and diverse population, evershifting economic conditions, new technologies, and a changing climate. Short-term, community-based projects—from pop-up parks to open streets initiatives—have become a powerful and adaptable new tool of urban activists, planners, and policy-makers seeking to drive lasting improvements in their cities and beyond.” (Mike Lydon, 2014) “The city becomes a creative place by who lives, works, builds, prays, and plays within the geographical and social jurisdiction of the city.” (Bill Strickland, Creative city) “The most important asset is people. People, with their creativity and their cultural, scientific, technique and artistic capacity, can provide the fundamental basis so that cities can become innovation systems. Some of the key factors for promoting creativity in the city are: tradition and the cultural force of a city; its openness to new ideas and cultural mestization.” (Jordi Pardo, Management and governance for creative cities) Therefore, an action that can bring a variety of people together, from different nationalities and generations and produce interaction between them, has the potential to enhance the creativity in a place. The objective of this research is to regenerate an abandoned area by focusing on its potentials and encourage people to participate in social activities. It will eventually increase the level of tolerance and spread creativity in city over time. The study case is a rectangular public space named Piazzale Plebiscito, located in Piacenza (a historical city in Emilia Romagna-Italy), near one of the main urban squares in the city, Piazza Cavalli. It’s now an abandoned place which citizens barely notice. However, those characteristics gives the place a good quality to provide a social life. A functional method was used to revitalize the place chosen by increasing public participation with the development of cultural activities. After analysing human behaviour, food appeared as a magnet that bring people together and can act as the first step to reach these goals. Food - its production, commodification, preparation and consumption is being a site of cultural formation, tension, and negotiation. Since food is an interesting part of each culture, it has a strong potential to be a common language, which acts as magnet and attract people into the area. Creating an atmosphere with basic materials so that everyone can come and share their food and learn from one another. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

As said before, this is going to be the first action of a long process as long-term change often starts with trying something small. “The city becomes a creative city by creating the set of conditions where these small acts can happen and they accumulate faster than deficit acts counter balance them” (Peter Kageyama, 2014, Creative city). “Sometimes, a simple, focused intervention can create new energy, demonstrating the possibilities of a space in a way that motivates others to engage with their community.” (Jaime Lerner, 2014, p. 4) Based on these statements, it is somehow expected that this slow-food motion with its cultural aspect, may be able to act as an urban acupuncture and generates more activities in other potential parts of the city.

Keywords Vibrant City – Food and Culture – Cultural Interaction – Multi-ethnic – Tactical Urbanism – Tolerance

Presentation of the topic Place: Piazzale Plesbiscito

Figure 1, Location of the site. Source: Google earth

The place chosen is a public square located in the city centre of Piacenza. It is inside the historical centre and real close to the main square, Piazza Cavalli (less than 100 m).

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Description of the place Piazzale Plesbiscito is a small square of 1400 sqm. approximately. The place has a rectangular shape, which is limited by one street, the chiostro of San Francesco Church, which covers two sides, and a third building as the fourth faรงade. Crossing the only street in the place, there are some old residential building with stores in the ground floor. The Piazzale is accessible by the street that is in one of the sides. About the morphology of the square, it is characterised by the presence of vegetation (ten trees). Moreover, the place has some urban equipment: some benches and lampposts. Talking about construction features, the soil is hard, built with stone with some holes for planting the trees. History of the place The Piazzale Plesbiscito, also known as Piazzale San Francesco used to be a monastery which was part of the San Francesco complex, together with the church that takes the same name. The church of San Francesco and adjacent monastery were built for the Friars Minor order, between 1278 and 1363 under the patronage of the Ghibelline Umbertino Landi. It soon became a convent for nuns of the Clarissan order. The complex later became an armoury and a hospital, leaving just the church with the original functions. After, the church was returned to the clerics, but by 1810, they had left the convent. Of the adjacent monastery remains only the loggia, which shape the square in two sides.

Figure 2, Piazzale Plesbiscito and Loggia of San Francesco. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Reasons of the selection of the place There are several reasons why the place was chosen. Firstly, it is well located as it is between the two main Piazze of Piacenza, Duomo and Cavalli. This characteristic makes it suitable to host social life with good qualities, as Jan Gehl said, “In Italian cities with pedestrian streets and automobile-free square, the outdoor city life is often much more pronounced than in the car-oriented neighbouring cities, even though the climate is the same.” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p.7). Secondly, the piazza is a good place to put some new activity as it is abandon or with few activities happening there. This can be seen in the Piacenza agenda about events, for instance in the online newspaper of the city: “The weekend”. Nowadays, there are certain events occurring, most of the times related to festivities as Christmas, the start of the summer and so on. It is advantageous of that place as well, the closeness to the open markets that are located in both Piazza Cavalli and Duomo. These markets are happening normally twice a week during summer and on the weekends in the coldest seasons of Piacenza.

Potential of the place Piazzale Plesbiscito was not only selected for the aforementioned reason, it has a plenty of potential to become a social place. “The best-used plazas are sociable places… more people in groups, more people meeting people or exchanging goodbyes.” (William H.White, 1980, p.17). To begin with, the square is located in the city centre of Piacenza, which happens to be the historical centre. As a result, Piazzale Plesbiscito is part of the heritage of Piacenza and must be enhanced. In addition, it is advantageous the closeness to meaningful places. Firstly, it is near to Piazza Cavalli, so it is possible to connect both places, making it feasible to join both plazas in a same complex of public spaces. Secondly, the proximity to Via Settember may be also seen as a potential. This street is one of the two that are holding the commercial stores of the city and it does not have any public space to rest nearby. Third, the square is near to the open markets that occurs in both Piazza Cavalli and Duomo. On the other hand, the place chosen is the only green space in the vicinity and one of the few of the historical part of the city. Last but not least, the site is enclosed with beautiful structures, where a heritage Basilica is included. The buildings that limit the area are well preserved and of good qualities. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Difficulties Although the site has the ability to become a “creative milieu”, it is possible to find some difficulties such as the intolerance of the citizens of Piacenza that might not involve in any activity related to international and cultural exchange. As Gehl said “the character of life between buildings changes in the society situation, but the essential principles and quality criteria to be used when working for human quality in the public realm have proven to be remarkably constant.” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p.7). Furthermore, inhabitants of the area may have issues approving some new function in the area.

Objectives 

Revitalize a beautiful but not used place (abandoned).

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Introduce interesting activities in the site to start revitalizing it.

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Improve nearby areas of the site by the implementation of the action selected.

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Encourage people from Piacenza and foreigners living there to work together.

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Increase tolerance level of the inhabitants by sharing activities in which they have common interest.

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Make people experience new things and go out of their comfort areas to become more creative.

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Develop the interaction between different cultures.

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Attract creative people by the implementation of the action proposed.

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Implement the activities not only in this specific place but also in other abandoned areas of Piacenza.

Methodology The way to proceed to this research was: 

Search of a potential site in which to implement tactical urbanism:

Available sites with the potential to become a “creative milieu” have been picked, several spaces around the historical area which have a proximity to the liveable areas in the city have been analysed. In this way, it is possible to take advantage of the high relative density and the flow of people. Places have been compared and final selection is done as per this. Study and analysis of the sites have been done together with their potentials and weakness. Analogizing of the selected sites according to many aspects such as proximity to other crowded places, accessibility, quality of the place, typology of the surroundings has been acquired. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

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Analysis of the social life and public spaces that hold social activities.

The characteristics of the place, reasons of abandon and why does it lack to any kind of activities have been understood. The place, the surrounding and the behaviour of people around have been analysed, social behaviour, and what are the people doing there, how they use the space and how often do they pass through the place as well. The density of the people flow according to which day of the week and which hour in the day have been investigated. •

Result of the information obtained

Most of the people passing by the site are going to and from piazza Cavalli and the Duomo. The number of people is much higher on the weekends due to the markets and because these are almost the only public places in the city people can hang out in. The flow of people in the normal days in morning is greater than night. 

Implementation of the action in the place chosen: Food

The project started by trying to figure out an idea that make people communicate, interact and exchange culture and knowledge. Something that is common in all cultures and all kind of people are interested in so that it can attract all nationalities and ages. And at the same time something that represents the variety of cultures. Inspired by the slow food movement in 80s, which focused on encouraging people to stop eating fast food, instead taking the time to prepare and eat locally sourced food. The focus is not only on nutrition idea but also on preserving culture and heritage as it relates to food. Therefore, the main idea to develop is food. Food is not just an interesting way to gather people but also it is a very strong way for exploring others cultures. “Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture.” (Mark Kurlansky, 'Choice Cuts' 2002) The origin of food in each country depends on too many aspects throughout the history of each place varies between social, political circumstances, religion, the lifestyle, the kind of work and activities they are involved in and also the dominant plants and animals in the country, food product is a result of too many influences throughout years and years.

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“Food history is as important as a baroque church. Governments should recognize cultural heritage and protect traditional foods. A cheese is as worthy of preserving as a sixteenth-century building.” (Carlo Petrini). Throughout the world food have involved as an interesting part in feasts and special occasions. Like turkey in thanks giving for an example. This is a very good opportunity for sharing this special food in a new place with a new people which would be a very strong way for exploring other cultures and enhancing the intensity of tolerance and respect between different races. “Architecture’s main purpose is to act as a mediator between aspects of our biological origin and our present technological culture, and good architecture includes archaic as well as new elements” (Palasmaa, 2001, p. 213). Selection of the specific activities to carry out in the site. Establish a timetable of the elected activities according to the schedule of the street. 

The movement of the people

Figure 3, Explaining the movement of people.

With the same population of the city, the aim is to improve the quality of life and social interaction by increasing the intensity of the event. Moreover, to enhance the movement of the people making new opportunities for social and cultural exchange instead of just sitting in your place performing your daily routine. Having a look on how the water molecules behave differently in different states, it is visible they are just the same number and the same molecules but in the gas state they have free movement which increase the probability of meeting new molecules rather than their only old neighbour in the solid state. “Nothing happens because nothing happens” (Jan Gehl 2006) A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Creative Piacenza Now a day we get lot of news about Successful cities, smart cities always being the point of attraction all over the world for citizens, political, economic groups, researcher, and philosophers. Where, every developed and developing country wants to understand the secret of being smart, ahead and futuristic. This makes city as major study areas, transmitting ideas and experimentation on the target cities and their evolution and solution for what’s next for emerging place towards becoming new town as identity.

Human as a focal point of the target cities Human, being a social animal, he is always attracted to most vibrant places and people, the hunger of achieving more and more in all the parts of the life makes people go around different places such as, communal places following the similar minded people or in search of the people who think similar. Making groups and attracting more number of like-minded people, working together in sets. Help human grow in their likely sectors. Creative Class “The opportunity to see and hear other people can also provide ideas and inspiration for action” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p. 15). Creativity is central to human activity. Every human being in this world is creative in their own way. Each one of us have an innate creativity and communication potential to express themselves through various forms like music, dance, art and many more. Creativity is a skilled capability of a mankind, it has been and remains to be our insubstantial asset to create something innovative and valuable. Richard Florida talks about creative class in his book – “In real sense, all human beings are creative and all are potentially members of the Creative Class.” (Richard Florida, 2002, p. 35). “Creative communities are centres of diversity, innovation and economic growth.” (Richard Florida, 2002, p. 42). When all the creative people come together and form a community then all these communities will become centres for creative ideas which will generate diversity amongst people and with their new ideas they can invent something new, which will lead to economic growth of the city. The economic winners who succeed in generating jobs and economic growth, thus further enhance the regional advantage. This regional economic growth is built with 3 T’s – Technology, Talent and Tolerance, as specified in the book, the creative people prefer places which are tolerant, diverse and open minded, and hence, the attention and existence of creative capital in a region can lead to high technology, high business development and job in-crenation, innovation and economic growth. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Global identity If we look at global scale we find few cities which have their peculiar identity such as New York, Texas, London, San Francisco, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dubai, Singapore, Bangalore and many more. Why these cities are famous? What is the highlighting feature that makes these cities famous? Is it necessity to have a peculiar identity of each city? Are we in an era where city’s identity is much more important on global scale? This led us to study our city and to understand where our city stands in this scenario. So, if we talk about a city Piacenza which is a part of tier 2 cities, in Emilia Romania region of Italy along with a major connectivity with the key cities such as Milan, Bologna, and Brescia. With a rich historical background, do we find Piacenza as vibrant as the cities around? Is it lacking somehow somewhere? We find this city with very few spots where social interaction happens, then why it is not well known in the vicinity? But it’s not as much as it happens in other cities nearby. Identify the root cause. Taking references of statistics, comparing them with other cities and target city. There are many reasons ranging from geographical location, economic situation, age group, inhabitant, city culture, religious environment, social culture more over it describes the city with the activities and people around. Charles Landry defines “a creative milieu is a place – either a cluster of buildings, a part of a city, a city as a whole or a region – that contains the necessary preconditions in terms of ‚hard’ and ‚soft’ infrastructure to generate a flow of ideas and inventions. Such a milieu is a physical setting where a critical mass of entrepreneurs, intellectuals, social activists, administrators, power brokers or students can operate in an open‐minded, cosmopolitan context and where face to face interaction create new idea, artefacts, products, services and institutions and as a consequence contributes to economic success” (Charles Landry, 2000, p. 133). The rise of creativity and culture has set a centre of attention on creative milieu as an urban development, as they are measured based on both cause and requirement of being creative. This study states that a creative milieu can be an environment which is made of definite places as well as rigorous interaction processes, which will provide people to pursuit their creative work in favourable conditions and to understand the concept of their life, like what they want to achieve by taking a creative work step. The intrinsic lines of action and sociological atmosphere of the creative milieu dynamically influence each other. Thus, creative milieus are the creation of new place.

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“The city of the future will be a city of culture, a city generating new culture: the creative cities of the twenty-first century will be capable of competing on the international scenario by optimizing and promoting their own individual cultural identities, attracting a class of creative and generating new sustainable futures.” (Maurizio Carta, 2007, p. 5). The future of the world is constructed by four tools for a creative city which is based on the city makers that they should follow: 

Vision – upcoming city should be advanced.

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Mission – upcoming city should be responsible towards its citizens and their needs.

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Output – upcoming city should be effective and productive.

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Future – upcoming city should be sustainable environmentally and culturally which will enhance its citizen’s wellbeing without negotiating future generation’s needs.

To make our cities desirable places to inhabit, one should identify the critical role that government plays in determining the quality of the outcomes of urban regeneration and how working on cooperation, inclusiveness, proprietorship, participatory practices which can lead to a better sense of citizenship through culture and knowledge.

Need of the insert “Wherever there are people – in buildings, in neighbourhoods, in city centres, in recreational areas, and so on- it is generally true that people and human activities attract other people.” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p. 23). We asked a group of people staying in this city about their experience of the city’s atmosphere and subsequently we started observing the city’s movement in various parts of the area. The results were dramatically different, except for few areas like Piazza Cavalli, Duomo and Via XX Settembre other parts of city is not lively including Palazzo Farnese. Hence, the city is in need of some vibrant activities. “Neighbourhoods built up all at once change little physically over the years as a rule...[Residents] regret that the neighbourhood has changed. Yet the fact is, physically it has changed remarkably little. People's feelings about it, rather, have changed. The neighbourhood shows a strange inability to update itself, enliven itself, repair itself, or to be sought after, out of choice, by a new generation. It is dead. Actually, it was dead from birth, but nobody noticed this much until the corpse began to smell.” (Jane Jacobs, 1961, p. 198)

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Looking for active spaces in order to improvise the city’s fabric in terms of culture and interaction. It’s primly commercial activity takes place near Piazza Cavalli and Duomo. With respect to this, making active nodes to improve the city’s fineness with the potential possibility to become an active space. Usually if we look at city’s open spaces (for interaction), they always vary in scale from a small parking space to bigger piazza which acts like a refinement to the hierarchy of spaces. Urban Acupuncture Acupuncture is something which heals an area by not touching that particular place but by pricking at some other node to heal the pain of that area. On similar note, urban acupuncture also functions when you want to solve a problem of a specific area by not exactly touching the area (can be planning) but by solving the problem in a different way. “Every city that succeeds has undergone an awakening, a new beginning. This is what makes a city respond.” (Jaime Lerner, 2014, p. 2) The idea of curing an ailing spot with a modest healing touch by energetic signs can do everything with revitalizing not just a very particular place but also the entire surrounding areas. Urban planning which is successful and involves the activation of the strong responses within the city, searching everywhere to stimulate the enhancement and optimistic chain reactions. To fetch an instant transformation there should be a spark which sets off the current which starts to spread, where a simple plan wouldn’t be suffice. This is a good urban acupuncture.

Piacenza as a city As Richard Florida author of The Rise of Creative Class, he calls ‘creative cities’ where people living in these cities are creative people. So, on further explanation he says technology, talent and tolerance (3 T’s) makes creative city. The balance of these terms is very important as these are the basic things related to advance lifestyle of city and its people. These 3 T’s might be important to be a creative city, but it’s not necessary that a vibrant city should have all the T’s. A vibrant city is something which has movement and inclusiveness throughout the city. Eventually, it can lead to a creative city. “social activities are all that depend on the presence of others in public spaces.” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p.12) If we compare Piacenza with Richard Florida’s theory, it fails in the criteria of being high tech, and as well as tolerant where in terms of Technology it’s not greatly advanced to be a techie city and talent

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could be seen in different forms and places periodically which is appealing. This makes the impression of Piacenza as not celebrated city. But, looking at the potential of Piacenza, it’s full of different ethnic groups from the globe. This is one of the strong nodes where it is easier to interact with various people exchanging their backgrounds, information, and culture leading to a better quality of life. Where people from different cultural and social backgrounds are staying in their own communities without dialogue with the local society, they do respect own culture but the cultural exchange is being hold back. Which does not allow all of the social places be cheerful and amalgamated, having nonactive social spaces. It can be achieved by all the above to improve Piacenza on urban scale. “the book asked for concern for the people who were to move about in the spaces between the buildings, it urged for an understanding for the subtled qualities, which throughout the history of human settlements, had been related to the meetings of people in the public spaces, and it pointed to the life between buildings as a dimension of architecture, urban design and city planning to be carefully treated” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p.7) Tactical Urbanism The intentions behind tactical urbanism projects are diverse – some projects are intended to boost economic revitalization while others are aimed at improving pedestrian safety and offering opportunities for citizens to connect with one another. Tactical urbanism can be refereed as low-cost, temporary interventions which improves the local neighbourhoods. The projects have a purpose behind which are diverse. The way in which tactical projects are manifest also varies greatly, with projects at different physical and temporal scales, though most projects are designed to be temporary in nature and be implemented at a local scale -- block, street, or building.

Case Studies Bada Sarafa Bazar, India Bada Sarafa bazar is located in the core city of Indore, where Sarafa means jewellery shops. This is the city’s oldest and traditional area well known for jewellery shopping. As an add on it is more over famous for food till late night. The days are business-as-usual, and evenings are happening and colourful as when people keep hopping from one jewellery shop to the other, where by the night when shops shuts down the place is being taken over by the hawkers on the streets of Sarafa serving all kinds of food till late mid night

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adding a varied character to the city in the form of night life with a different food culture by making the dual usage of the same space, which also acts as an indirect security for the jewellery shops (eyes on the streets, Jane Jacobs). This market is abuzz with a huge variety of items - you can have many types of foods, snacks, sweets, chaat, hotdog (banjos), and hot & cold drinks such as teas, coffees, juices, milkshakes and many more all at one place, savouring their favourite foods! Cairo Bites, Cairo Cairo bites is a food festival which takes place for two days. It features line-up of all the favourite local, regional and international eating and drinking establishments residing in Egypt. A festive environment that combines food with fun. There’s plenty of yummy food, music, shows, competitions and prizes. There are many activities which happens here, few of them are listed below: 

Fun shows.

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Live cooking.

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Cooking Competitions.

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Different musical acts and stand-up comedians.

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Fun zone full of games and kid’s entertainment.

The antiquity of Cairo bites is to gather a lot of food places in Cairo in one place mostly the local ones so people can go and explore a lot of new food from a lot of different places. Cairo Bites was conceived during a rich period for the food and beverage industry in Egypt and has provided a platform for the increasing number of chefs and restaurateurs to break out and reach the public in a very real and personal way. The event actually enhances the small business by creating a strong free funny advertising way for a lot of undervalued places. “We are trying to encourage food entrepreneurship; we’ve witnessed a trend of something opening at every street corner with endless cuisines, concepts and whatnot. And they’re doing it well.” (Magda Gomaa, the event director).

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First Step Towards Vibrant Piacenza Piacenza city is similar to a web where different intersection points are the nodes which acts like interaction points in their vicinity where people can meet and spend their time throughout the week, making different parts of the city dynamically active. To illustrate this idea, each and every node of the city needs a peculiar activity depending on the requirement of the areas. Demonstrating it on a smaller scale in the form of different actions, choosing Piazzale Plesbiscito as a connection. Food being a common element, most important thing that every person lives and work for, hence this can be the first step which can lead Piacenza as a vibrant city. 

We chose an area called ‘Piazzale Plebiscito’ as it can act as a connecting point for via settembre which is very close to this place, but people don’t use this space resulting neglected and abandoned space

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It has a good location in between Duomo and Piazza Cavalli

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Being a Piazza which is a historical element next to San Francesco church, it is supposed to be used as a vibrant space but it is not been used by the citizens.

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Flee market which is on Wednesday and Saturday also doesn’t reach the Piazzale Plebiscito.

Food creates an important connection to our culture, it has aesthetic, religious, social, and political implications. Food is essential and has meaning for people and not just for the survival. The expression ‘break bread’ refers to bring people together which is important in the relationships. It can also act as a bridge to new expats which will help them to discover their place in the community and bringing them towards each other for a better bond between people. Looking into the past the relationship between food, culture and human is very cohesive where, regional food and culture is becoming global. Simultaneously, it’s getting upgraded besides leading everyone to gather at same platform to share their food and culture. Engendering everyone’s tolerance to embrace different variety of food and culture will make the place vibrant in a way. “fusion of foods and culture” (Gean Vecchio, 2009). “You are what you eat,” (Taboo, 2002). Hence, food can help us to amalgamate with different region, religion, community and traditions. Cultures have diverse ways of showcasing their differences and how food can be affected by culture. Culture is influenced by food through various ways such as tradition, religion and family. These aspects are what makes us different from others and created a whole new society, as food can influence the way people eat and their religious practices. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Activities To achieve the goal, a simple effective method is used to provide a qualitative space which will encourage people for interaction with each other. Food, as a strong factor of multi ethnic: The main activity is to use multi-cuisine motion which brings people a great opportunity to participate in social life and connect with each other. 

Ability to introduce their own traditional meals and try food of other countries.

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Exchanging recipes

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A great platform to hold different competitions related to food, such as cooking and eating competitions.

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Organizing themes like pot-luck and many more.

Association of the action Execution of this action will be taken care by an association whose members are from both the universities of Piacenza (Politecnico Di Milano and Universita Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore). These members will be volunteers in initial stage but later will be comprised with stake holders and inhabitants of the Piacenza city. Materialization of the project To support this idea some sort of simple movable furniture is used in the area, for food stalls, interaction spaces for people to sit and enjoy. In this case furniture makes a more active and vibrant atmosphere instead of a rigid and formal one. To achieve lighter, quicker and cheaper transformation of Piazzale Plebiscito, low-cost materials and techniques are proposed with recycled materials like wooden pallets which are used as different furniture. Wooden Pallets: Wooden pallets are flat structures used at transportation places to support goods in a stable way. This is a recycled material considered as low-cost. However, in this case it is used to create “espacios de permanencia” (Spaces of permanence) – spaces to stay and interact. These are arranged in haphazard manner looking for the dynamic of the place that will allow to change as per the activity. A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Hammock and Bean Bags: Hammock is a suspended sling structure between two nodes which is made out of fabric, rope, netting and various other materials. Bean bags are sealed with dried beans, PVC pellets. Both of these materials in the project are used to create spaces to relax, swing, sleep and leisure. Kiosks: Kiosks are small immobile, temporary structures which are easily erected and are used for various functions, but here is it used to sell food which can be taken down or simply moved on wheels when required.

Figure 4, Illustration of the activity node at Piazzale Plebiscito.

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Since only a few people pass this piazza during the evening and night, a strategy is used to start the activities in the afternoon at the beginning. However, when people start noticing the place and realizing what is exactly happening here, it is possible to stretch the activity hours till midnight and maybe eventually turn this space to a night-life spot.

Figure 5, Section demonstrating the activities in the Piazzale Plebiscito.

At the end, if this action is successful, other cultural activities might be able to take place in other nonfunctional spaces and act properly as an urban acupuncture which will lead Piacenza from a “Vibrant city” to “Creative City”.

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Conclusion “Opportunities for meetings and daily activities in the public spaces of a city or residential area enable one to be among, to see, and to hear others, to experience other people functioning in various situations” (Jan Gehl, 2006, p. 15). This quote perfectly explains the aim of the project: to let people know and experiment others cultures, which will eventually lead to a higher grade of tolerance, as people go out of their comfort zones, exploring new worlds, new ideas and so on. As Richard Florida explained in his book “Cities and the creative class”, tolerance is one of the three “T” principles to achieve a creative city. In this project, a single action was proposed for a specific place. Since the goal is to increase people´s communication, the first idea was to create an international food exchange. Food is the magnet of the project that is attracting the citizens to try and experience, as it is something that everybody enjoys. The aforementioned action is going to be the first step of a long process. Once this activity is well accepted by the public and has good results, the idea will be spread in other abandoned places, always related with international exchange. These will be part of the second step of “acupuncturing” Piacenza. In this way, the interaction of cultures will happen, that will lead to citizens that are more tolerant. This last can help in attracting creative people, fact that will end in a “Vibrant Piacenza.”

Figure 6, A flow chart showing steps towards Vibrant Piacenza.

A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA

Bibliography 1. Bergamo Post, piĂş del quotidiano (2015, january 9). Che fine fanno in Europa le chiese ormai abban-donate [Which function do the abandon churches have in Europe] Retrieved from http://www.berga-mopost.it/occhi-aperti/fanno-chiese-abbandonate/ 2. http://www.cairobites.com/ 3. Charles Landry, 2000, The Creative City, a tool kit for urban innovators. 4. Il Piacenza, Giornale online (2016) Eventi a Piacenza [Events in Piacenza] 5. Jaime Lerner, 2014, Urban Acupuncture, celebrating pinpricks of change that enrich city life. 6. Jane Jacobs, 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 7. Jean Gehl (2006) Life between buildings, Using public space. 8. Linda Civitello (2003) Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People. 9. Luciano scarabelli (1841) Nuovissima guida della citta di Piacenza con alquanti cenni topografici, statistici e storici [Brand new guide of the city of Piacenza with some topographic signs, statistical and historical]. 10. Mark Kurlansky, 'Choice Cuts' 2002 11. Maurizio Carta (2007), Creative City â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dynamics, Innovations, Actions. 12. Pallasmaa, J. (2001) p213, The Mind of the Environment. In Cold B. (Ed.) Aesthetic cs, wellbeing and health: Essays within architecture and environmental aesthetic cs. Burlington, VT: Ashgate 13. Richard Florida, 2002, Cities and the creative class. 14. Sito uficciale di informazione turistica dell Provincia de Piacenza (2016) Chiesa ed ex convento di San Francesco [Church and ex monastery of San francesco]. Retrieved from http://turismo.provin-cia.pc.it/it/scopri-il-territorio/arte-e-cultura/chiese-pievibattisteri/item/chiesa-ed-ex-convento-di-san-francesco.html 15. William H.White (1980) The social life of small urban spaces.

A STEP TOWARDS VIBRANT PIACENZA