Canton Ticino: territory of a new modernity by Domus Academy

Canton Ticino: territory of a new modernity. An infrastructural project inside the scattered city.

Infrastructures for mobility are an important element to define the structure and the quality itself of the urban landscapes we live and move in. Focusing on often prevailing technical needs, railways, overbridges, urban bridges and tramways have structured and traced the aesthetical and formal plan of our cities. Years of intense growth, merely focused on the efficiency of the network, have given life to often incomplete and undefined spaces. The need is to bring back to conceptual unity and design consistency the two aspects of functional routes and architectural artifact, in order to build around this a different and more modern form of cohabitation between inhabitants and mobility systems. Canton Ticino: territory of a new modernity. An infrastructural project inside the scattered city is a collection of the projects developed by the students of the Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design 2011/12 of Domus Academy in collaboration with i2a - international institute of architecture, on the reorganization of the territory crossed by FLP, Ferrovia LuganoPonte Tresa (Lugano-Ponte Tresa Railway), and more in general on the complex relation between mobility systems and the urbanized territories. The collection is marked by interventions by Gianandrea Barreca, Master director, Francesca Vargiu, Master tutor, Andrea Vercellotti, workshop project leader, Alessandro Martinelli, i2a research fellow and curator.

The projects have been developed during the workshop at i2a international institute of architecture from October 30th to November 4th 2011. They are part of the i2a research Infrarealities - unraveling the management and maintenance of the urban condition, directed by Alessandro Martinelli and Jachen Konz, which aims, through the disciplinary tools of architecture, to construct knowledge about the relationship between the infrastructural development of territory and the politico-administrative questions that this implies. The whole world is today involved in a phase of the globalization process in which (1) the need for total accessibility has to deal with (2) the need for a form of political and administrative fragmentation able to properly manage the enormous amount of infrastructure networks that total accessibility precisely requires. Due to the magnitude and ubiquity of its networked infrastructure as well as to the character of its polycentric and diffuse political-administrative system, the territory of the Tessin Canton embodies such a phenomenon that deserves study and in-depth design since summarizes all the questions characterizing the global urban condition in the era of globalization. In particular, hosting (1) an airport, (2) a stop of the European network of high speed rail, (3) the passage of a highway crossed by transnational trade flows, (4) a transnational custom, but also (5) an internal infrastructure of mobility - the Lugano Ponte Tresa Railway - that connects valuable environmental contexts and (6) a diffuse urban system with fragmented administrative structures, the portion of land that connects the city of Lugano with the Ponte Tresa custom offers itself as an emblematic paradigm of Tessiner urbanization. Between 2011 and 2013, i2a international institute of architecture will act as a curatorial agency inviting and coordinating schools as well as leading practitioners from the world of architecture to use the area crossed by the Lugano Ponte Tresa Railway as a case study of excellence for the global urban condition in the era of globalization.

The limit of things: spaces of reflection and areas of intervention by Gianandrea Barreca

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Focusing Urban mobility infrastructures: new dynamics in architectural design by Gianandrea Barreca

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Mapping Mapping as project act: eleven mapping experiences as project generators by Francesca Vargiu Planning Urban continuity Shaping nodes Tourists attractors Station identity Sunlight Ecological corridor Clusterization Education pole Connections Water Traffic interchange Lugano region inside the net-city: reflections after the research project by Andrea Vercellotti Envisioning Between Switzerland and its territory: a fictional reconstruction of the Swiss territory asking for urban vision and architectural design by Alessandro Martinelli

The limit of things: Spaces of reflection and areas of intervention Gianandrea Barreca Domus Academy Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design director

Urban and architectural design has for quite some time now no longer been the main element of those transformations which have formed the characters our cities. Bureaucratic complexities, the lack of a governing body capable of defining development lines, fragmentation of responsibilities and the distance between programs and actions often prevent transformation processes from unfolding and developing. Instead, these processes are often interrupted and disregarded. If we put administrative purposes to one side, this situation has minimised the role of urban design in defining strategies and urban quality. In the same way, it has attributed a prominent role to architectural design and the design of individual buildings. As a result, large parts of cities, which have undergone transformation processes in recent years, are characterized by morphological disparateness and incompleteness. This lack of homogeneity and integrity is tempered only in part by outstanding individual architectures, while neither green areas and public spaces have succeeded in providing a sense of uniformity and completeness to the same. The idea of being able to have, or being able to apply, an overall vision to transformation processes therefore seems

impracticable and out of place. Those who are involved in one way or another, are invariably called to complete a specific and incomplete part, which absolves and frees the same from being responsible for issues and considerations relating to the overall picture. This often highlights the need for and the lack of effective and involved coordination, both in the public and private sectors. And yet reflection and design in the city and architecture continues in some respects to be indispensable. Despite the fact that the working areas of design have seemingly been reduced to elsewhere in other often forgotten fields, new frontiers are being unravelled and new opportunities to experiment design and research, analysis and action are arising. It would certainly be more coherent to view and design the future of the city and of urbanised areas through an overall vision able to address and involve all levels of the city. This attitude is, however, as mentioned above, insidious and in my opinion not practicable at the moment. This is basically due to two interrelated reasons. The first concerns time, between thoughts and actions, between visions and designs, which often fail to be identical and compatible with the dynamics and the times of change affecting

our cities. The second relates to the complexity of urban conglomerates and our cities, and how these intricacies prevent the increasing number of aspects and, above all, variables from being adequately evaluated, without employing an excessive length of time or at the cost of doing so superficially and generically. Intervening partially, selecting and expanding on narrower and limited themes, may be perceived as forsaking to resole problems or retreating towards small areas of intervention and therefore towards minor goals. This may, therefore, seem limited compared to the traditional role that architecture has fulfilled in defining the structures and characters of the cities in which we live. This notion, however, should not be understood as declining to understand the entire system, but as a mechanism, a method of observation and study that self-regulates and redefines its field of intervention, in order to improve control of its many aspects. For some time now, we have tried to reduce the field of intervention of the Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design to a single theme. This theme is then used to read, break down and reconstruct, through different scales of design, the individually chosen urbanised areas and cities that we are given the opportunity to study. For this reason, over recent years we have developed a system of research and design that selects a main theme to create the identity and character of a city. This theme is then expanded on through various different and special themes and addresses, scales and objectives.Water as a system of regeneration of complex urban systems, green as a system of urban micro surgery, mobility as a framework, urban density as a device able to qualify the intensity of urban facts and more, are the settings and themes of reference that can be used to experiment through scenario designs of future developments. Thus, we have rented the city of Milan and have turned it into our open-air research pit and design lab. We have naturally linked each topic to a dedicated research and action field, which is able to express the potentials

of the topic itself. We naturally linked each topic to a dedicated â&#x20AC;&#x153;research and action fieldâ&#x20AC;?, which was able to express at best the potentials of the topic itself. Water as a diffused element, extended to both the urban and rural territories, green aeras as opportunities to renovate some specific urban systems such as the Spanish walls, social housing as s system of densification and improvement of areas that represent small, yet still open wounds within the historical centre.Â Finally, mobility infrastructures as tools and systems for a possible recovery of the city outskirt.This is clearly a matter of partial scenarios of points of view that tend more to exclude than contain and that reduce the field of intervention, while helping to improve the management of its complexity. In this way, a narrower field assists choice. The chosen theme can then be used as a key to understanding, as a litmus test to observe and to compare the state of things, the DNA of the places and architectures examined. By observing a single element, as for example in the case of mobility infrastructures, an overpass, initially as part of an extended territorial system, then as a technical artefact, after as an urban service promoting citizen mobility, and then as a potential piece of architecture, certainly limits the field of intervention in relation to its horizontal dimension, while vertically expanding on the same in-depth. In this sense and in the same way, we embarked this year on an investigation and design path that focuses on the theme of mobility and urban infrastructures as elements and structures that have strongly marked the landscape and the character of broad areas of the urban contexts in which we live and move. A selection of projects developed as an initial study and comparison of the themes of mobility are described on the following pages. The projects were developed by master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design students in collaboration with i2a - international institute of architecture in Vico Morcote to examine the functional, urban and architectural redefinition of the urban territories along Lugano - Ponte Tresa railway line.

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Urban mobility infrastructures: New dynamics in architectural design Gianandrea Barreca Domus Academy Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design director He began his career as an architect in 1996. In 1999 he founded Boeri Studio with Stefano Boeri and Giovanni La Varra, and later in January 2008 he founded Barreca & LaVarra studio with Giovanni La Varra in Milan. He is also one of the founding members of gruppo a12 with which he fosters and realizes seminars, researches, exhibitions and installations on the contemporary urban condition and, in particular, on the relations between urban context and public art. Since 2004, he has been collaborating with Domus Academy and he has been the director of Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design since 2006. From 1998 to 2004 he was the Genoa-based coordinator of the travelling Villard seminar, and from 2000 to 2002 he was visiting professor of Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture in Genoa. Since 2009, he has been teaching Architectural Composition in the Department of Construction Engineering and Architecture at the University of Genoa.

Modern-day European cities are a combination of society, history, culture and technology, closely connected and structured in a complex system of relations and balances. This equilibrium has altered and become unbalanced over time, shifting the focus of interests and interventions on specific elements at certain times and on others at other times. Infrastructures, in particular those relating to mobility, have always played a central role in the development of territories and, more generally, in the creation of the narrative of events that characterized them in the course of time through continuous sedimentation of meanings and objects. With the exception of a few less important and less influential designers and landscape architects, historically urban design was the main prerogative of architects and town planners, creators of a design that often simultaneously grouped together and controlled the various systems and elements that contributed to the construction and image of cities. Later, in modern times and especially from the 19th century onwards,

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mobility infrastructures became central to the definition of development, as well as to the reconfiguration of cities and territories. Mobility infrastructures, in fact, slowly moved away from the sphere of control of architects and town planners. Railway lines, overpasses, urban bridges, tramways and park and ride facilities, as well as underground railways and road sections, have increased the speed with which cities can be crossed and have given rise to increasingly prevalent technical requirements, leading to a change in the aesthetic and formal design of the places in which we live and changing urban landscapes. Years of intensive infrastructure growth favouring mobility systems focusing solely on the efficiency of the physical transport network, as well as a lack of interest by architects, have produced a sharp spatial, social and aesthetic contrast between mobility devices, cities and territories, creating spaces which nowadays are often incomplete,

Urban mobility infrastructures

unused, undefined. Hence, mobility infrastructure design currently needs to be conceived from both a technical point of view and from an architectural and figurative standpoint. In particular,

the twofold aspect of functional layouts and architectural artefacts should be traced back to conceptual units and coherent design. It would obviously have been preferable if mobility infrastructure design had been perceived as an architectural element able to contribute to creating the landscape morphology of the city from the beginning, rather than as an exclusively technical structure and system. However, observing our cities, it seems that there has never been room for this hypothesis or intention. Notable examples of designers who have created interesting works both in urban contexts and in the territory do indeed exist, but in most cases the results have been unsatisfactory. Consequently, motionless structures invading our landscapes now lay before our eyes. Yet, mobility systems and infrastructures have many fascinating and surprising aspects that lend themselves to being designed differently. Greater emphasis could have been placed on certain qualities that would have improved their introduction to the landscape, without limiting technical performance and efficiency. By observing them under a new light, these structures become stunning symbols on the landscape and vehicles of the vision from which the city and its day-today life should be observed, from within or from privileged points of reference. A good example is the flyover of Genoa or the ring road above Naples. In other European countries, such as Holland, France, Switzerland or Spain, urban mobility infrastructures have frequently been the subject of common ground for reflection by different professions. Architects and landscape architects have also been able to play an important

role. By pursuing professional integration, infrastructures, bridges and flyovers have been created forming architectural expressions of the needs of society, rather than mere expressions of technology and engineering. Furthermore, where in these countries such integration proved to be impossible for various reasons, measures, albeit of questionable theoretical value but certainly effective in practice, have been taken to restore those landscapes that have been distorted, or overwhelmed, by the passage of a mobility infrastructure. Thus, in the majority of cases today, and especially within compact and consolidated urban contexts, mobility infrastructures have already been created. All that is left for us to do, therefore, is to rethink, with immense delay, existing infrastructures and to envisage designs that work around them, which reconnect them to the contexts in which they are found and with which they need to create a different, more modern form of coexistence. Unfortunately the situation today is exacerbated, at least in Europe and particularly in Italy, by scarce public resources that no longer allow for investments to be made to redesign these artefacts solely to improve their image and to re-establish a formal and aesthetic link with the context of the city. The lack of available resources, therefore, precludes any contemplation of projects to conceal or renovate these structures. Such is also made impossible more than ever before, as any intervention even to redevelop needs to be made and directed at generating profits. Erroneously, urban quality in itself is hardly ever, except in historical contexts, considered an element able to generate profits.

In order to re-establish a relationship between infrastructures and places, between technology and architecture, SPECIFIC PROJECTS ABLE TO RECONFIGURE THESE ELEMENTS WITHIN URBAN DYNAMICS, ARE REQUIRED.

This is certainly far more complex and can only be attempted and achieved if these infrastructures are conceived as buildings and public spaces that are able to change in nature, function and character, without necessarily changing their structure and morphology. It is therefore necessary to shortcircuit between the nature of these structures as an infrastructure and the essence of their constructive structures. This could be achieved through architectural design which, by its very nature, goes beyond these components. In fact, architectural design exclusively considers them together and within a direct relationship between form and building context. This means envisaging new and old functions around, below, between and within these new structures. Functions that have perhaps failed to find adequate space in the city and that may find new opportunities to be installed and rethought.

correct layouts, dispose of obsolete infrastructures, to strengthen and increase existing infrastructures, are and will provide opportunities to rethink important and large parts of the places in which we live and that we use to travel across. Take, for example, the endless strips of land compressed and forgotten between major motorway and rail infrastructures, the extensive shaded areas under urban overpasses, or the railway stations on secondary lines crossing through urban areas. These are just a selection of the opportunities offered by studying this theme. Opportunities that will soon become vast needs and sensitive issues for communities that require a new, increasingly modern system of relations and use between inhabitants-users and mobility systems in compact urban contexts, just as in large urban areas.

It is a question therefore of conceiving projects able to create a new model of relations between inhabitants-users and mobility systems. These projects need to be more innovative in terms of interaction and the production of income. Thus, not only a service, a support infrastructure, but a structure of society and the economy in urban and territorial contexts that crosses and structures the same. Mobility infrastructures should no longer be considered autonomous networks which do not contribute to the quality of the urban area and to that of the citizens that move inside it. The following projects and contributions constitute the first stage of research that aims at focusing attention on mobility infrastructure design as a system able to adapt elements of the territory and urban spaces to a more suitable scale and closer to the territories and the landscapes on which they were erected. Projects to reconvert railway lines, to

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Urban mobility infrastructures

Mapping

MAPPING AS PROJECT ACT: Eleven mapping experiences as project generators Francesca Vargiu Domus Academy Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design tutor She graduated in Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, after spending a year of studies at Etsam in Madrid. She took part in the international research project ‘Decolonizing Architecture’ and collaborated for its first exhibition ‘Design by Destruction: Oush Grab Military Base’ at Bozar, Bruxelles. It has been also displayed in Venice, Rotterdam and Istanbul Biennals. As architect, she has collaborated with several studios in Italy and in Spain. She’s co-founder of KICKOFFICE (www.kickoffice.net), whose activities range from urban planning and architecture to design and graphic communication. Since 2010 she has been assistant professor at Politecnico di Milano and she’s currently tutor of the Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design at Domus Academy.

Mapping a territory is always a project act. As Franco Farinelli says “Every map is a project upon the world […] and the project behind every map is to transform the world in one’s own image1”. Farinelli recognizes the value of the map as epistemological device capable not only to understand the world, but to dominate it as well. In 1989, Brian Harley already argues that maps are social constructions. For Harley a map still conveys the truth of a landscape, even though its message is bound within the ideological frame of its creator. “Maps cease to be understood primarily as inert records of morphological landscapes or passive reflections of the word of objects, but are regarded as refracted images contributing to dialogue in a socially constructed world […] Maps are never value-free images; except in the narrowest Euclidean sense they are not in themselves either true or false. By adapting individual projections, by manipulating scale, by over-enlarging or moving signs or typography, or by using emotive colors, makers of propaganda maps have generally been the advocates of a one-sided view of geographical relationship2”.

Harley conceives maps according to Foucault’s categories, as product of the relationship between power and knowledge, and as one of the modality for exercising the power. However, Harley’s approach provides an epistemological discourse upon the maps, but still leaves open the question of the ontology of the mapping process, which is actually the most relevant one if we take into consideration the final design output maps are addressed to. Rather than a determinate reading of the power of maps that seeks to uncover in a literal sense the authorial and ideological intent of a map - who makes the map and for what purpose, today we need to advocate the role of mapping as tool to shape our understanding and drive our design intentions. As Wood and Fels argue,

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mapping as project act

“maps do not simply represent the world, they produce the world3” by making propositions which are placed in the space of the map.

The workshop attended by the students of the Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design of Domus Academy at i2a – international institute of architecture - has been conceived as an ambitious experience joining the scale of the territory with the one of landscape and architecture. In front of the vastness the term territory implies and the complexity the interplay between landscape and architecture entails, the maps have represented the necessary tools to brutally seize the context since the beginning. Claiming the idea that “the map produces and reaffirms territory rather than just describing it4”, the context has been approached as a sum of territorial systems, interfering with the FLP – Ferrovia Lugano Ponte Tresa - according to different forms and levels of interaction. At the beginning, maps have driven students in properly approaching the context and extracting from it one of the territorial system to focus on. Throughout the workshop experience, maps have constantly been references for the activity of planning and becoming effective devices for shaping project assumptions. Theoretically thinking, we want to go over the conception of maps as representations that are separate or superimposed over the territory. Following Baudrillard, James Corner argues that

“a territory does not precede a map, but that space becomes territory through bounding practices that include mapping5”. The systematic precision with which Maria Lezhnina has surgically marked off the clusters on the map just gives evidence of Baudrillard’s statement (fig.1). In this case, the process of understanding the urban structure of the territory and foreseeing next project opportunities just takes shape and gains its consistency through the unequivocal marks on the map. By mapping, the urban tissue along FLP line is scanned, then interpreted according to the cluster-type, and visually fixed on the map.

“Moreover, given that places are planned and built on the basis of maps, so that space is itself a representation of the map, the differentiation between the real and the representation is no longer meaningful6”. Later, Maria Lezhnina has defined the various typologies of centers for each cluster on the map, carrying on an act of project at the same time: the specificity of each urban center gets evidence only by drawing as well as the reciprocal connections among the identified polarities can be effectively visualized on map, where actually the terrain is prepared for the project development. At the end, it’s the physical gesture of drawing on the map to fix design intentions, to construct the space, to shape the territory. In this way, “maps and territories are co-constructed. Space is constituted through mapping practices, amongst many others, so that maps are not a reflection of the world, but a re-creation of it; mapping activates territory7”. FROM THE NATURE OF MAP TO THE PRACTICE OF MAPPING Along with Martin Dodge8, the idea about maps has to shift from understanding the nature of maps - how maps are - to examining the practices of mapping - how maps become. During the workshop, the process of mapping has been introduced as a preliminary modality to approach an unknown context, as Ticino is for eleven students coming from all over the world. Despite the complexity of the overall territory from the morphological, political and cultural points of view, the real aim has been to set the focus on the numerous territorial systems interfering with the FLP line, because they are the triggers to investigate potential strategies and discuss future projects. Students have been initially provided with a package of basic information, including overall plans, aerial pictures, reference texts. Then, they have been led to the site, exploring the context directly from the FLP train: different morphologies, densities, landscapes and diverse

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levels of urbanization have been detected along the trip. Combining the practice of perception, together with a more systematic data investigation, the territory has started to be approached with more confidence: laying out the existing infrastructures, highlighting the nodes, drawing the movements of the rivers, handling the orography, marking the density, location and size of urban centers, the structure of the territory has been taken shape. A sort of recursive process of reshaping, reassembling, restructuring the map has been carried on, following a progressive process of appropriation of the context. In sequence of Kim Bomi’s maps (fig.2) we can detect a process of constant re-territorialisation: step by step, layer by layer, new elements making up the territory are added, constantly zooming in and out from the main focus: starting from an overall view on the orographic pattern and water sources of the area, the maps progressively start focusing on the flooding issue, and consequently they proceed in extracting the relating systems from the territorial backbone. Thus, the set of maps follows the ongoing mental processes, until the final synthesis: the passages to finally mark the presence of the ecological corridors have been physically taking shape on maps and by mapping. At the same time, a series of simplified steps to systematically approach the territory have been proposed to the students and some guidelines to restrict the field established: sometimes, we have suggested and accepted approximate and not fully complete interpretations, as we aimed at communicating and testing with the students a practical operative method. Actually, a certain simplification is just part of the practice of mapping:

everything a map focus on has implied to give up other elements that didn’t find space on the map itself.

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Thanks to the nature of mapping, certain elements have been captured and isolated from the context in order to project back a variety of unfolding potential and possibilities. No visualization looks like what it represents: it’s always a programmatic and intentional tool, a narrative structure depending on the values and meanings given to the relations among its elements. As Martin Dodge states “Maps are practices – they are always mappings; spatial practices enacted to solve relational problems9”. In Karim Abou Jaoude’s mapping operation of surgically pinpointing the edges of the clusters (fig.3), we perceive a certain sense of transitory and fleeting of the elements on the map: the spread dots marking the borders are as contingent as the dynamics changing the territorial assets, but contain themselves the potential for project transformation. In fact, by redefining the clusters’ edges, not only the space in between gets an identity but also the whole urban filament is reinforced. Once again, maps are relational and context-dependent. “Maps are not ontologically secure representations but rather a set of unfolding practices: maps are of-the-moment, brought into being through practices (embodied, social, technical), always re-made every time they are engaged with10”. MAPPING IS NOT A SIMPLE MATTER It’s no accident that Franco Farinelli highlights an ironic assonance between the words territory and terror11. It’s not a simple matter to get started when facing a whole territorial system as macro-context of the project. Nevertheless, the specific case of Canton Ticino gives a further possibility to start from a distant perspective and requests a further effort to find a way to handle things on an urban, or even regional, scale. The blurred map of Maria Lezhnina (fig.4) just proves it: the not-in-focus view is the one able to reveal the fragmentation and clusterization of the territory, giving evidence to

mapping as project act

its essential framework. Once again, it’s not in the final static and crystallized image of the map but instead in the process of mapping itself to give birth to project development. Certainly, when beginning to approach the context, there’s no clear methodology, no functioning rules: everything appears fuzzy, undefined, scattered; experimenting new tools, proceeding and coming back, is the only way to win the gamble. At the beginning every trace, signs, structure has to be captured from the context, in order to prepare the basis for further interpretation. Roland Barthes says “If the theory of the text tends to abolish the separation between the different art disciplines it is because their artworks are not anymore considered as simple messages […] but as perpetual products, statements, which the subject keep on debating on: this subject is certainly the one of the author, but also the one of the reader. Therefore the theory of the text provokes the valorization of a new epistemological item: the reading […]. The theory infinitely widens the freedom of the reading, and, more than this, strongly underlines the equality of writing and reading […], - where – true reading is when the reader is the one who wants to write12”. If we transpose Barthes’ statement from the literature to the design practice, we can argue that the deep comprehension of a territory implies a continuous practice of reading that becomes productive through a constant process of separating/rejoining. In her maps (fig. 5), Anna Terskikh proves this continuous activity of sketching, drawing, marking, highlighting in order to recognize and underline the elements characterizing the form and the space which the project will be put in relation with. The progressive marking some coastline portions thicker and highlighting some contours shows the mental passages of separating and merging as part of the ongoing interpretation about water resource. As the meaning of a text is never unique, fixed, as well when reading a territory the role

and significance of the elements making it is never defined but rather always open to interpretation.

In this way, the action of reading is production at the same time, and the reader is the writer himself. WORDS SEPARATE, PICTURES UNITE13 Because maps are prescriptive systems of propositions, Wood and Fels contend that map creation should not solely be about presenting information through attractive spatial representations as advocated by the majority of cartographic textbooks. Instead they suggest map design should be about the construction of meaning as a basis for action14. The effectiveness and the fastness of the graphic representation itself is not enough: the attention should be paid to the relations, the interactions and the links within parts that determine mutual influences and conditionings into a dynamic cohesion. Thus the maps are not mere static visual tools, but rather generative instruments of communication, able to prove the relations among the elements of a system as well as between the system and its interpretations. Actually architecture seems to prefigure this new way to use communication tools: Ole Bauman affirms that diagrams and conceptual drawings are becoming the art of dynamics situation. The map and diagram by Mayya Polivanova (fig. 6) clearly shows their capacity to act as interfaces between knowledge and experience: the interplay between the notion of place and time gets evidence just on the map, which acts as mediator with an explicative aim among different and interrelated quantities. Along with Gilles Deleuze, “maps are charts of relationships of strength, chart of density and intensity, touching all points at the same time or concentrated in the relation between one point and another one15”.

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FLP Territory urbanisation 18

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Geographical position overlapping Geographical position overlapping

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Overlapping connections of the cost and FLP lin Overlapping connections of the cost and FLP line

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Infrostructure of roads Places of significant point

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Infrostructure of roads Places of significant point

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Existing parking areas Existing ports

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Agricultural areas Areas with a big density of trees

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Connections between cost and FLP Connections between cost and FLP

Therefore, the graphic action shouldn’t be just a visual and aesthetic act, but the one able to create a synthetic relation between the constituent and the functional, symbolic and conceptual aspects. Moreover, just the sophisticated graphic modalities that Mayya Polivanova adopts play a crucial role within the process of understanding complex systems: by properly using symbols, shapes, colors etc, the visualization devices are capable to organize the descriptive and prescriptive features towards a generative potentiality, becoming a smart way of describing that makes the planning easier. Her work is based on a minimal graphic syntax: simple lines to connect points, colored shapes to indicate areas of interest, few basic indicators to convey attributes and features. It’ not only their graphic look to be fascinating, but even more it’s the kind of information they express to make them effective project devices. In general, during the workshop, students have been constantly invited to reflect about the potential of graphic thinking as modality to approach and interpret reality, not only limited to the traditional graphic design disciplines: today more than ever planning practices need to translate complex issues into effective and recognizable visual forms, producing new knowledge and revealing new meanings. As Mayya Polivanova’s map proves, graphics should be conceived to help us in understanding, creating and experiencing reality, by filtering the information, establishing relationships, discerning patterns and representing them in a way to process and digest meaningful knowledge. At the end of the workshop, thanks to the value of the map and the role of mapping we believe in, eleven students’ mapping processes have generated eleven different projects for the territory crossed by FLP line: as territory does not emerge in the same way for all individuals, so no map is a neutral one, being affected by the knowledge, experience and skill of the individual to perform mappings and apply them in the project practice.

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F. Farinelli (1992), I segni del mondo: immagine cartografica e discorso geografico in età moderna, La Nuova Italia, Firenze

B. Harley (2001), The New Nature of Maps, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London

D. Woodand, J. Fels (2008), The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago

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Corner J. (1999) “The agency of mapping: speculation, critique and invention”, in Cosgrove D., Mappings, Reaktion Books, London

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Kitchin R., Dodge M. (2007), “Rethinking Maps”, in Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 31, No. 3

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Farinelli F. (2003), Geografia, Einaudi, Torino

12 Barthes R. (1998), “Teoria del testo”, in Scritti, Einaudi, Torino 13 Neurath O. (1973), Empiricims and sociology, Ed. Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen, Reidel, Dordrecht 14 Wood D. and Fels J. (2008), The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 15 Deleuze G. (1996), Divenire molteplice. Nietzsche, Foucault ed altri intercessori, Ombre Corte, Verona

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Planning

URBAN CONTINUITY Karim Abou Jaoude He graduated at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 2009, with a degree in Landscape Design & Ecological Management. He has worked in an architecture studio for about a year, focusing on projects of open spaces in the Beirut central district. As freelance architect, he developed also some projects for outdoor spaces of private residences.

The first impression about the territory is the pattern made by the urban clusters scattered in the area and the voids and residual spaces they form. The territory along FLP line is characterized by widespread and disjointed forms of urbanization with no identity or character, living in the shadow of the financial centre of Lugano. Starting from this, the main concept is to connect all the towns along the FLP line from Ponte Tresa to Lugano from the visual and functional point of view, in order to reinforce the idea of a filament city made of different entities. By defining the borders and edges of each town, which are either geographical or natural, set by infrastructure or manmade interventions, it is possible to control and organize the urban sprawl of the villages and give shape to the residual spaces in between. They can be designed to connect each town to the one after it, since the void spaces are within walkable distance. Even more, as each void differs from the other in terms of landscape scenery, topography and nature, the setting is perfect for

local scale interventions. The focus of the project is concentrated in Caslano and Magliaso area, and the general strategy is to strengthen the urban continuity by doubling the path of the FLP line and adding a soft mobility line. This last one is identified with one of the existing contour lines, which actually corresponds to the historical via Regina that is connecting all the landmarks and historical points of the area. The proposed soft mobility intervention is conceived in the form of wooden decks and bridges that smoothly fit in the existing landscape, following the topographic nature of the area where the slope is steep, and turning into a series of public and open spaces where the topographic nature is more gentle. Then, working on the connections between the urban mobility line and the soft mobility one, new nodes are proposed in order to stimulate the use of the FLP line, even for little scale movements of tourist and local users. Through punctual local interventions, the continuity of the urban filament is controlled on a territorial scale.

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URBAN CONTINUITY

flp territory clustersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; edges

flp territory typologies of clustersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; edges

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caslano flp station anAlysis of the edges

URBAN CONTINUITY

caslano and magliosa flp stations project strategy

caslano flp station project

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URBAN CONTINUITY

magliaso flp station project

SHAPING NODES Aniket Bagul He graduated in Architecture at Sir J.J. College of Architecture in Mumbai in 2009. He took part into several competitions during the university studies and he won Zal and Gobhai Design Award 2008, by designing an energy efficient housing. He have worked as an architect for two years in Mumbai, also winning competitions for professionals.

In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worldwide economy the potential development of a city or a region increasingly relies on the quality of its connections to the various transportation networks. In this way, infrastructure defines the mobility patterns, which shapes city or region. The project starts from the analysis of public mobility patterns along the FLP line which are used by tourist and local users, including biking lanes, hiking paths, bus routes, vehicular roads. The study shows that Caslano and Magliaso are the main transport nodes. Concerning Caslano, it boasts the chocolate museum as well as a hill for hiking as relevant attractions for both local users and tourists. Hence Caslano could become a vital node also for touristic flows. On the contrary, Magliaso is the crossing point for biking routes, hiking paths, bus lanes, FLP line and vehicular roads. At the same time, the different open spaces need to be defined. By overlapping this kind of mobility patterns, new kinds of urban spaces can be produced along this line; thus the

project strategy is about developing potential nodes in the territory along the FLP line, focusing on commuterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flows. Places like commuter transfer nodes in the urban infrastructure are melting spaces that contain a myriad individual stories of everyday movements. In the area between Caslano and Magliaso, the project proposal is articulated into three nodes: the first one is in Caslano station, where the traffic networks are raised up in order to provide spaces for parking and public facilities at the ground floor. The second node is along the river: biking and hiking lanes invite people to walk along the riverside, passing through a series of interventions such as seating areas, small gathering places, cafeteria etc. The third node is in Magliaso station, where the proposal of a flyover bridge is capable to match mobility flows with the movement of people underneath. Moreover, all the project sites are connected together through cycling or hiking routes, in order to get a loop of movement from any nodes.

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SHAPING NODES

public mobility and flp line proposed loop

public mobility and flp line project nodes

caslano - magliaso flp stations

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SHAPING NODES

node a concept and strategic plan

node b concept and strategic plan

node C concept and strategic plan

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SHAPING NODES

node b sections and view

TOURISTS ATTRACTORS Ahmad Choubassi He was born, raised and educated in Lebanon. He got his Bachelor Degree as an Architectural Engineer from Beirut Arab University. After graduation, he first worked at ICI International as an architect, then at Scrapers as an assistant architect of Russel Van Diver. In addition to this, he carries on his private architectural office where he has already designed four residential buildings and three private villas.

Tourism is one of the main sectors of the Swiss economy; especially in Ticino, tourists enjoy the variety of services through experiencing the special landscape scenery, the climate, and the lakes. European tourists can be divided into four categories: business tourists, vacation tourists, holiday tourists or people visiting friends or relatives. The project is focused on the area between Ponte Tresa and Caslano, which is really relevant for tourists, since it is close to the border of Italy-Switzerland and it has many points of interest and attraction, like the chocolate museum, the golf club, natural green areas equipped with hiking lanes, tennis and football playground, various accommodation facilities. Moreover, this site boasts a very attractive view on the lake. Regarding the mobility flows, there are two main systems passing nearby the project area, the biking lanes and the hiking paths, without penetrating into the area. The project idea is to connect the mobility flows passing through the FLP stop with

a reinforced system of biking and biking paths, providing tourists and commuters with an efficient sequence of public spaces. Zooming into the first project area, two points are assumed as main axis to design the area: one is the chocolate museum, a relevant attraction presence; the other is the lake, an attractive natural highlight. Thus the chocolate museum axis directly leads to the lake, through both hiking and biking lanes, including some touristâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facilities and green spots along the path. Moreover, some existing unused plots are transformed into a public square dotted with three new volumes, conceived as alternative landmark for tourists. The other project site is organized according to two main functions: one for boats owners, where to park their crafts and enjoy the lake, and the other for children, where to play safely. These two functions are separated with a natural barrier, a small river penetrating into the land until reaching the main road to attract the passing tourists or commuters.

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TOURISTS ATTRACTORS

flp territory touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; typologies

touristic activities business visiting friends and relatives vacation holiday leisure and recreation

flp territory attractions

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TOURISTS ATTRACTORS

flp territory local demography

FLP line local commuters

ponte tresa area of intervention

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TOURISTS ATTRACTORS

ponte tresa project areas plans

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STATION IDENTITY Diana Andrea Guzmán Valencia She grew up in Latin America and graduated in Industrial Design at the Université de Montréal in Canada. Her experience of living in multi-cultural environments has broadened her vision and sensibility to different cultures and human factors, which she conceived as important elements for designing. In addition, she is passionate about the continuous changes in the world and how they affect people.

The project is about strengthening the identity and improving the accessibility of the FLP stations. The first analysis of the regional transportation network is addressed to identify the main traffic nodes and to figure out which stations could become magnets of social attraction: Ponte Tresa, Caslano, Agno, Cappella Agnuzzo and Lugano are considered the poles for future growth. To reflect on a common identity among the FLP stations, the main attractions around them are investigated: the castle for Ponte Tresa; the chocolate museum for Caslano; the airport for Agno; the lake for Cappella Agnuzzo; the city itself as a touristic place to visit for Lugano. Thus, leisure facilities are important factors to be considered in the design development, together with the extraordinary richness of natural landscape surrounding the areas. Once understood the specificities and the common features of the stations, a basic kit is adopted: the spaces are reconfigured according to the local needs and future expansions, using the same modules related

to the different users activities. In the accessing area, hall, ticket and information office, souvenir shop are included; kitchen, restaurant, washroom and entertainment room in the waiting space; picnic area, playground and garden/orchard are just for playing. Furthermore, precise guidelines suggest how the indoor activities should be spatially linked to the outdoors ones: the accessing area is always connected with the train platform, as the waiting space with the playing area. Moreover, a visible element in each station, a view tower, is provided to act as landmark and to convey an image of FLP station related to the enjoyment of the nature. Archetypal windows framing different views of the landscape in all directions compose the tower. Concerning the architectural language, minimal representation of geometrical shapes and archetypal elements related to the regional ItalianSwiss culture are adopted. Wood is the preferred material in order to connect the architecture with the natural surroundings, as transitional element.

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ugug anano o

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Caslano: Chocolate museum, park and golf court Agno: Airport Capella Agnuzzo: Lake Lugano: Tourism in town

flp territory infrastructural nodes

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Actions flow

flp station Actions flow actions flow

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Station Layout 1 Bus stop + information panels 2 Taxi area 3 Cars parking: public + employees 4 Trolley area 5 Bike parking+ lockers 6 Green area 7 Delivery parking 8 Car access 9 Link to a green or entertainment area 10 Link to the lake 12 Train track

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Building 1 floor: Accessing area (train platform) 2 floor: Resting area Playing area 13 View tower & shelter 1 floor: Accessing 2 & 3 floor Enjoying nature

flp station proposed kit

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cappella agnuzzo flp station kit application

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SUNLIGHT Michelle Herrera She graduated in Architecture at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador in 2008. She took part in international workshops in Colombia and with Japanese Architect Hiroshi Hara in Mexico. She collaborated with Architect Felipe Leal in the urban rehabilitation of Plaza Garibaldi and the design of the Tequila and Mezcal Museum in Mexico City (2009). In Ecuador she has worked in her own studio for the development of commercial and office spaces including Antara Plaza Gourmet (2010), Rocas del Pacifico: Showroom and offices (2010), and Santa Fe Torre Corporativa (under construction, 2012).

The area of study is stretching along the FLP line, going from Ponte Tresa to the city of Lugano: it is 12.5 km long and intersects eight small settlements. The main activities that are developed in this area are industry and agriculture. Industrial and technological factories are located all along the settlements because of the proximity to Lugano airport; they form the industrial tissue of Lugano, stretching on its back. On the other hand, agriculture and vineyards are developed at small scale following traditional and vernacular practices respecting nature and adapting to territorial topography. Apart from infrastructural accessibility, what makes this area so attractive to industries and agriculture is actually the high quality of sun exposition. The strip going from Ponte Tresa to Lugano is located in one of the hot spots in Ticino region. Geographically blessed, the valley of Agno is strategically placed between the Alps and the natural border of the lakeshore, allowing a big exposure towards the southern

sunlight orientation. The aim of the project is to study the sunlight quality in order to provide guidelines for the future growth, by using solar energy in public and private spaces. Agno has actually two main potential conditions, divided by a water canal: on one side of the canal, it is an energy production area, made by water treatment plants and greenhouses. On the other side, the energy is supposed to be consumed by the big industrial area, the airport and the housing settlements towards the mountains. By identifying the energetic backbone of the town and adding alternative types of energy (electricity by PV panels), new engines for future development are activated. Firstly, an energy backbone needs to be built with PV farms and plug into the main needed infrastructure; secondly, new urban interventions can be developed using solar panels as common language at the different urban scales. Thus, solar energy is reinterpreted from a vernacular tradition to a new technological use.

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how solar energy is produced 1st phase INFRASTRUCTURAL NETWORK

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1st phase build the energetical backbone

ECOLOGICAL CORRIDOR Bomi Kim She got her degree in Architecture at South Seoul University in South Korea and then moved to San Francisco for the Master of Architecture at Academy of Art University. She took part into a competition, Evelo, dealing with the design of a skyscraper. Her education has been strongly inspired by her father who is an architect too.

Although mainly mountainous, Switzerland is actually composed by a great diversity of landscapes. According to its topography, Lugano area has been facing flooding issues. Most of the urban contexts are on slope land rather than on flat area because its foundation near the lake have been weak to be built. Starting from these assumptions, the project is focused on preventing flooding issues by green living. The site design is located in the floodplain of Lugano Lake area. The main idea is creating a linear landscaped park along the river that will be able to propose a new approach to the floodplain area and make it accessible from every direction. So, the project provides not only improvement of specific areas; it creates a full ensemble in the form of a linear landscaped park, stretching along the river. This new model of green park is extended into the core of Magliaso station through a system of public spaces connecting the coastline of Lugano

Lake and its natural inner mountains side as an ecological corridor. The main backbone is represented by a natural path for pedestrians and bikers and ensures a direct contact with the natural surroundings. The landscape is redefined as a network of new earthworks, waterways and paths that meander to reach new settings for recreation and public life, also including a new river center. In order to improve biodiversity, the park incorporates a variety of plants and trees, and even small pounds for aquatic plants; moreover, the riversides are properly shaped to prevent from future floods. Seating areas, water basins and indoor cafĂŠs, lifted up from the topography, provide spaces to relax. They can be enjoyed both during the day and night. Visitors arriving to the park either by train, by bike from the mountains, or on foot can experience the benefits of a green welcome carpet, connecting the landscape with the urban context.

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ecological corridor

flp territory flooding zones BIOGGIO

MOLINAZZO

SERROCA

LUGANO

SORENGO

AGNO

LAGHETTO

CAPPELLA AGNUZZO

MAGLIASO PAESE MAGLIASO

CASLANO

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flp territory coastline value

flp territory coastline and flp line

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ecological corridor

flp territory potential ecological corridors

territory - flp stations - coastline ecological corridor

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ecological corridor

caslano magliaso ecological corridor

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ecological corridor

CASLANO MAGLIASO ECOLOGICAL LINEAR PARK PLAN

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ecological corridor

caslano magliaso ecological linear park sections RECONFIGURATION OF THE RIVER SIDE

A-A’

+ NEW NATURISED + FLOOD PROTECTION + NEW MODEL OF GREEN LIVING + RECREATIONAL + ACTIVITY + SUSTAINABLE WATER FRONT + LINEAR PARK

B-B’ C-C’

MAGLIASO LUGANO GOLFCLUB

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URBAN CONTEXT LUGANO GOLFCLUB

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CLUSTERIZATION Maria Lezhnina After having obtained several academic awards in the field of architecture, Maria Lezhnina graduated in 2011 from KSUAE in Kazan (RUS) winning during the same year an international prize for her thesis project. She also worked for AuS - Architecture and Urban Systems (Mendrisio - CH) in 2009 and for Buromoscow (Moscow - RUS) in 2010. Since 2006 she has been collaborating with different architectural and design offices in Kazan (RUS).

The experience of Swiss urbanity is very particular. Switzerland is a transit territory in between the European Union. According to the geographical location it was historically developing as a passage of interchange between the European countries. Switzerland represents an idea of fragmented reality, which has been born in the context of cultural differentiation and significant topography. Canton Ticino, located in the south of Switzerland, is characterized by an urban sprawl of polarized archipelagos. Thus, the research is oriented to read the territory through the perspective of clusters and urban identities. The FLP line, the railway connecting Lugano and Ponte Tresa, is the main interchange among ten clusters: Ponte Tresa, Caslano, Mal Cantone golf club, Magliaso, Agno, Bioggio, Lugano airport, Lago di Muzzano, Sorengo, Lugano train station. The clusters along FLP line are defined according to territorial maintenance, natural borders and main use. An atlas describes the identity and structure

of clusters: shape, pattern, structure and use are fixed for each clusters; then their respective centers are defined as well. By overlapping the centers and connecting them to FLP stations, the shape of the city center comes out. Then, the project is focused on the cluster of Caslano: the activities are spread and the center doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist up today, which is a similar condition to other urban portions along FLP. Assuming policentrality as main strategy, the aim of the project is to develop specific interventions for each typology of center and an overall project of relationship among them at the same time. The four specific projects for the historical, infrastructural, train station and geometrical centers relate to each other to define a stable reference in the continuous redevelopment of the urban territory. They also represent the idea of locally expanding systems of public spaces, by connecting those existing with the insertion of new ones. Thus, by spatially relating the centers the clusters are redefined as well.

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clusterization

FLP territory clusters

Bioggio

FLP territory clusters

Bioggio Molinazzo

Lugano FLP

Serocca

Magliaso Paese Magliaso Sorengo Agno

Caslano

Capella-Agnuzzo

Ponte Tresa

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clusterization agjnahnoahn

FLP territory Atlas of clusters

cluster caslano pattern of functions

cluster caslano MagnetS of activities

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clusterization

cluster caslano space for densification

Cluster Caslano project

cluster caslano project

cluster caslano project city center

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cluster caslano project infrastructural center

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Cluster Caslano project_geometrical center 72

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cluster caslano project train station

education pole Chao Niu He graduated in Landscape Design at School of Architecture Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in 2009. He won the Test-Free admission to work for Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Degree program in Landscape Architecture in the school of Architecture (HIT). Since 2008, he has been developing many projects dealing with landscape design, architecture design and interior design in China.

The research starts from the public facilities around FLP line: actually, some education institutes are located around the FLP Line in both primary and high schools, and universities as well. In fact, students are one of the major groups using this train line for everyday activities. As the density map of the schools shows, the entire territory can be divided into four areas - Caslano, Agno, Lugano and Manno - according to the main scholar activities. While in Caslano, Agno and Lugano all the schools are close to the railway, in Manno students of SUPSI University have to cross a very long industrial area to get to the nearest FLP station. Actually, this site has the biggest developing potential: it boasts a huge green area and also many void spaces. The free pattern of the landscape is really inspiring. Tourists travelling by plane, as well as drivers passing by on the highway, they both can enjoy the beauty of the landscape in this location. To develop the project, the presence of existing

technological departments and factories settled down there is taken into consideration to develop the main project strategy. It aims at not only linking the SUPSI University with the FLP station, but also creating a new way to lead people into the green areas and public spaces of this territory. Thus, the infrastructural strategy is combined with the intervention on the landscape. The existing roads become the trace to define the first shape of the connecting backbone of the project: the crossing points between infrastructure and buildings are at the highest levels, while the junctions between infrastructure and green areas are the lowest. The whole infrastructural system is divided into four parts, the two closed to SUPSI are attached with the school building to create a rainbow corridor for the students in order to pass through the big industrial zone. The other two parts, nearby the FLP stop, connect with the public spaces, people can enjoy getting to the roof garden.

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education pole

flp territory relation between shools and flp line

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bioggio moinazzo flp station SPACE ANALYSIS

bioggio moinazzo flp station project layers

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bioggio moinazzo flp station project layout

bioggio moinazzo flp station sections and views

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bioggio moinazzo flp station masterplan

bioggio moinazzo flp station bird eye view

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education pole

CONNECTIONS Mayya Polivanova She graduated in Architecture of Public Buildings and Facilities at Kharkov State Technical University of Construction and Architecture in 2011. She took part in several international workshops in Florence headed by Foundation Romualdo del Bianco. She collaborated with the architect Sergey Chechelnizky for the urban rehabilitation of the Constitution Square and the design of the History Museum in Kharkov, Ukraine (2011). She has been working in the architectural studio AROF in Kharkov, Ukraine since 2009.

Despite the small population areas of the agglomerations adjacent to FLP stations, the existing hotel and restaurant facilities would be able to receive more visitors and tourists. Most of them are concentrated along the connections between the FLP stations and the coastline, passing through the towns. Assuming that the average distance between the stations and the nearby entertainment highlights is about 1 km, that could be covered in 12 minutes, this can be considered as an optimal pedestrian accessibility for users of the FLP line. Thus, a passenger waiting at the FLP station and having 15 minutes of spare time could easily use some local service or entertainment. Another important factor is establishing a connection between the railway stations and the coastline, local ports and boathouses. It would give an opportunity to actively use all the transportation systems and provide easy travel and accessibility to this region. Also the actual state of the infrastructure and public spaces should also be taken into consideration. The project is focused in

Caslano, one of the settlements located along the FLP line. Between the station and the port, there is a walking distance of about 1 km. The main street connecting them is dotted with few hotels, many restaurants, bars and some commercial points. Moreover, a large number of inbuilt plots can be detected adjacent to these highlights. The project strategy aims at strengthening the connection between the FLP station and the coastline. Primarily, the two opposite magnets, the station and the port, need to be reorganized: the first one is transformed into a multifunctional hall, equipped with public facilities; along the coast, a small boat station is established together with a system of green areas. In between, the large number of vacant spaces will be reactivated: eco-farm, vegetables market, playground, parking and information point for visitors are some of the suggested activities. In this way, the level of intensity of use of the space is supposed to be improved, acting as attractors for residents and tourists.

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CONNECTIONS

flp stations nodes of entertainment / pedestrian accessibility

flp stations strategy

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CONNECTIONS

caslano masterplan

caslano train station

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CONNECTIONS

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CONNECTIONS

caslano boat station

water Anna Terskikh She graduated from Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Construction in 2008. She worked in the Russian State Scientific Research and Design Institute of Urban planning and also in the Institute of Sport Facilities, for the Olympic Games in Sochi. She took part in several competitions and she got the first prize with the project Wings, in the competition Unrealized projects. Residential Interiors.

Even though the territory crossed by FLP line is very close to Lugano Lake, the coastline is actually separated from the existing railway line. Despite of this, there are two main ports, one situated in Ponta Tresa and the other in Caslano, together with a great amount of small private ports stretching all along the coastline nearby the FLP line. Moreover, the green areas and agricultural fields surrounding the railway represent a great potential for the project, still not exploited. Also the existing rivers and waterways could be used as a new transportation system, connecting the FLP line with not so well developed points along the coastline. Thus, the basic concept is to connect the coast with the railway line, by developing a system of public space, able to enhance a new model of relationship with such a huge and not fully used resource as Lugano Lake. In the vicinity of the stop Agno, a system of public space is planned, stretching along the channel and ending in the small existing port. In this way, a direct connection

between the waterway and the FLP line is going to be achieved: the port is a point for exchanging fluxes coming from the lake and also from FLP station. The other main goal of the project is to preserve the existing agriculture fields and make them a part of the public space: a new sport area is planned within the system, including pools, tennis courts and a small mini golf as reflection of the big golf park in Caslano. On the other side, Caslano already shows a strong relationship with the existing port. The project also aims at developing the coastal zone nearby the port and the golf course, to create a new opportunity for park visitors. The intervention follows the FLP line trajectory, stitching the coastline with the railway trace. Thus, the coastline is reinforced with various portions of public spaces, associated with the development of the transportation system of Lugano Lake and its connection with the FLP line. By this, new opportunities of use for tourists and residents would arise.

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flp territory urban mass water green

flp territory existing ports

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% using boats

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flp line urban portions

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flp stations and ports masterplan

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flp stations and ports project proposal

TRAFFIC INTERCHANGE Da Wei He got his degree at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in July 2010. Then, he worked at Foshan Nanhai Urban Architectural Design for his internship. Later, he was employed at the GuangDong Province Construction & Engineering, where he completed two significant projects, the Guangzhou Medical College Campus and the DongLing Group Headquarters.

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The FLP railway line (Lugano-Ponte Tresa) is a transport of local importance, which connects the Italian-Swiss border with Lugano, one of the most important financial centers in Switzerland. It is actually used only by daily commuters, going to work in Lugano in the morning and coming back home in the evening. Being the FLP line the main project frame, as well as an important mobility system connecting Ponte Tresa to Lugano, the preliminary investigations are focused on the existing traffic nodes of the region: not only the infrastructural networks are analyzed, but also population density and landscape need to be put in relation with the mobility systems. In this way, the most problematic nodes would come out. The project is focused on the station of Ponte Tresa that is both a FLP train line terminal and a connection

node with Italy. Each transport system interfering with the FLP line is analyzed: the actual flows and the existing interchanges among the various mobility means are pointed out. In this way, the main problems related to traffic connection and accessibility are highlighted: actually, the car parking area of Ponte Tresa station is located far from the FLP stop, reducing the fastness and fluidity of the interchanges. The project is systematically focused on planning a solution for the detected weakness of the system: the existing car parking is converted into an underground one; the interchange with the other transportation means are adjusted in order to get a better synergy. Moreover, an artificial landscape above the parking is shaped at different levels in order to get a better integration with the surrounding context.

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LUGANO REGION INSIDE THE NET-CITY: REFLECTIONS AFTER THE RESEARCH PROJECT Andrea Vercellotti workshop project leader Architect, he studied at Politecnico di Milano, where he also took a PhD in Architectural and Urban Planning. Assistant professor at Politecnico di Milano, he collaborates with Domus Academy and he is involved in research activities with several research groups and institutions, such as New York Institute of Technology and Escola Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, on issues related to architecture, landscape, photography and urban planning.

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METHODOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION The research project has been oriented to investigate the role of infrastructures and their spatial devices in the regeneration policies of urbanized territories. The general approach has not only been focused on the spatial aims related to the topic, but also in the attempt to understand the rising new ways of life related to multiscale mobility networks. The urban region included between Lugano and Ponte Tresa, armed by the local infrastructural axis of FLP rail line, has been the field of our research. The work of investigation has followed a zooming-in path organized in 4 main phases: the first one to produce an interpretative diagram at the territorial scale, declining the topic of the scales interlacement; the second one trying to merge the previous analysis in a common plan of the infrastructural line; the third one, based in Switzerland, as a moment of comparison and dialogue with local actors, to check and evaluate the efficacy of the previous phases; the last one to develop punctual projects. Following this path, each section has been focused on a specific design topic, facing in progressive

scales (from the territorial to the architectural one) the different levels of involvement. Finally this inter-scalar logic of design has revealed his property as an instrument of representation of the urban regions complexity, pointing to the attention on contemporary projects as a result of complex social, economical and planning conditions, fluctuating between the globally imposed and locally specific situations and requirements.

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LUGANO REGION INSIDE THE NET-CITY

RECOGNIZING A COMMOM CONDITION: THE NET-CITY â&#x20AC;&#x153;The railway-begotten giant cities...in all probability....[are] destined to such a process of dissection and diffusion as to amount almost to obliteration ...within a measurable further space of years. These coming cities...will represent a new and entirely new phase of human distribution... The city will diffuse itself until it has taken up considerable areas and many of the characteristics of what is now country... The country will take itself many of the qualities of the city. The old antithesis will cease, the boundary lines will altogether disappear1â&#x20AC;?.

In this utopian description of future human settlements, the English science-fiction writer George Herber Wells displays a prophetic consciousness about the transformative potential, for urban shape and territory, of the technological evolution of means of transport, especially the railway. One century later, and especially in a country like Switzerland, where a consolidate development of the rail nets is joined to a polycentric urbanism due to a peculiar topography, the context we have found is the result of these phenomena. The precise work of description produced by the research, finally give us a portrait of Lugano region that perfectly shows the common conditions we can find in European territory, increasingly characterized by widespread and disjointed forms of urbanization.

Going beyond the traditional boundaries between city and countryside, these heterogeneous elements have invaded the territory and scattered the urban values in a hybrid environment without identity. A new configuration, claimed by the major infrastructural networks, has imposed a new asset, within which cities play a different role, competing each one with its own specificity. The elements of organization of urban space, reinforced in centuries of civilization, no longer seem able on replying to new solicitations. The liquid society of Second Modernity, as some authors call it, has resulted in fragmented forms. Population and territory are so linked following new dynamics. On one side, the extension of transportation nets has spread human settlements, but on the other side the network order sets a polarization in the infrastructural nodes. This new condition, as we said, is the common contest of the global economy, which further more imposes its logic to local communities, plugged-in in a multi-scale system.

High-speed rail and air transport are the main characters of this real revolution in our society. They both cut journey times and substantially increase the scope of our daily life, including a range of opportunities unimaginable a few decades ago, but at the same time they impose a question of meaning, on the local project. In the nodes of the infrastructural nets, the global condition meets the local identity of the place, in a delicate balance between access to regional and global flows (such as possibility of movements) and roots in the anthropogenic value of building in one place. FROM NATIONAL NETS TO SECONDARY LINES Looking at the city and the territory inside this networks frame, we can describe them as complex entities, composed by a multiplicity of different levels. This approach has risen, during the analytical phase, as the most effective one to understand the hierarchical structure of territory. Each level has been represented as a specific layer, connecting several fragments among them: the city and the territory turn out to be the composition of different scale networks interlaced or not. As in Wells writing, is a change in the mobility systems that suggests reflecting on the impact of this new conditions inside the urban regions. In particular, the development of the European Corridors is the chance for local realities to rethink their position inside regional and global nets, proposing its own specificity. All the opportunities related to the flows produced by high-speed railways, will be concentrated in the cities interested by a rail-stop. From these new exchanging nodes, opportunities and benefit could be extended to the local communities thanks to a wide scale territorial project. This fact would affect all Europe, changing completely the hierarchies inside urban regions and territories. The net frame includes some parts, forcing the others to redefine their access at the higher system. Because of that, local communities are really involved in the debate on secondary lines: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the

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chance for a community to reflect on its role at all levels, asking to architects and urban planners a new place in the complex system of local and global relations called net-city. A scenery in which cities are the meeting point between identities, populations, ways of living and moving. CANTON Ticino AS A PARADIGMATIC CASE STUDY Canton Ticino, and especially the territory crossed by the FLP rail line, can definitely be considered as an emblematic case study to observe these transformations and to suppose possible directions for urban policies. As anticipated, Switzerland is very interesting for its vast and capillary rail net and for the polycentric character of its urbanization, related to the topographic condition of the country. Canton Ticino is this way a paradigm of the net-city. We started from this point of view: this urban region is structured by simultaneous and multi-scale relations, interlaced in a hierarchical system of circulation flows. The big layer of transportation infrastructures lays on the medium one of the regional networks and on the little one of the neighborhood social relations. These scales sometimes work separately, but they often meet in strategic points, functional and relational nodes, where urban values are concentrated and the use of space is intensified. These points upgrade the local contest to the networks. Lugano is the main pole of Canton Ticino economy, the only one able on competing in the national and international scenery, thanks to its financial role. The history of Canton Ticino society itself is all based on its position along the Europeanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trade flows, the only element that has permitted a development in a mountainous and marginal territory. Also today, the future opening of the high-speed railway European Corridors, in particular the Genoa and Rotterdam one, is the reason that has introduced the reflection on these themes. Lugano will be the only city in Ticino with a station along the Corridor. This fact will

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increase the leading role of the city inside its territory and its projection to outside. Now already some indicators suggest this condition: a great percentage of foreign inhabitants, intense transborder flows, and an international reputation as financial centre. Moreover Lugano is part of the continuous city centered in Milan, one of the great engines of European economy. The combination of this socio-economical condition with a particular territorial morphology, signed by lakes and mountains of great environmental value, has produced a sole conurbation extremely varied and rich in resources and activities.

An â&#x20AC;&#x153;archipelagoâ&#x20AC;? of urban functions, infrastructural and natural landscapes, transportation devices, productive and recreational clusters. The rail line gives structure connecting these elements, at the moment not always working together in a general system. The infrastructural project intended in this way is a challenge to find new ways to manage the complexity of the widespread urbanization of today. The role of an architectonical approach is to reach a general strategic vision, combining the effort of maintaining local identities to the need of a systemic cooperation between communities and institutions. APPLIED RESEARCH LINES Trying to present a balance about the design phase of the investigation, we can advance with subsequent levels of scale. The research lines considered to create possible scenarios of development about Lugano region offer a complex frame in which populations, flows, interests and needs coexist, trying to understand the effects on urban design of these phenomena. As we said, Lugano will reach a top range level of connections with the great scale of mobility, giving

LUGANO REGION INSIDE THE NET-CITY

its inhabitants the possibility to live the local dimension, but with a direct access to an elevated level of opportunities and services. On the other hand, the city will offer to a larger public of city-users its own specificity. So the identification of the potential of the city and its facilities as a break-city, a place where spend time and not only a passing by financial centre, has been the starting point. Subsequently the work has defined different populations involved in these dynamics, to create a convergence of requirements inside the metropolitan scene. Each project has defined the elements included in these considerations, choosing the layers on which to base its reflections. Also all the other mobility nets have been included into the project, considering that the rethinking of Lugano mobility will not only be based on railways.

Following this path, the role of the infrastructural axis, as articulator of the different levels and structuring element for the territory, has appeared very clearly and has been represented with synthetic conceptual diagrams, showing the degree of relation and coexistence between the different scales of the project. The research work has produced different possible futures for the FLP line. Its conversion from the actual condition, basically devoted to commuter workers going to Lugano, to a new use, has been part of the territorial strategy. In this new perspective the relation between fast crossings and little scale movements becomes crucial, as the possibilities of interconnection between FLP and other mobility nets. Going beyond the functional segregation of the areas and including touristic and recreational flows, city users and residents will

have access to all the range of facilities that Lugano and its lake can offer, finally recreating a hierarchy in the system of local and regional mobility. Some projects in particular have focused on possible evolutions of the interconnection with other nets. The relation between the rail-stops and the little ports along the lakeshore, for example, will create a useful coexistence of tourists and commuters requests, reaffirming the water identity of the region. A better organization of the interchange with the road net and the airport, at the moment completely excluded, must be based on the structuring of the productive, educational and logistic poles foreseen by the Canton Ticino planning. But also slow itineraries to enjoy the specific landscape of Lugano Lake could rediscover the relation between infrastructure and topography, working in the in-between areas along the line to maintain the ecological equilibrium of the territory. This final definition of the nodes in which the interlacement between different systems take place, has brought at the logic conclusion of the design strategy: the development of punctual interventions, declining at the little scale the general view. A precise program has informed the new physical aspect of each node, considered as an exchange point mediating between the anthropometric scale and the territorial scale of networks in a state of double proximity. Our intention was to arrange a process in which the local intervention would have become the engine of the regeneration of a bigger area, starting from of a pick of urbanitĂŠ able to spread its urban value. Following different directions, we have presented the reorganization of the intermodal node of Ponte Tresa (the entrance point from the Italian border), such as the one of the innovation pole of Pian Scairolo. Other projects have focused their attention on the crossing between the line and the ecological corridors, or on the role of the FLP as connector of the clusters composing the heterogeneous scenario of the region. Still others have developed networks of little scale devices or

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designed open spaces starting from the stations, or alternative paths running parallel to the rail track permitting different ways of going through the region. In conclusion two main attitudes rise: the extension of the nodeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s field of action through a project of public spaces, again seen as an identitymaking action inside a regenerative process.

And a landscape view, concentrated on the redefinition of the whole image of the infrastructure and on its relations with the physical, geographical and symbolic elements making up the territory. Composing all these elements, we have created a general scenario of a possible future for Lugano region, for sure not complete, but rich in reflection cues. How can Domus Academy advance now along this investigation path? Certainly the cooperation with i2a has been very profitable, such as the dialogue with the local institutions. Maybe we could restart from the comparison with other European case studies, or going deeper into the knowledge and design of local situations. With no doubts Canton Ticino is a favored context in which facing in practical terms theoretical categories we commonly use to describe contemporary territory, such as net-city, scatteredcity, complexity and space of flows. An even more interesting case study because of the relevant role given to architecture in the responding to the solicitations weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve tried to describe. In this sense, Canton Ticino is the territory of a new modernity. 1

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Wells G. H. (1902) Anticipations.

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LUGANO REGION INSIDE THE NET-CITY

Envisioning

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communes subdivision

state of affairs Courtesy of Alessandro Martinelli

Lugano

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Between Switzerland and its territory

national border

Between Switzerland and its territory: A fictional reconstruction of the Swiss territory asking for Urban Vision and Architectural Design Alessandro Martinelli i2a research fellow and curator He studied at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio and the Berlage institute in Rotterdam. He has been involved in research projects and didactical activities on the contemporary urban conditions at the International Institute of Architecture in Vico Morcote, at the institute for the Contemporary Urban Project of the Accademia di architettura - USI in Mendrisio, at the Berlage institute in Rotterdam, and at the Barcelona Institute of Architecture. Switzerland is quite an unique nation: more than half of Swiss communes have a population less than 1,000 inhabitants; they represent much less than half of the Swiss population but cover much, much more than half of the Swiss territory. But this would not be strange, unless such diffusion is not the administrative structure ‘through which’ political power is vehiculated into the territory, but rather it is the very sidereal form ‘inside of which’ territorial politics take place in Switzerland. Here the smaller territorial entity, not the overall nation’s one, is the very frame inside of which political power is legitimized to act and transform the territory. As the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in fact states:

“All Swiss are first and foremost citizens of a commune. It is from this status that they automatically derive citizenship of a canton and of the country as a whole1”.

Every Swiss commune is very autonomous in managing its territory and not a thing of what happens in its surrounding apparently interests it. Unless it cannot be completely autonomous -like any biological creature cannot- and therefore it needs to establish a certain set of relations to its surroundings, the very necessary ones at least. Thus, while communes autonomously detail plans for their own territories, the very fact that they participate to a Federation must immediately imply for them the possibility to solve their relational needs, that is, to talk bluntly, the deployment of a certain amount of Federal infrastructures. In a certain sense, Federal infrastructures, being the very binder of the Swiss ‘constellation’, are in their discrete experience the very form of the Swiss nation, much more than the natural territory in itself. If, consequently, there is a clear difference between the competences and interests of the commune and the ones of the Federation, a disjunction between the infrastructures which are ‘inside of’ the communes and the infrastructures which ‘pass through’ the communes, that are the Federal ones, is implied: much more than being

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the owner of everything, the Federation is in fact an entity which owns just some infrastructures inside the territory of a commune, almost like any of its citizen can own a piece of its land. And these infrastructures are very well defined in space and time, precisely because they are ‘something’ and not ‘everything’ of a commune. In Switzerland, Federal infrastructures are therefore both essential -they clearly need to answer rough questions of accessibility- and very distinct from a commune’s ones in the sense they need to deliver systemic concerns from within the very finitude of a commune’s territory, something which is at a very human scale given its size. But isn’t this last characteristic a very matter of architecture? Isn’t the possibility to deliver the relational experience between the finitude of a local condition and the system to which this condition belongs a very matter of territorial architecture? In the Swiss Federation’s infrastructures, accessibility and territorial architecture must collapse together, unifying cognitive and perfomative purposes. Not by chance Switzerland, and more precisely Canton Ticino, is one of the few countries of the world in which the project of highways has been coordinated by an architect -Rino Tami, a very excellent architect- rather than an engineer. Unfortunately such polarity between communes and the Federation implies a structural difficulty to visualize and to establish infrastructural projects at intermediates scale where it would be possible to discharge the duties of Federal infrastructures as much as to temporarily implement communes’ infrastructures, without necessarily congesting very local or very national systems. An imaginative power of architectural vision applied to infrastructures which can operate at the intermediate scale of geographical units -i.e. water basins, valleys, etc…- looks necessary to be evoked from external resources, in order both to valorize the positive characteristics of the Swiss territory as much as to offer hope to its structural questions.

In this context lies the significance of the work of the Master in Urban Vision and Architectural Design of the Domus Academy when applied to the territory which surrounds the FLP - Ferrovia Lugano Pontre Tresa all along the geographical unit of the Vedeggio Valley.

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Between Switzerland and its territory

Intermodal hubs, linear parks, bicycle pathways, and walking paths appearing along the maps which sum-up this work -here facing these few lines of commentary- show in fact the vision of a Swiss intermediate scale where the infrastructural backbone constituted by the FLP and by the parallel Cantonal road -which is up to today at the limit of its carrying capacity- can operationally multiply increasing both its efficiency and the efficiency of its surrounding territory, as much as the suggestion of a series of interchange points between all these different infrastructures here frames what can be an architecture of public spaces able to relate the life of various Swiss communes to the beauty of that intermediate-scale geographical context they share. 1. As publicly stated in www.swissworld.org, the website of Swiss presence managed by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

project clusters of urbanity

cargo hub

project infrastructural network Courtesy of Alessandro Martinelli

Courtesy of Alessandro Martinelli

industrial cluster airport

walking-cycling pathway

photovoltaic cluster

national rail system

linear park

highway park&ride

cantonal road park&ride

FLP

urban frame

national highway water transportation line

ITA/CH custom park&ride

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