Elements and Strategies for a New Housing Model in The Vigentino District

POLITECNICO DI MILANO 2020

URBAN COMMONS ELEMENTS AND STRATEGIESFOR A NEW HOUSING MODEL IN THE VIGENTINO DISTRICT

M a s t e r T h e s i s | A r c h i t e c t u r e - B u i l t E n v i r o n m e n t - I n t e r i or Supervisor |Lorenzo Consalez Students |Laura Armani+Letizia Ceriani

URBAN COMMONS ELEMENTS AND STRATEGIES FOR A NEW HOUSING MODEL IN THE VIGENTINO DISTRICT

Politecnico di Milano Scuola AUIC Master of Architecture - Built Environment - Interiors A.Y. 2020/2021 Relator: Lorenzo Consalez Students: Laura Armani 903483 Letizia Ceriani 904022

“ TO LIVE IS TO BE EVERYWHERE IN ONE’S OWN HOME” UGO LA PIETRA

INDEX

0. ABSTRACT 1. AFFORDABLE HOUSING 1.1 Contemporary cities, Contemporary living 1.2 Housing and Commons 1.2.1Commons and Architecture 1.2.2 Edges/Open Cities 1.2.3 Granularity 1.2.4 Why Housing and Commons?

1.3 Urban Commons. (Hotspot, Porosity, Diversity) 2. FOCUS ON SOCIAL HOUSING 2.1 The reasons for the development of Social Housing in Italy 2.2 What about Milano?

2.2.1 Demographic datas 2.2.2 Housing demand scenario 2.2.3 Social Housing in Milano 3.SITE PROJECT 3.1 Reinventing Cities. A call for Vigentino, Monti Sabini 3.2 Neighborhood Analysis 3.3 The Vigentino neighborhood. Two fronts in comparison

4. MASTERPLAN

6. CLUSTER_ WHERE PUBLIC MEETS PRIVATE

4.1 Project’s goals

6.1 Clusters’ Target

4.2 Masterplan guidelines

6.2 The “jolly” spaces

4.3 Masterplan. A net of public spaces

6.3 The Service Block

4.4 Masterplan. The relation between public and private spaces

6.4 The Room

4.5 The role of public spaces 4.6 The program through functions 4.7 Hotspot, Porosity and Diversity 5. NORTH COMPLEX 5.1 Volumetric process 5.2 Key-themes 5.2.1 The Lived Wall 5.2.2 Strairs/Streets, Floors/Squares 5.3 Through the plans 5.3.1 Ground Floor 5.3.1.1 Functional Program 5.3.2 Mezzanine Floor 5.3.2.1 Functional Program 5.3.3 First Floor_The Apartments 5.3.3.1 Functional Program 5.3.4 Rooftop Floor 5.3.4.1 Functional Program

7. CONCLUSION 8.BIBLIOGRAPHY

0. ABSTRACT Through the research Housing & Commons we assume that by resetting the interaction between public and private, the quality of urban life in cities can improve. We research a city with programs that integrate housing, work, and leisure and promote inclusive social stratification, where people from different income-groups live alongside each other rather than being spatially segregated. Affordable housing is one of the solutions that can reset the balance of the cities.

Living in Milan today is difficult for many. The city was built in many of its parts according to schemes and criteria that are no longer consistent with the society that now inhabits it, generating conflicts and difficulties.

Through this project, we recognize the home as the place from which to start again to reflect on the city, its inhabitants, the quality of local life and the values ​​of living within a metropolis.

Our program is developed as an antithesis and alternative to the monofunctional residential districts inherited from the past and to the new settlement models that enclose the city in fenced spaces and deprive it of the wealth of its differences. Our project is not conceived as the new center of a peripheral sector of the city but as a model for its possible development.

The community is not different from the rest of the city but it is what the city itself could be and how the city could develop.

It is only through the inclusion of the countryside in the city, it is only through the opening of the domestic dimension to the public one, it is only through the coexistence of different types of buildings, citizens and functions, that the city will once again become the place privileged to return to live.

Milano is moving forward to guarantee these equipments, on one hand, thanks to the transformations in progress and planned, on the other hand through the regeneration of the existing city and the processes of reuse of the disused building heritage.

That’s why we are interested in the commons as a solution to the changes that the city is facing today. We assume that ​​space must be considered as a common good and that the city is filled with vital voids that can be interpreted as opportunities in which cohesion and solidarity are favorable The chosen area is located in the Vigentino neighborhood, in the south of Milano. In the last few years, the district has been the scenario of important urban regenerations. We consider this area starting from the ones proposed by the C40 organization, through the competition Reinventing Cities.

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C40 launched this call to promote The Monti Sabini site to present the best proposals for the transformation of underused sites as examples of sustainability and resilience.

The district of Vigentino is a strategic point about the in-between space of the countryside and the city of Milan, where the Parco Agricolo Sud goes deep into the urbanization.

The chosen area set guidelines for the development of a neighborhood that define a strategy for a residential housing with the characteristics of hotspot, porosity and diversity.

With our project we investigate how through an intervention of social housing we can recalibrate the relationship between private and public space. These different gradients of the Commons space are thus related one to one another: to create a social structure and a corresponding physical structure, equipped with spaces for collective use at different levels, makes possible a moving flow between more private spaces gradually towards more public ones.

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[Pic.1] - 110 rooms. Collective Housing at Provença Street, MAIO. The building is designed as a system of similar rooms. So each apartment can be sized and programed depending on the need.

1. AFFORDABLE HOUSING

A THEMATIC RESEARCH ABOUT CONTEMPORARY LIVING

The profound socio-demographic transformations that have taken place in Europe over the last few decades have led to major changes in household compositions and what constitutes what is typically termed the “family”. These transformations have resulted in increasing numbers of single people, divorced couples with children, single parents, older singles/couples, as well as the spread of the phenomenon of cohabitation not only among students but also among young couples and adult workers. At the same time, changes in the labor market, with a significant rise in temporary employment and delocalization, frequently force people to have access to more than one dwelling.

In addition to these phenomena, worsening employment and economic conditions due to the lasting recession have reduced housing affordability. The situation is compounded by a significant increase in cases of rent and mortgage arrears and evictions. In a context characterized by economic transformation and changes in family patterns, new lifestyles have emerged, such as couples living apart together (LAT) or long-distance relationships, made possible by lowcost air travel and, to a certain extent, digital communication, factors which have significantly shortened physical distances and changed our sense and understanding of what constitutes proximity. All together, these phenomena have challenged the performance, and on a certain extent even the idea, of Home as inherited by the Modern Movement, and the social housing programs implemented under the welfare states of many countries during the twentieth century, imposing the need of a deep revision of both the understanding of the idea of Family and the concept of residence (that is slowly taking over the one of Home). The central theme of the thesis is a search for new social housing solutions (in terms of typology, articulation of structures and equipment of spaces, forms of management, promoters of interventions, etc.) capable of responding to the profound socio-demographic changes that have occurred in the last ten to fifteen years.

The transformation of the traditional family forms, as in today’s reality the traditional nuclear family is rapidly giving way to a multitude of other living situations. This phenomenon not only allows us to imagine new housing types but allows also to radically reconfigure part of the existing heritage: traditional housing models, characterized by rigid and compartmentalized spatial equipment, can be redesigned in flexible and open systems thanks to the application of new spatial strategies.

By reconfiguring underutilized environments in new spaces for sharing, through the organization of innovative housing management and the development of systems integrated with the services already present in the urban context, it is now possible to formulate a new concept of living based on sharing and commoning spaces, intended as bringing people together.

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1.1 CONTEMPORARY CITIES, CONTEMPORARY LIVING Housing & commons is, therefore, a different answer to the existing housing stock: there is an important mismatch between the contemporary housing needs and the features of the housing market, which continue to propose the same typologies, even if contemporary socio-economic and demographic changes require more various and ad hoc solutions.

During the Final Design Studio 2019/2020 thematic course “AH 2019 - AFFORDABLE HOUSING DOMESTICITY RELOADED attended with professors Massimo Bricocoli, Gennaro Postiglione, Stefania Sabatinelli, we have been able to develop thorough research about the interpretation of the term Commons in the architectural field, thus exploring in detail new ways of conceiving space as a good for all and as a place conducive to cohesion and solidarity from the scale of the city to arrive at a more intimate and domestic scale.

[Pic.1] - Domper Domingo Arquitectos, Housing Block Monzon, Monzon, Spain, 2018. Example of how to benefit from an in-between space.

With the number of cities and their inhabitants on a dramatic rise, now more than ever, it is necesary to reflect on how the contemporary city is shaping and/or articulating our perception of certain concepts such as living, community, human interactions, and private life; conceptions that have existed to varying degrees throughout time and yet, have never stayed unchanged. In fact, they have gone through fundamental changes and have obtained new meanings. For this reason, we find the contemporary city not only a reflection of contemporary issues but at the same time where can, we find the answers to such issues?

To begin, we wonder what the contemporary city has to offer which responds to the needs of the contemporary human being in various scales, extending from absolute private to that of community and eventually to the urban one.

Where and how do all these dimensions meet? How can one penetrate into the other scales? For example, imagining the public space entering private homes or the domestic dimension intruding the streets. And in all that, where do human interactions stand?

1.2 HOUSING AND COMMONS Nowadays the interest in an architecture of the commons is growing more and more. In recent years, increasingly innovative collective housing projects have emerged, especially in Switzerland and in particular Zurich. Many of them are conceived and realized through grassroots initiatives: these new models are influencing the new social housing production on European level, concerning both the aspect of management, through cooperatives, and the aspect of housing typology, proposing new forms of living spaces.

Cooperatives are increasingly integrating functions into residential complexes that benefit not only the residents themselves but also the broader public. This is also a good way of financing public amenities such as daycare centers, swimming pools, restaurants‌ There is no doubt that such projects enhance the quality of their environments and thus trigger a positive dynamic in the neighborhood promoting a social mix and vitalize the neighborhood with commercially used space.1 These contents were presented at an important exhibition at Vitra Design Museum in 2017, called Together! The new architecture of the collective: the success of the exhibition led to the publication of a book collecting its main concepts. Many innovative projects dealing with collective living and innovative architecture that mediates private with public spaces were shown and compared together. The importance of this exhibition

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Muller M., Niggli D., Together! The new Architecture of the collective, Ruby Press, 2017,

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resides in raising awareness among people that a new way of designing housing is gradually growing. Until now it has worked well in a precise context, such as Zurich or Vienna recently, in which the way of thinking the housing heritage as a common resource is particularly rooted, but the same model can be exported in many other different countries that need further changes in housing policies, as Together exhibition try to witness showing projects from all over the world.

With the prospect of claiming space as a form of Commons, we have to admit the idea that each community exists as a spatially defined entity, in favor of the idea of a network of communicating and negotiating social spaces that are not defined in terms of a fixed identity. Those spaces thus retain a “passage” character. The idea of an emancipating spatiality could look like a city of thresholds.

A potentially liberating city can be conceived not as an agglomerate of liberated spaces but as a network of passages, as a network of spaces belonging to nobody and everybody at the same time, which are not defined by a fixed-power geometry but are open to a constant process of (re)definition3. Consequently, common space may take the form of meeting ground, an area in which expansive circuits of encounter intersect 4. Therefore the common space is created by individuals and their uses in the space itself: according to Bauman, “experience then expresses the value of the space and its meaning”5. Moreover, to favor relations and “passages”, as Stavrides said, spatial architectural assumptions are required, given by the project and the design process: “it is an almost unconscious, unaware incidence that the physical designed environment exerts on people who live in it” 6 .

1.2.1 COMMONS AND ARCHITECTURE The exhibition at Vitra Museum, although very important in terms of raising public awareness, didn’t specify precisely what Commons in architecture is: through this research, we are trying to give a proper definition of the concept.

Here when we speak about Commons and architecture we are talking about space: a Commons space is a physical place but most important it is generator of relations, both between people and other surrounding spaces. The fact that a space can be retained Commons depends mainly on its use.

According to Stavros Stavrides2, first, it is necessary to bring to the discussion a comparison between the concept of the commons-based on the idea of a community and the concept of the public. The community refers to an entity, mainly to a homogeneous group of people, whereas the idea of the public emphasizes the relation between different communities. The public realm can be considered as the actual or virtual space where strangers and different people or groups with diverging forms of life can meet. To think about a city based on Commons we have to question and conceptualize the connection of space and the Commons. It would be interesting to think of the production of space as an area of Commons and then discuss how this production has to be differentiated from today’s capitalist production of space.

1.2.2 EDGES / OPEN CITIES To define more precisely the notion of space as Commons it is necessary to identify its relations with the surroundings, through its edges: these edges, explain Richard Sennett, “are spaces where different social classes or different functions come into contact”. Sennett shows his interest in the edge condition of places such as, for instance, a beach, which is a border, full of ecological activity, where the sea meets the land, organism feed and evolution speeds up. On the contrary, a boundary is a place that is sealed, a place characterized by a lower level of activity on the edge that in the center. To be more precise, Steven Gould defines the boundary as an edge where things end, while the border is an edge where different entities interact. There is a basic distinction, according to Sennett, between the border and the boundary, as the urban context is concerned. A border is like a membrane: there is not the only separation between one place and another but there is also both porosity and resistance. In a membrane, the cell wants to keep in nutrients and it

So, starting to think about space as related to the Commons means to conceptualize it as a form of relations rather than as an entity, as a condition of comparisons instead of an established arrangement of positions. We have to conceive space not as a sum of defined places, which we should control or liberate but rather as a potential network of passages linking one open place to another. Space, thus, becomes important as a constitutive dimension of social action. Space indeed “happens” as different social actions produce different spatial qualities.

Stavros Stavrides, architect and activist, is Professor of Architectural Design and Theory at the School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens, Greece, where he teaches graduate courses on housing design (including social housing), as well as a postgraduate course on the meaning of metropolitan experience. His research is currently focused on forms of emancipating spatial practices and spaces of commoning.

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De Angelis M., Stavrides S., An Architektur- On the Commons: A Public Interview Stavrides S., Common Space as Threshold Space: Urban Commoning in Struggles to Re-appropriate Public Space in Commoning as Differentiated Publicness, Footprint, Spring 2015 5 Piccinno G., Lega E., Spatial design for in-between urban spaces, Maggioli E 6 Piccinno G., Lega E., ibidem, 2012, p. 48 3 4

[Pic.1] - Diagrams: boundaries, borders and thresholds

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wants to expel things that are used up. It is porous in a directional form.

The same thing should be true in urbanism - there should be things we do not want at the edge and things we do 7.

that can be used collectively by all the inhabitants of the residence: we will call these spaces Domestic Commons.

Thirdly, at the level of urban space, apartment buildings are being constructed to offer public programs and spaces catering explicitly to people living in the whole neighborhood; these programs bring the city into the building and, conversely, make it a genuine part of the neighborhood. Here literally housing creates the city: we will call this kind of space Urban Commons.

These natural differences between boundary/wall and border/membrane clarify closed and open built form. The boundary/wall dominates the modern city. The urban habitat is cut up into segregated parts by streams of traffic, by functional isolation between zones for work, commerce, family, and the public realm. The most popular form of new residential development internationally, the gated community, takes to an extreme the idea of the boundary wall. The result is that exchange between different racial, ethnic, or class communities diminishes. So we should want to build the border/membrane8.

In that sense, these new communally inspired projects are the critical antidote to the stereotypical monofunctional housing developments of the post-war era, (which tended to suffocate urban life thanks to the modernist dogma of functional separation). The architecture of shared housing inspires ways to enhance the quality of urban life in our cities by recalibrating the relationship between private and public space.

It envisages a city with a highly mixed program combining housing, working, leisure environments and furthering an inclusive social stratification, whereby people from different income groups live side by side rather than being spatially segregated 9.

Lastly, the threshold, of which Stavrides spoke, can be identified: it is the transitional space, the in-between area (among other open or closed spaces) in which important changes can occur. It is not an edge anymore, like boundary or border, but it can be seen as the thickness of the borderline, where connections happen and the “network of passages” is manifested. Inside the threshold space, with some adequate conditions that we will face further on the research, the Commons space can be created.

These different gradients of the Commons space are thus related one to one other: to create a social structure and a corresponding physical structure, equipped with spaces for collective use at different levels, makes possible a moving flow between more private spaces gradually towards more public ones. The area perceived by the individual as pertinent to his home, which is the territory of residence, can extend beyond the actual boundary of the house 10.

“A renewed articulation of spaces is thus built, based on a new idea of domesticity, which feeds on the completely private, collective and urban dimensions, and designs them with equal attention, coming to speculate that public space can enter the houses and the domestic dimension flow into the streets” 11.

1.2.3 GRANULARITY The Commons space, seen as a threshold, transitional space that creates connection, relations and “passages”, when architecture and especially housing is concerned, can be present at different scales of the project.

Commons spaces can deal with the single apartment as well as with the entire city, following a fractal system that develops into the entire housing block and lead to a new housing typology and program. Commons are taking place mainly on three levels, among this “granular” system, as far as housing is concerned.

Firstly, at the level of individual apartment, we are seeing the emergence of cluster apartments: it is a large apartment with living area that consists of several small studio apartments, each with a bedroom and a small kitchen and pantry, which are organized around a generously proportioned shared living area with a large common kitchen. This type of accommodation enables singles to share part of their daily lives with other people while guaranteeing them a private space.

Secondly, at the level of the apartment building, individual apartments are being supplemented by an eclectic mix of shared domestic facilities

Muller M., Niggli D., ibidem, 2017 Gehl J., Vita in città. Spazio urbano e relazioni sociali, Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 1991 11 Russi N., Background. Il progetto del vuoto, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2019 9

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Sennett R. in TWF, Maas W., Porocity, Nai Publishers, Rotterdam, 2018 Sennett R., Open City, lecture in City Museum of Stokholm, 2014

[Pic.1] - Granularity diagrams. Commons in the city, neighbourhood, house and apartment

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1.2.4 WHY HOUSING & COMMONS ?

It is necessary to point out which are the main issues of the housing market in our contemporary society, to answer properly to the question of why do we need to live “in commons”. In recent years, deep and wide changes in housing needs more diversified among social profiles and more changeable over time. Society is facing problems concerning housing affordability, related mainly to the fact that the housing market doesn’t follow the same pace of the big demographic changes which are taking place, and social exclusion, due in particular to the growing multicultural society and different migration flows. Not only more and more of the world’s population is living in cities and the number is growing rapidly, but also as a result, current cities are becoming more populated or overpopulated. On the one hand, the increasing flow of people to big cities, concerning demographic changes. On the other hand, the socio-economic conditions of our time, make it quintessential to analyze the very needs of this flow that must be responded to within the ongoing socio-economic structure.

sqm (from Scenari Immobiliari, Agenzia delle entrate). The reasons for this are multiple and attributable to social and economic issues which are beyond the scope of this research, but they describe a problematic situation, as they indirectly reflect the disproportion of the cost of the house with the average income. The frame that emerges from the previous analysis made by Russi regards the quest for housing from new Italian citizens and young Italians, that in most cases coincide because the potential house that these two categories require is the same: accessible in costs and adequate in measure. The residential stock of the offer, however, not manages to guarantee affordable prices and always adequate accommodation size 12. But new and experimental living models today suggest the possibility of outsourcing many of the spatial and infrastructural equipment, traditionally inserted within the domestic units.

This phenomenon not only allows us to imagine new housing types but allows also to radically reconfigure part of the existing heritage: traditional housing models, characterized by rigid and compartmentalized spatial equipment, can be redesigned in flexible and open systems thanks to the application of new spatial strategies. By reconfiguring underutilized environments in new spaces for sharing, through the organization of innovative housing management and the development of systems integrated with the services already present in the urban context, it is now possible to formulate a new concept of living 13.

As far as socio-demographic field is concerned, the main changes taking place regard the transformation of the traditional family forms, as in today’s reality the traditional nuclear family is rapidly giving way to a multitude of other living situations.

For example, we are witnessing growing cases of more singles, separations/divorces, single-parent, and recomposed families. Another issue that has to be highlighted is the growing ageing of the population: more people and more years with dependency/disability. Then changing migration patterns, for example, immigration-emigration flows, commuters, economic migration to search for better employment, refugees, asylum seekers are fundamental to shape new housing needs.

On the other hand, the main socio-economic changes that affect the housing market are mainly the growing flexibility of the labor market, accompanied by mobility and precariousness as consequences, and the dynamic and attractive urban centers with corresponding growth of population, rising value of real estates leading and decreasing housing affordability.

Commuters, one-parent families, three-generations families, as well as immigrants and youths, in particular, are groups that share the issue of housing: “Re-housing / La casa come dispositivo di integrazione” is a research completed at Politecnico di Torino that gives us a general glimpse of the situation of whom it calls “New Italians”, and young people, between 18 and 34, in Italy. The newcomers’ employment rate is slightly higher than that of Italians, however, the average annual income is less than half. Economically sustainable housing for this income would correspond to just 30 m2 (economically sustainable area means the area accessible with 1/3 of the average citizen wage) while currently, the average market area of t he rental unit is approximately 70

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[Pic.1] - The need for housing is shortened for the need for proper and affordable housing. Some protests highlight this fact.

[Pic.2] - Housing has long been a matter of discussion due to its particular nature: It is a fundamental need without which one would be automatically excluded socially as well as physically from the mainstream society. For this matter, there have been numerous protests in various forms and using different tools, requiring this need to be addressed.

In this moment of the housing crisis and considering the limited economic capitals of the youth and immigrants, according to Russi, a shift from traditional housing to a more integrative one with the city seems reasonable. The various examples of a similar approach, yet for another time, confirm this issue is global.

The solution exercised, as also pointed out in the development of our research, is based on sharing and commoning spaces, intended as bringing people together, whose activities create social values. This is one of the ways not only to deal with the housing crisis but also to promote inclusion and integration. According to Marcuse, “Housing inevitably raises issues about power, inequality, and justice in capitalist society”.

One reason for that could be the fact that housing is a fundamental need without which it is hard to imagine how an individual or a family would be able to benefit from social equality and to be included in active participation inside society 14.

Housing & commons is, therefore, a different answer to the existing housing stock: there is an important mismatch between the contemporary 12 Russi N. Coricelli F., Quaglio C., Rolfo D., Re-housing: La casa come dispositivo di integrazione, Quaderni, Torino 2017 13 Russi N. Coricelli F., Quaglio C., Rolfo D., ibidem, 2017 14 Madden D. J., Marcuse P., In Defense of Housing: the Politics of Crisis, Verso Books, London 2016

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1.3 URBAN COMMONS (HOTSPOT, POROSITY,DIVERSITY) housing needs and the features of the housing market, which continue to propose the same typologies, even if contemporary socio-economic and demographic changes require more various and ad hoc solutions.

Commons space brings economic benefits as they create affordability through the sharing of services, both at the level of domestic facilities and at the level of neighborhood services, including non-residential functions. For instance, one can renounce to have a private living room or private kitchen (his private space is just the dwelling) and then spare money on these shared facilities, which are used by the internal community and often outsourced from the dwelling itself, for example in the distributive spaces. In the same way, residents who live in a complex program building that integrates services for the whole city could get economical benefits about the usage of these services. On the other hand, living in residences designed following the logic of Commons spaces bring about social advantages, in particular concerning the issue of social exclusion. Commons tackle this issue by creating relations between spaces and people, creating a sense of community: “Architects should (...) incorporate social and urban cohesion in residential buildings as well as in the purely public space and finally be able to create an architectural intimacy that generates a sense of community” 15.

The “lens of commons” is applied at the scale of the city, focusing on the connection that a project or a building, especially housing, can have with its surroundings. So, what happens within a building is less important than the relationship it could engage with other buildings and with the street. Consequently, attention is given to the production of space in the buildings and between them that will support healthy civic interaction.

Knowing that the term Commons, as specified in the chapter before, is related also to the economic and political world, talking about Housing & Commons means talking about ownership, public or private, about management and control.

This research is therefore focused on the relationship between space, territory and building, and the way it is perceived and experienced by the citizens. This means that today space as Commons cannot make itself autonomous from the metropolitan territory, but it is, on the contrary, embodied in it, in its conflicts, in its divisions, in its aggregations.

“Nothing exists in isolation, only in relation” 17 .

How can an urban space be considered Urban Commons?

To be an Urban Commons the space of the city is no longer simply the distance between buildings but a place open to the project with its values and potential to be interpreted through tools, materials, and strategies.

De Boeck and De Geyter in After-Sprawl 18 develop the concept of negative space. Emptiness is no longer understood as a physical lack of construction, but as an absence of design and spatial qualities: it is “the space that is normally not consciously designed and planned and its shape and dimension arise as a negative of the process of building the territory”19 . With Urban Commons, we try to go beyond this concept.

Space is no longer interpreted as a mere instrument of description of the full, but it assumes an autonomous value concerning it.

Still assuming the idea of space as a Commons, it is emphasized that the project for the city must try to offer spaces conducive to cohesion and solidarity, spaces that through their full and vital voids express as many offers to mix proportionally the difference 16.

“Let’s go back to space, finally recognizing it as an autonomous value, or rather, considering it in its indifference and its flow as the symbolic condition of contemporary building”20 Alessandro Anselmi

[Pic.1] - Collage manifesto Housing & Commons.

Cooperative house at river Spreefeld, common kitchen + Kalkbreite. The picture shows one of the shared kitchen in the cooperative group of building in the Berlin outskirts and the courtyard of the Kalkbreite project. The two projects are clear examples of what we think urban and domestic commons are.

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15 Herzberger H. in Gelsomino L., Marinoni O., Territori Europei dell’abitare: 1990-2010, Compositori Edizioni, Bologna 2009 16 Piccinno G., Lega E., ibidem, 2012 17 Ellin N., Integral urbanism, Routledge,Taylor & Francis Group, New York, 2006 18 De Boeck L., De Geyter X., After-Sprawl. research for the contemporary city, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 2002 19 Russi N., Background. Il progetto del vuoto, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2019 20 Ilardi M., Il tramonto dei non luoghi. Fronti e frontiere dello spazio metropolitano, Melteni Editore, Roma, 2007

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Space as Commons is therefore not intended as an absence but interpreted as a completely available open field, whose design begins with its thematization. These places leave a wide margin of freedom of use; they can change over time, in the seasons, as the hours go by, they are flexible to uses. Urban Commons spaces can, therefore, be considered in-between spaces, urban voids between buildings, interstitial spaces, in short, “those intermediate or uncertain spaces, with strong physical, relational, time, connection or disconnection characteristics with their surroundings, through which it is possible to implement new dynamics capable of generating a renewed spatial and interaction value” 21.

Considering continuity between city spaces and building, we understand that the field of action for Urban Commons is the limit, the threshold between different spaces. In this research, we emphasize the concept that a threshold is not merely a limit, an intermediate area of contact but a dynamic zone in which social change happens. This is how the idea of conceiving the border as a beginning and not as an end was born.

It represents one of the challenges of Urban Commons: the border is where each of us begins where “what I am not is what I can become: my thinkable and possible landscape”23.

Space as a Commons exists and takes on meaning at the exact moment in which the boundary line is not so much crossed and overcome but travelled. To inhabit this space means to add dimensions to the line that determines the transition limit and in this research we try to give an answer to this question. Fundamental categories of the urban experience, such as proximity and distance, are redefined by this new scenario of continuity.

They are what gives access to another space or another level of activity in the same space. They are transitional spaces: areas in which important changes occur for those who pass through them. Therefore, Urban Commons spaces are related to publicness and, to maintain their character, are often managed by cooperatives or associations of neighborhoods, districts and cities.

The space of the contemporary city, until now, originates from the layout of the buildings on the territory and has no continuity with them. From the example projects analyzed in this research study, it results that the feature of an Urban Commons space is its attempt to connect the built and the street that has no longer the function of walking, stopping and social relations.

Near and far have new meanings: far from what, close to whom?

Not only does this approach meet the demand for a high-quality open space, but it is also a response to various autonomous developments, such as new lifestyles, market-oriented project developments by private parties and demands for high-density construction coupled with ground-accessed homes. Normally these developments are guided by groups of people gathered in cooperatives or practices.

Now, to understand the contemporary metropolis, it is important to focus on the absolute centrality of space as an idea and of the territory as a concrete field of investigation and study. The city is interpreted as an open territory that can be crossed, as a place of men, of cultural and spiritual exchanges; a flexible structure where public and private, internal and external tend to become fluid.

Urban Commons is the space where urban populations can enjoy the services provided by the public and, at the same time, develop and initiate multiple activities by themselves. The paradox of Urban Commons in housing ensembles is its ambiguity: it attempts to be both public and private. In the case of these ensembles, they lead to new interpretations for housing (private life) and the public domain (public life). The old meanings of these categories shift and lose their unequivocalness.

Whereas its traditional typology creates a strict division between private and public space, Urban Commons opens up the building. This strict division disappears and makes way for a new ambiguity within the housing block: a tension between the public and private domains. The developments are no longer only focused on the interior, but also involve the adjacent public domain. The tension between the individuality of the homes and the “outside world” lends Urban Commons an ambiguous character and could also serve as a link between two different interior spaces.

Urban Commons can be a feature of any type of architectural project and tries to create continuity between the city spaces and buildings.

Continuity is intended as transition, as a limit that can be crossed and overcome in one or both directions, a continuum between spaces, times or other dimensions. Characterized by the presence of a demarcation line or band that establishes a relationship of inclusion/exclusion between the elements inside and outside it. An example is Superkilen Park 22, which creates a transitional space that generates symbolic physical continuity between the parts of a multi-ethnic district of the city through a collage of spaces, materials, and objects belonging to each present culture.

Piccinno G., Lega E., Spatial design for in-between urban spaces, Maggioli Editore, 2012 22 It is a half a mile long urban space wedging through one of the most ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighborhoods in Copenhagen designed by Topotek 1, BIG Architects and Superflex in 2012.

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[Pic.1]- Theatre Square in Antwerp, Belgium, designed by Secchi and Viganò, 2004. Example of a project that in which a big covered public space becomes Urban Commons.

[Pic.2] - Aerial view of the Superkilen in Copenhagen

This is how we define the structural models of a new city where a housing project is an opportunity to intervene at all scales and to work 23

Piccinno G., Lega E., ibidem, 2012

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at the same time in the private and public sphere. Therefore, a project for Urban Commons in its spatial, formal and material characteristics, is also and above all aimed at promoting collective and individual initiatives able to interpret it as the infrastructure and the background of their development. Urban commons become points of a social urban system that highlights how much the concrete spatiality of the newly thought public place becomes necessary to restore the perception of being there, of participating, of a rediscovered sociality among people.

This happens especially when behind the mere architectural project there is the active participation of people. Also the management of these spaces plays an important role. Normally in fact there is always a cooperative guided by the inhabitants,the direct people interested in the control of these spaces.

spaces in favor of a dynamic system of places and the social life of the city.

Porosity is the characteristic of Urban Commons linked to permeability.

Urban Commons brings urban life into the traditional building through visual links with the city, permitting the entrance to other users, such as casual passers-by. The passing citizen can live and pass through every space without having the sensation to be in a private property.

Diversity is the characteristic that can make space as a Commons be lived in every moment of the day. The more varied the functions are, the more likely it is that they will satisfy the needs and tastes of a greater number of people. The more space is experienced by people, the more people will be attracted by it.

Urban Commons: a place “in flow” If we focus on the relationship that is created between the building and the city and pay attention to the space that is generated, we realize that an Urban commons space leads to the achievement of a state of flow24.

We know intuitively when a place is “in flow”. It strikes a balance between boredom and overstimulation through, for instance, combining monuments with background buildings, defamiliarizing features with familiar ones, and a wide range of people and activities. It will be clear that space as Urban Commons is quite a different thing from a bridge between two functions. It is a place that evokes a wealth of ambivalent associations, a place filled with “multiple meanings in equipoise”25.

Because people require varying amounts of stimulation to be “in flow”, places that are “in flow” offer several choices and may be experienced in different ways.

Urban Commons is not an abstract conceptual category, but an object of experience, life practice, productive force of new spatiality, resource for the creation of new forms of sociality. The architect is no longer considered as the sole inventor of spatial structures (space is created by the individual), but of the means and ways in which space is daily experienced through movement.

The three important qualities for places to be “in flow” and so to become Urban Commons are hotspot, porosity, and diversity.

By hotspot we mean the characteristic of Urban Commons that makes them places where new relationships and value could spontaneously happen and grow. They take on the complex role of relational facilitators, denoting a shift away from the value of the technical functionality of Flow is the intense experience situated between boredom and overstimulation. It is characterized by immersion, awareness, and a sense of harmony, meaning, and purpose.

25 Strauven F., Aldo Van Eyck. The shape of relativity, Architectura and Natura Press, Amsterdam, 1998 24

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[Pic.1]- MVRD, Didden Village, Rotterdam [Pic.2] - From 1962 to 1966, André Bloc produced several Sculptures habitacles, some of which were experimental “pavilions” in his garden in Meudon. Architecture and sculpture are intermingled in organic imbrications, staggered to form several levels and full of holes, opening the visual unity of the form to a physical and spatiotemporal experience. Perception exists in successive views by walking through it, and from this one must develop a mental synthesis.

“I allowed light and air to penetrate through simple and complex pathways. The Sculpture habitacle is, to a certain extent, characterized by a continuity of the visual exterior and interior through a system of interpenetration and occupation of space, thereby multiplying contrasts and variations in volume.”

[Pic.3]- Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop, Local Community Area

Together, these qualities describe a shift from emphasizing isolated objects and separating functions to considering larger contexts and multifunctional places. These qualities suggest a departure from the assumed opposition between people and nature and between buildings and landscapes to more symbiotic relationships. These qualities also place a premium on borders, the site of these relationships. The focus of Urban commons places is to propose interventions that contribute to activating places (enhancing flow) by making connections. These interventions have a tentacular or domino effect, catalyzing other interventions in an ongoing and never-ending process. The three qualities of Urban Commons recall other formulations in the history of architecture and literature. In The Image of the City26, Kevin Lynch reported that paths, nodes, districts, landmarks, and edges are the organizing principles of our mental maps of cities. These categories bear similarities to those of Urban Commons with nodes offering diversity, paths, and edges allowing porosity, and districts and landmarks endowing hotspot. Focusing on literature, not cities, Italo Calvino called for preserving five values in Six Memos for the Next Millennium 27(1988): lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity. Lightness intersects with the qualities of porosity; quickness refers to porosity too; exactitude recalls hotspot; visibility carries traits of hotspot, porosity, and diversity; and multiplicity parallels diversity.

Space to be considered Urban Commons must have all the three characteristics of hotspot, porosity, and diversity at the same time.

The mere lack of one of these factors leads to results of minor importance and often not of great architectural and social quality.

Lynch K., L’immagine della città, Marsilio, Padova, 1969 Calvino I., Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988 26

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[Pic.1] - Heinzholz, cooperative Krafwerk1, Adrian Streich Architekten.

The project was concluded in 2012 ans it is still an example of the typolgy of cluster wohnungem, where different private unit with basic services share a common area with large dimensions. The project regenerate two buildings of the last century, constructing an external staircase that links the groundfloor with all the levels of the two buildings. The platform at the ground floor become a meeting point for the entire neighborhood.

2. FOCUS ON SOCIAL HOUSING

WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT SOCIAL HOUSING?

Social housing starts from a fundamental premise: housing is a service of public interest and not a product to be placed on the market or a financial asset, even if it must have its own economic sustainability.

Social housing is based on an idea of ​​cooperation, cohesion and social enterprise. A widely accepted definition of social housing was proposed

by CECODHAS Housing Europe in 2007: “the set of housing and services, of action and tools designed to provide adequate housing, through certain rules of allocation, to families who have difficulty in finding housing at market conditions, because they are unable to obtain credit or are afflicted by particular problems.”

The definition of social housing in Europe is based on three elements: the house theme is of general interest the goal is to increase the availability of houses at lower prices than the market through construction, management, purchase and rental particular attention must be given to the definition of users, both in socio-economic terms and in relation to other types of vulnerability.

In Italy, the term social housing has a more limited meaning. In fact, it is one of the few European nations to have given a legislative definition of social housing as a public service. 1 Starting from the Piano-Casa, social housing has been defined as a housing policy aimed at those groups of the population who are unable to bear the cost on the free market and who, however, do not have the low income requirements to access to Edilizia Residenziale Pubblica (ERS).

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cfr. legge 6/8/2008 n.133 (art11 Piano-Casa)

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2.2 WHAT ABOUT MILANO?

2.1 THE REASONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL HOUSING IN ITALY The interest for the social housing theme in Italy can be found for three different reasons. First of all, due to ERP public housing crisis of the 1990s.

It should be considered that compared to other European countries, Italy has a relatively low percentage of social housing (5.5% against 33% in Holland, 20.1% of Austria and 18% of the United Kingdom) and that the housing offer of public initiative in Italy has decreased by 90% since the 1990s. In general, Europe is witnessing a steady decrease in the participation of the public sector for the implementation of new initiatives, with a greater concentration of energy and resources on the management and recovery of existing assets, to the benefit of private initiative. There has therefore been a real “retreat” of public construction due not only to a reduction in funding, but also to internal structural difficulties.

Population change for NIL, 2017-2030

Population growth, 1999-2030

The second reason why is that there are rising new urban housing needs and new difficulties that neither public construction nor public and private construction are able to tackle effectively and in a short time.

Last but not least, the demanding desire to live and work according to a lifestyle different from condominium selfishness that does not go beyond the landing of the house. In fact, the desire to live in an environment where social relations and the collaborative spirit among the inhabitants are encouraged and facilitated, regardless of family status and with greater attention to ecological and environmental aspects in the management of home and life.

Today Milano is an extraordinary economic-social and spatial laboratory, in which the social categories tend to coincide with a spatial design that it sees the cultured and basically cosmopolitan elites who have known capitalize on the benefits of internationalization processes, live/work in the center and in the “gentrified” areas of the city, a growing middle class difficulty, which inhabits the semi-peripheral and peripheral neighborhoods, and the more fragile population, with lower income, affected by forms of unemployment and precariousness, from new types of hardship and exclusion, which resides mainly in urban suburbs and municipalities that offer opportunities housing at a lower price, with effects on the habitability of some parts of the city and the territory.

2.2.1 DEMOGRAPHIC DATAS Demography Density population change for NIL, 2013-2017

Family typologies

Due to these reasons, social housing of private initiative has therefore proposed itself as a possible innovative policy for home, created in order to meet the housing needs of that part of the population that is unable to bear the cost of housing on the free market and which, however, does not hold the requirements of low income or social hardship to access social housing.

Population divided in age ranges

Family typologies, 18-34 y.o.

Milano’s population is living a growing fase, that already started from 2008 and from 2014.

Residents in Milan in 2017 were 1,380,873, over 86 thousand more than in 2008 (+ 6.7%), with an increase concentrated in the last three years. This number is needed to add the “domiciled” (university students, commuter workers of “weekend”, other “de facto residents”), commuters, city users (service users health, cultural, commercial, etc.), tourists, irregular immigrants, etc... Estimating their number is difficult; what is certain is that the “real Milano” is still larger than the Milano photographed from the registry source.

The most recent demographic increase is given most by the foreign component which, growing at significant rates (+ 47.1% in the period 2008-2017), today reaches a share of 19.4% (above average value underground); however, in the most recent phase the positive dynamic is evident also for the Italian component, which grew by 2.2% between 2013 and 2017.

The number of families also increased, 674,016 at the end of 2015, but with one composition increasingly fragmented: in the face of an overall growth of 7.4% since 2008, mononuclear ones have increased by 15%.

Regarding the age composition of the population, there was a significant increase of younger classes (from 6 to 34 years old), in particular with the increase in residents between 19 and 24 years (+ 21.7%). This trend shows the consolidation of the role of the city in the attraction of young people, who see Milan as an opportunity to be able to train and to start new careers. However, it corresponds to a significant increase in over 84 people (approximately +12,000 units).

The demographic projections, elaborated by the Municipality of Milano in the scenario average to 2030 (base 2016), estimate further growth: the population stood at 1,458,170 (+ 5.6%) and the number of households to 729,780 (+ 8.3%).1 taken from PGT, Documento di piano, Milano 2030, Visione, Costruzione, Strategie, Spazi, Relazione Generale, Elaborato emendato a seguto della delibera di adozione n. 2 Seduta Consiliare 5 marzo 2019 1

[Pic. 1-6] - Datas taken from PGT, Milano 2030 22

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2.2.2 HOUSING DEMAND SCENARIO The scenario of population growth and changes in the structure of the population urges to reflect on the future housing demand. The population projections foresee, by 2030, a population growth of 5.6% (+77,297 units), while for families an increase of 8.3% (+55,764).

At the same time, the growth of some age groups, especially young people 6-34 years together with the elderly, the reduction in the average number of members per household, the growing share covered by the foreign component, together with the processes of social polarization induced by recent dynamics economic-occupational, are bound to profoundly change, from a qualitative-quantitative point of view, the housing demand.

From a quantitative point of view, the forecasts regarding the trend of population allow to estimate that the need for future residence will be approximately 4 million m2.

From a qualitative point of view, must be taken into consideration four key factors: the type of demand, with particular reference to the request for housing leasing at a social and moderate rate (abitazione in affitto a canone sociale e moderato) the state of art of the houses, in relation to the verification of the actual possibility of using the buildings the type of accommodation, in relation to changes in the structure of the population and therefore to the characteristics of the demand the number of housing rented and / or used by non-residents Milano is moving forward to guarantee these equipments, on one hand, thanks to the transformations in progress and planned, on the other hand through the regeneration of the existing city and the processes of reuse of the disused building heritage. At the same time it will be necessary to take care of the transformation processes, together with innovative policies to respond to a growing demand for rent and temporary use, especially dedicated to young and university students.

Housing regeneration

ERS ERS redeemed Poor private residential building

university existing university dorm planned university dorm

[Pic.1-2] -Datas taken from PGT, Milano 2030

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[Pic.1] -Property vs Rent [Pic.2] -Nuclear family vs Unconventional family

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2.2.3 SOCIAL HOUSING IN MILANO In the last years, Milano is giving more and more attention to the thematic of social housing. Especially the private estate sector is investing in this topic. If we think about organizations such as Fondazione Housing Sociale, born in 2004 inside Fondazione Cariplo, is developing social housing projects in the milanese context. According to FHS, social housing is an integrated program of interventions that add to the housing demand, the equipment and the tools for the ones who can not afford the real estate market in economic terms or for the lack of an adequate offer. These interventions of social housing are characterised by the cooperating of private and public figures. 1 Fondazione Housing Sociale FHS has codified a “multidimensional” approach and is a procedure called “integrated management project”.

In particular they take care of the economic-financial planning, of the social management, also conducted by future inhabitants of the houses, the definition of a profile of the future community that ensures a balanced social mix oriented towards the formation of criteria for the allocation of housing. Moreover, they plan local and urban services that strengthen relations with the existing neighborhood and insertion of collaborative residential services that favor the formation of a sense of community and belonging. From the architectural and urban design point of view, there is the definition of the spaces of relationship and caring of environmental sustainability.

It is important to highlight that Milano was scenario of interesting projects of social housing, especially the ones built between 2008 and 2014, from the Consorzio Cooperative Lavoratori with Legacoop Abitanti, in via Fratelli Zoia; the one promoted by Fondo Immobiliare di Lombardia e from Fondazione Housing Sociale in via Cenni (“Cenni di Cambiamento”) and the one in Figino (“Il Borgo sostenibile”).

Moreover, from 2005 to 2015, the participation of the public institutions played a fundamental role in the social housing panorama thanks to the competition that they promoted: “Abitare a Milano. Nuovi spazi urbani per gli insediamenti di edilizia sociale”. These calls ended with the realization of different housing complex: the one in via Civitavecchia, by the studio Consalez Rossi, in via Gallaratese, designed by MAB Arquitectura, via Ovada, by Raffaello Cecchi and Vincenzo Lima, and via Senigallia, by Remo Dorigati-ODA Associati.

The results of Abitare a Milano, 1 and 2, built in peripheric contexts, show that if the public institutions collaborate with the private ones it is possible to produce interventions of high quality from an architectural and urban point of view.

S. Urbani, Premessa Generale, in G. Ferri, L. Pacucci, E. Pero, Nuove forme per l’abitare sociale. Catalogo ragionato del Concorso Internazionale di progettazione di housing sociale per le aree di Via Cenni e Figino a Milano, Fondazione Housing Sociale, Altraeconomia Edizioni, Milano, 2011 1

[Pic.1] - Map of social housing buildings taken from PGT, Documento di piano, Milano 2030, Visione, Costruzione, Strategie, Spazi, Relazione Generale, Elaborato emendato a seguto della delibera di adozione n. 2 Seduta Consiliare 5 marzo 2019

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[Pic.1-2] - via Cenni, “Cenni di Cambiamento” [Pic.3] - Figino, “Il Borgo sostenibile” [Pic.4] - via Civitavecchia [Pic.5] - via Gallaratese

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3. SITE PROJECT

3.1 REINVENTING CITIES. A CALL FOR VIGENTINO, MONTI SABINI.

[Pic.1] - Aereal photography of the project site

The chosen area is located in the Vigentino neighborhood, in the south of Milano. We consider this area starting from the ones proposed by the C40 organization, through the competition Reinventing Cities.

C40 launched this call to promote The Monti Sabini site to present the best proposals for the transformation of underused sites as examples of sustainability and resilience, which serve as a showcase for future zeroimpact urban developments.

The area is characterized by residential, productive, and commercial settlements; it extends between Via Giuseppe Ripamonti, Via Ferrari, and has several areas dedicated to equipped green areas.

Follow the text taken from the official site: “ The Monti Sabini site consists of an unbuilt area spanning around five hectares, including uncultivated green spaces, in the Vigentino district in Municipality 5. This vast urban area represents the southernmost belt of the built-up city towards the Parco Agricolo in southern Milan. Served by a tramway line that connects it to the center in only 20 minutes along Via Ripamonti, it is the main central line for development in the city’s southern district. By tram, the site is also a few minutes away from one of the city’s most significant regeneration areas, which includes the former Porta Romana railway station, the future Olympic village area, the new Prada Foundation cultural institute and the Symbiosis urban development area, a directional center of excellence which is adjacent to the ‘Vitae’ project and has already won the Reinventing Cities tender.

The site represents “Sector A” of an “Programma integrato di intervento” (Integrated Intervention Programme) approved in 2008 and is still being implemented. The urban contest is typified by an uneven, but functionally articulated, building fabric, with residential, productive, tertiary and commercial settlements as well as farm buildings, marking out an irregular urban mesh, rich in greenery but lacking in public service functionalities, where a progressive residential reconversion process is underway; such as is happening along the Via Antegnati, where the building renovation of five large buildings intended for social housing and services is in progress.

As regards position, size and resources that can be activated, ‘Reinventing’ the Monti Sabini site can be a factor in accelerating and reworking transformations in progress and can help to draw up a new model for living in and inhabiting southern Milan. ” 1 The area was chosen that could set guidelines for the development of a neighborhood and define a strategy and develop a residential housing with characteristics (hotspot-porosity-identity).

https://www.c40reinventingcities.org/en/sites/sites-in-competition/monti-sabini-1372. html 1

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We are interested in the commons as a solution to the sociological problem: “Even today, assuming the idea of s​​ pace as a common good, it is emphasized that the project for the city must try to offer spaces favorable to cohesion and solidarity, spaces that with their full and their vital voids mean as many offers to proportionally mix the different” Giovanna Piccinno The district of Vigentino is a strategic point about the in-between space of the countryside and the city of Milan, where the Parco Agricolo Sud goes deep into the urbanization.

In recent years, interest in this area of ​​the city has been growing. We see the well-known Fondazione Prada, which has become a cultural and attractive focus for tourists but not only for the inhabitants of the neighborhood itself.

It is also an area affected by important urban transformations in recent years, such as the Scalo Romano, the protagonist of various competitions.

The area has an important interest in the social housing theme, in fact in the last years it has been considered for the development of housing projects. An important project to be mentioned is the one from Barreca La Varra. They are designing a project with an innovative social housing program that regenerates five abandoned buildings on the edge of the Parco Agricolo Sud. As previously analyzed, the in-between as discontinuity is intended as a relatively clear limit that arises between realities considered to be different, distinguishable and therefore delimitable from each other.

Monte Sabini site presents a non-urbanized area. This vacuum can be seen as an opportunity to intervene at all scales and to work at the same time in private and public spaces. The site is capable of providing on one hand pubblic services, on the other hand a strategic support for the development of multiple practices.

Therefore, the design of this urban void, in its spatial, formal and material characteristics, is also and above all aimed at promoting collective and individual initiatives capable of interpreting it as the infrastructure and background of their development.

The void is actually an opening. This space can be conceived for people to use it in an unpredictable and constantly evolving way, to be able to stay in a collective dimension, to find themselves, to manifest.

[Pic.1-6] - Photos of the project area.

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3.2 NEIGHBORHOOD ANALYSIS The Vigentino district is located in the south of Milano; it can be considered as a threshold between the dense urbanized city and the countryside, defined also by the Parco Agricolo Sud. Considering it as a transitional space, a space closed between two different realities, Vigentino can be considered as an area in which are possible important changes. It’s a peripheric area, that, as all the suburbs, is fragile but at the same time has a strong dynamic feature.

In the last years,Vigentino district has been the scenario of important urban regenerations, starting from the Fondazione Prada, moving to University, these transformations have involved different fields, highlighting how the cultural interest is focusing on this area. In fact, as the area presents many unbuilt spaces and underused buildings, it can be considered as an opportunity. Despite the Vigentino being considered as a transformation area, it doesn’t answer to the need of equipment for the inhabitants. In fact, in the area there’s a lack of services for the community. In particular, due to the presence of University, it can be a much more dynamic area, a space that supports an exchange of flows of people (students), an exchange of ideas and experiences.

Compared to other areas of Milano, Vigentino has experienced development without a clear program. Via Ripamonti delines two different fronts, in which it is possible to recognise two different interventions that do not dialogue. The spaces are in discontinuity, there is not an urban plan. Discontinuity in terms of spaces : there are no shared spaces or public space, there’s an absence of identity. Discontinuity in terms of time: the times are delayed because the dimensions of the spaces are wide and don’t follow a human scale.

Despite all of this, this area can be an opportunity to have a regeneration.

It can be considered as an in-between space, a field in which it is possible to create connections both to the city and to the countryside.

Health Sport Education Culture Cooperative University Street Market

[Pic.1] - Vigentino’s localization in Milano.

[Pic.2] - Connective axis, from the city center to the Vigentino district.

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3.3 THE VIGENTINO NEIGHBORHOOD. TWO FRONTS IN COMPARISON. The district of Vigentino develops from Via Ripamonti which is a North-South connective axis that starts from the center of Milan and leads to the southern Milanese countryside. We interpreted this street as having two different urban scenarios, due to two models of urban developments.

The west side of Via Ripamonti presentes an apparently defined scenario, as on Via Ripamonti there is a continuous curtain of buildings that has few elements of permeability. But moving west and living the building curtain behind, the scenario changes drastically. There is no more urban plan, it develops in a poorly defined way, in which residential and industrial buildings coexist but they don’t dialogue. The functional program is varied but is not structured. The relationship with Via Ripamonti is only defined by the curtain.

The east side, on the other hand, has a more structured urban morphology which makes it possible to recognise an urban plan. Compared to Via Ripamonti there are parallel axes along which the residential complexes are developed, most buildings of 7 or 8 floors which set back from Via Ripamonti, interrupting the image of the curtain of buildings that we can find on the opposite side. This position of the buildings, moved back from the line of the street, are leaving some wider spaces in the sidewalks giving an initial image that the urban space is wider than the other side of Ripamonti but there is no real relationship between the street, the public space, and the residential buildings. All these spaces are fenced and not present physical possibilities to walk through, but only a visual permeability. Also on the east side, the axes present do not directly relate to Via Ripamonti as they only maintain the parallelism of the street itself without actually having a program. There is not an interesting functional mix because all the buildings are residential only.

[Pic.1-4] - Photos of the project site

Important Urban Regeneration

Site Project

University

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WEST SIDE

I.

The west side is characterised by a continuous curtain of buildings, few permeable elements, almost none; it has a defined image which, however, is lost by passing towards west where a discontinuous, unplanned, and industrial scenario opens up. The program is more varied but less structured and the connection to Via Ripamonti only on one front.

Despite the absence of a clear urban plan, besides the buildings facing Ripamonti, it is possible to highlight some attemptings that try to restore the curtain theme.

For example in Via Muzio Attendolo Sforza (I), Via Antegnati (II), Via Noto (III) and Via Ripamonti (IV): I. Here we find one of the points in which Via Ripamonti interrupts the buildings line in order to open the road to access the west area through Via Noto. The curtain is re-established in the street as if to guide in that direction, maintaining a welldefined theatrical frame.

II.

II. Along the building curtain we only find one element of access to the western part that passes through a building.

It’s an example of integration of access points in the Via Ripamonti curtain wall. We find pedestrian access through an abandoned building door. Breaking the curtain without fracturing it: the profile of the curtain remains intact but only one passage opens. It can be considered as a well integrated space.

III. An attempt is made to re-establish a building-street relationship similar to the one that occurs in Via Ripamonti through leaving part of the ground floor of the building for commercial activities reachable through a kind of porch.

III.

IV. Redesigned by Barreca&LaVarra, the stronger relationship developed seems to be the one towards the internal courtyard; the same curtain towards Via Antegnati with accesses that allow you to enter the internal courtyards which remains accessible only to the residents.

[Pic 1] - The west side of Ripamonti offers small walkways and few possibilities to cross the buildings’ line. Despite this, the street is fulled with small shops that create a direct relationship between the buildings and the street.

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IV.

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EAST SIDE

I.

The main characteristics of the east side are: buildings 7-8 floors set back from the street, interrupting the curtain image; wider spaces on the sidewalk are offered but limited for access to residential complexes. The buildings are not related to Via Ripamonti, they don’t have a privileged side as they appear mirrored on the road to the east. Moreover it is possible to recognise a development plan that does not have a functional mix (only residential interspersed with parks and green elements).

Generally, the whole east side develops following road axes parallel to Via Ripamonti, where the buildings follow different developments: I. The streets are exactly mirrored, it relates to the side streets in the same way. They create an internal courtyard, the street has only the function of access to residential buildings, a real relationship is not created.

II. Accessibility to the eastern part of Via Ripamonti is guaranteed by pedestrian paths in large green spaces that do not relate to the residential buildings of the area. Large green spaces and large residential buildings alternate, but however they are not related to each other.

II.

III. The buildings develop in lines: they only follow the path of the road without having a relationship with the context.

The spaces are fenced, the vegetation is dense. It seems like the vegetation wants to close the building guaranteeing a high level of privacy.

III.

IV. Courtyard elements that are cut from the road that passes in the middle, defining spaces that have a different character.

The road creates two different scenarios: on one side the space is public and opens a park/square, the other side is kept private.

This typology has been played 3 times in the neighborhood, re-proposing a model.

[Pic 1] - The east side of Ripamonti gives to the city larger sidewalks and green areas. These spaces only offers acces to the residential buildings that stay back from the street and they are fenced. They are not dialoguing with Ripamonti.

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IV.

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The curtain element and its interruption as access points are the strong elements that characterize this site. We focused on these elements in developing our project.

The intention of the project for this research is to design a more structured and planned morphology for the development of the area, following the pattern of streets parallel to Via Ripamonti but through a sequence of public spaces across North-South / East-West.

The Vigentino’s neighborhood presents as an excellent case study to be able to enhance the site both from an urban point of view, but also to project an Urban Commons works on the design of devices that regulate the demarcation between private and public space.

[Pic.1] - View of the west side of Via Ripamonti [Pic.2] - View of the east side of Via Ripamonti As we can see from the drawings, the difference between the two sides is clear and the scenarios you expirience are opposite.

Via Ripamonti

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4. MASTERPLAN [Pic.1] - Giovanni Battista Nolli (1701-1756), figure-ground map of Rome. Here we can see how the public space is in continuity.

4.1 PROJECT’S GOALS Through our masterplan we want to define the guidelines for the urban development of the west side of Ripamonti in the district of Vigentino, giving a defined urban form that responds to the problems of contemporary living.

The contemporary living issue plays a fundamental role in the Vigentino district. Regenerating this peripheral area means placing the importance of the relationship between housing and public space at the center of attention.

This space can be seen from an urban regeneration point of view, as a place of mending through three goals: one from a social point of view, the second through the lens of commons, and the last one follows the thematic of the regeneration of the suburbs.

One of the main focuses of PGT 2030, is to make Milano fairer from the housing point of view. That’s why we choose to propose a social housing project, in order to have more accessible housing rent but at the same time retrain and maintain unused areas. This allows to develop a neighborhood founded on the principles of hospitality and openness.

Developing our ideas for the Vigentino masterplan, we started by defining the urban space as commons (that means as a bene comune).

Important qualities for places as commons include the characteristics of hotspot, diversity, porosity. Together, these qualities describe a shift from emphasizing isolated objects and separating functions to considering larger contexts and multifunctional places. These qualities suggest a departure from the presumed opposition between people and nature and between buildings and landscape to more symbiotic relationships. These qualities also place a premium on borders, the site of these relationships.

We propose interventions that contribute to activating places by making connections and caring for neglected or abandoned “in-between” spaces or “no-man’s lands.”

These interventions have a tentacular or domino effect, catalyzing other interventions in an ongoing and never-ending process.

All of this is physically converted into the design of interconnected public spaces, a greater supply of services that can be used both by individual residents and by the entire community. Greater permeability of the ground floor, in such a way as to make the residential sphere more porous . This is made possible by a pedestrianization of the spaces: in fact the focus is on the human scale, spaces on a human scale in which one cannot feel disoriented but rather one can recognize an identity and freedom of use of these spaces, felt as belonging .

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4.2 MASTERPLAN GUIDELINES Starting from the analysis carried out in the neighborhood, we have drawn the guidelines to be able to reach a conscious and coherent design for the new intervention. We tried to maintain the relationship that Ripamonti establishes with its east side: therefore a series of roads parallel to the axis, which could however establish a real relationship between the two fronts through Ripamonti. We have identified two main axes to ensure a connection between north-south, west-east. Then,we identified three attractive poles within the surrounding area, and three areas that meet the needs of the neighborhood, with a functional mix that adapts and can be flexible over the time.

Through a geometric alignment with the volumetric context, we were able to identify and reproduce the theme of the curtain, which is present in Via Ripamonti, always keeping in mind the connective axes already existing in the neighborhood.

The volumes are aligned in the territory following the relationship between buildings and contextual landscape, thus identifying potential courtyards that are anchored to the main axes of the project. The courts are open in order to guarantee spatial continuity, visual permeability towards the countryside and towards the urban scenario. This creates a continuous linear expansion of the spaces and a connection of these open courtyards while maintaining a shared space for each complex.

In order to access these shared spaces, it is necessary to cross the curtain, thus creating cuts and direct accesses to enter the central squares.

Taking up the theme of the curtain, we have tried to resume the identity of the neighborhood, once again seeking a dialogue with its urban conformation. We have planned a hypothetical road system inside the area to have greater control so as to be able to close the four access points to the area for any events and exhibitions. Furthermore, our design idea is to have the pedestrian as the main protagonist and therefore even the driveways do not appear as a straight element but have elements that guarantee slower circulation. In fact, the road model taken as a reference is the woonerf, a space therefore shared between pedestrians and fast mobility.

[Pic.1] - Definition of axes and polarities [Pic.2] - Definition of the volumes [Pic.3] - Definition of the courtyards and the flows

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For the definition of outdoor spaces, on the other hand, we wanted to be able to give flexibility and leave the user an interpretation of the space based on the type of needs and requirements, creating and limiting the spaces.

The idea of the ​​ square that we want to transfer to the project always keeps the public space in a geometric relationship with the fabric of each complex.

The central space, which assumes a triangular shape, is considered as the continuation of the open courtyard of one of the existing buildings, and it creates a dialogue between the project and the pre-existing buildings.

This space opens to the south, giving a clear direction to the intention of the project related to the theme of the countryside.

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[Pic.1] - Definition of accesses to the courtyards and mobility [Pic.2] - Definition of the central public space and its relation to the courtyards [Pic.3] - Connections among public spaces

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4.3 MASTERPLAN A NET OF PUBLIC SPACES The project is presented as a system made up of public spaces and private spaces that interact with each other by grafting a network of relationships that places public and private on the same level of importance.

Through the theoretical research, we arrived to establish new interpretations for housing (private life) and the public domain (public life). The new open space brings urban life into the traditional perimeter block through visual links with the city and by permitting entry to other users, such as casual passers-by. These new public residential domains can contribute to a differentiation of public space that ranges in scale from voyeuristic intimacy to mass manifestations. Private is pertaining to or affecting a particular person or a small group of persons; individual; personal. Whereas, public means of, pertaining to, or affecting a population or a community as a whole; open to all persons, generally known, open to the view of all.

At the center of the project there is the public space, but always related to the private one. This space cannot become autonomous from the metropolitan territory, on the contrary it is embodied in it, in its conflicts, in its divisions, in its aggregations. It becomes a place where exchanges between different users are favored and always creates new opportunities.

Physically, all these spaces are connected to each other through pedestrian walkways and a system of cycle paths that connect the spaces along the north-south axis (establishing a system of relations between city and countryside) and east-west. Like the cardo and the decumanus, these axes are the generators of the spatial design and life of the community. In addition, through its branches it also connects all the public spaces already existing in the area, which, although not of particular architectural value, are considered as spaces for aggregation by the inhabitants. In the southernmost part of the masterplan, a park has been designed that can be a closure of this system but at the same time can also be a future starting point for establishing new relationships towards the Parco Agricolo Sud. Another relationship that was taken into consideration when designing the spaces was that with the countryside and the agricultural land that characterizes the area. The positioning of the buildings that make up the three complexes never present themselves as elements that close the view, rather they are outlined as theatrical backdrops that leave the countryside as a background, in a metaphysical scenario or similar to a Greek theater.

Much of the land is left free, in fact a large central park acts as the beating heart of the project and branches off carrying the green elements through tree-lined avenues that open in all directions.

The public space of the city is no longer simply the distance between buildings but is a place open to the project with its own values and ​​ potential to be interpreted through tools, materials and strategies that are also specific.

[Pic 1] - Masterplan

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4.4 MASTERPLAN THE RELATION BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACES Three main complexes have been defined, each one of them having a defined intended use but which also leaves space for free collective activities. This is because the most complex collective activities can naturally arise from the many simple daily activities: big events always develop starting from many small events.

“It can be said that the design of architectural details and details plays an important part in the development of parking opportunities in public spaces. If the spaces are abandoned and empty - without benches, without pillars, without plants, without trees - and if the facades are devoid of interesting elements - niches, openings, gates, doors, stairs - it becomes very difficult to find places that favor stopping.” 1 Adapting to the context, the buildings have a curtain-like conformation, which however does not have a privileged side but rather floats in a public space, becoming in-between elements themselves. The in-between can occur within a building, as a link between two different spaces. The curtain provides a building with a ‘delayed entrance’ by allowing the exterior to penetrate through the perimeter of the built volume, and blending interior and exterior into a place that offers coming and going the space and time they need to become an experience.

A key role in the design was the development of the ground floor. In fact, this is the first space that is brought into contact with the squares, with the public space, where the dynamics that exist in the closed space are also manifested in the open one and vice versa. By ensuring a horizontal exchange between private and public nucleos, giving life to a new program: the urban commons.

The ground floor of all the buildings of the complexes is 60% closed, a large part is therefore left free just as if it were a covered continuation of the square itself. This allows you to extend these outdoor living opportunities where daily activities take place, it will represent a valuable contribution for that given function and for life between buildings for life in buildings in neighborhoods and in the city, because it softens the boundary between public and private. Therefore the functions that take place inside a building can profit from the opportunity to move outdoors, or vice versa and it is important to establish links between the interior spaces and the spaces outside, with elements that help ease of continuous exchange.

One of the key elements are the stairs which, being anchored to the square and having no closing or barrier elements, assumes the role of a connector ensuring an exchange that is not limited to the horizontal plane but also projects into the vertical plane. Once again, the meeting points between public and private spaces mix and gradually disintegrate what is normally considered a net limit.

[Pic 1] - Isometric view of the area with the project

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Jan Gehl, Vita in città: spazio urbano e relazioni sociali, Politecnica, 1991

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4.5 THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SPACES If we try to imagine a neighborhood without the public space, the image that emerges is the one of a disintegrated city. Its fragments float adrift in a void without hierarchies. Where everything is equidistant and space contains no messages. Once crumbled, the city is invisible to its inhabitants. The buildings appear as islands without bridges. How long is social time in an uneventful space?

In this scenario, therefore, empty space plays a fundamental role. It is essential to leave room for emptiness, the “space of breath”, the space of possibility, where individuals are freer to express themselves. However, it is a designed void, managed through a dynamic tension between openings and closures, between full or semi-full objects, between air and matter.

In architecture, the void remains, therefore, an organizational and structural element, a measuring instrument, an interstitial zone between masses of building material that performs a function of dynamic equilibrium between forces in tension. It can attract or repel each other, and this both if it is taken as an element of a symbolic order, or if it serves to compose floating parts and pieces of the building.

“So let’s go back to empty space - writes Alessandro Anselmi - finally recognizing it an autonomous significant value, indeed considering it in its indifference and its flow as the symbolic condition of contemporary construction.” 1 This means that today a new public space cannot become autonomous from the metropolitan territory, on the contrary it is embodied in it, in its conflicts, in its divisions, in its aggregations.

Given these premises, as we can see from the image by abstracting the domestic and the interior spaces of buildings, we focus on city’s porous aspects; It revealed the neighborhood permeability as structured both by the succession of courtyard and public squares and by the continuity between the interior of public institution and the city public realm.

[Pic 1] - Collage. The city without public spaces is a place where buildings float.

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Massimo Ilardi, Negli spazi vuoti della metropoli, Feltrinelli, 1999

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[Pic 1] - Ground Floor

[Pic 1] - Rooftop Floor

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4.6 THE PROGRAM THROUGH FUNCTIONS Each one of the three complexes acquire different functions following three main macro themes. To the north complex, of which a more detailed analysis will follow,considering its proximity to the University, was given a function aimed at students. The northernmost building has a library with study spaces that can be used by both the residents of the building and the university public. The ground floor also has spaces dedicated to sports activities, thus creating a space dedicated not only to study but also to leisure activities to ensure a mix of activities that can be used at different times of the day, giving life to a dynamic building.

The second building of the northern complex is a structure oriented to the artistic-cultural theme, as it covers the functions of multipurpose classrooms, characterized by larger dimensions and greater flexibility of spaces. In fact, thanks to dynamic closing devices, it is possible to connect several rooms to each other according to the needs of the uses.

Furthermore, all these spaces can be open to the public, generating continuity.

On the mezzanine floor, there is an exhibition space, a gym and a room that can be rented for coworking activities. Once again, the scale of use of the spaces is dynamic and aimed at integrating the community life of the city with that of the residents of the building.

The west complex, on the other hand, is more aimed to an agricultural theme because it is the complex most related to the countryside. The presence of slow-food restaurants and bars have the highest percentage of occupancy of the ground floor and mezzanine floor. To involve the citizens activities such as those of urban gardens have been placed which have a direct exchange between inside and outside since it is a function that needs outdoor space. Furthermore, an important service for the community is that of the market. A local market that is missing within the neighborhood and that meets the needs of the entire neighborhood, from the elderly population to young people sensitive to environmental issues.

The business side of the neighborhood is associated with the southern complex. Spaces that can be rented to work by everyone, alternate with manual and laboratory activities, such as the bike center. Which individual citizen has the possibility of being able to carry out private maintenance on his bicycle which means a freedom to move around the city, according to a healthy lifestyle and zero emissions. In addition, shops and small spaces have been inserted that can always be rented in order to sell the products of the laboratories, generating a micro market inside the building.

[Pic 1] - Functional Program

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[Pic 1] - Ground floor of the North Complex [Pic 2] - Ground floor of the West Complex [Pic 3] - Ground floor of the South Complex

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4.7 HOTSPOT, POROSITY AND DIVERSITY The three elements that define a space a urban commons are linked to the concept of hotspot, porosity and diversity.

Starting from a place on a human scale, from the type of village and neighbourhood, whose vernacular dimension favours human relations and the creation of a community.

People come together, live the place, and experience it through aggregation.

In order to get a feeling of belonging to the place, it must not be 100% organized, the user must be able to personalize its facilities and/or participate in the planning. In this way, people really feel part of the place, continue to live it and takes care of it, just like at home. A visible life also guarantees different users and therefore different eyes that keep watch, ensuring security to the space.

All this is a hotspot. Our home is a hotspot.

HOTSPOT

POROSITY

DIVERSITY

Intervention with formally similar buildings, which give a coherent image of the intervention as a whole, easily recognizable as a unitary intervention. At the same time they offer a varied service program that can respond not only to the needs of residents but also to those of the neighborhood and why not, of the city.

Ground floor completely free and dotted with activities that operate throughout the day (60% completely dedicated as if it were a covered square, the other part is used for the functions that animate the neighborhood and which operate 24 hours a day). This porosity does not stop on the ground floor but recurs vertically in all floors thanks to the vertical connection given by the staircase. This allows a greater relationship between what is the public space and what is normally considered as private.

Mix of activities and public spaces, each complex has a defined activity and functional character, but without being sectored because each building presents facets of its functions, adapting to the presence of the residential part. This diversity is linked to the hotspot theme as each complex has its own identity character.

Porosity is a material condition, it describes the propensity of a material to become subject to percolation and infiltration. The theme of porosity concerns the different ways of using urban space and moving within the city by different city users. it can deal with everything that imply a contact between two opposite poles: for example the performance of a façade, the spatial organization of a building, its mass and its voids, or even the emergence of socio-economic interactions. Architects and urbanists Paola Viganò and Bernardo Secchi introduced porosity as new and liberating operative term with which to model, represent, analyse and design the metropolis of nowadays, and approach the project of urban spaces in a different manner. They invoked the analogy with fluid mechanics and material properties in order to better explain the capacity of porous objects to be penetrated by external bodies and consequently modified and their particular capacity to establish mutual relation with external environment.

In order that a space to be considered as urban commons it must respond not only to the characteristics of hotspot and porosity but also to the one of diversity. The last one is the fundamental characteristic for the space to be lived. The aim is to understand how a space can be used at every moment of the day by different kinds of people who carry out different activities. The more varied and complex the functions and the uses are, the more likely it is that they will attract a greater number of people, especially of different ages and backgrounds. the more space is experienced by people, the more urban life is generated. all of this gives value to urban commons. diversity is considered under three points of view: referring to the functional diversity, diversity in uses and social diversity. The last one is the result of the sum of previous ones. 1 These concept are taken from the thematic research developed during theFinal Design Studio 2019/2020, “AH 2019 - AFFORDABLE HOUSING DOMESTICITY RELOADED 1

[Pic 1] - Isometric diagram explaining the concept of hotpost, porosity and diversity

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5. NORTH COMPLEX [Pic. 1] - View of the northen complex from the park

We have chosen to develop the northern complex of the masterplan in more detail, in order to better analyze the relationship between the private spaces of the housing and the public spaces of the intervention.

The northern complex is configured in the “horseshoe” district that opens onto the main green space of the district. This form in plan takes up the pre-existing ones, in fact to the north there is a building that is outlined as an open courtyard on its south side. By giving this morphology also to the building we designed, a continuity of the public space on the ground floor is created, which is inserted into the private part without interruptions and barriers.

The two volumes define the central square, which has a social density of a certain importance because it is surrounded by residential houses and a mix of activities that make it dynamic at any time of the day. In fact, one of the main points for a project that can be called an urban common is the possibility that the city can relate. In fact, the square is accessible not only to residents but also to the entire neighborhood / city.

There are two levels of square one standard, on street level, and one part of the raised square. This allows to have a different rhythm inside the square that marks the functions and travel time.

In fact, these spaces are designed on a human scale and this allows us to find a daily use of the city. The human condition occurs only if a space can be crossed on foot. (different from the peripheral condition in which pedestrian conditions are missing) In this design phase it was important to underline the symbolic values​​ of urban space, enhancing the different forms of association and the different forms of appropriation of urban space.

These squares must be spaces that can be reached from different points where one can arrive by chance even unintentionally by taking the wrong road. The actual use or occupation of open space can transform a square, a lawn, an open space, a portion of asphalt ground into the privileged meeting place for a specific group of people. These spaces are characterized by the degree of permeability to the eye, by the possibility of being crossed by parts of other individuals, and by the level of contamination with other groups and with other uses of that same space.

We understood how an urban commons is based on the concept of hotspot, a recognized place, and on that of porosity, connection and accessibility. However, an architectural space cannot be defined as such if the functions and users who live it daily are not taken into consideration. For this we have included functions that could have a mix of activities aimed at an extended target. The north complex is aimed at students, thanks to the presence of the University, but also to the residents themselves who have the opportunity to intervene and easily take advantage of those spaces of normal daily use, such as the laundry.

TAXI

TAXI

In this phase we begin to analyze in detail the various floors that make up the two buildings in such a way as to simulate how granularity fits into the project at different scales.

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5.1 VOLUMETRIC PROCESS To arrive at a conscious design of the volumes of the buildings we started from key concepts. First, we considered the ground floor as a continuation of the public space, so we tried to keep most of the space free.

Starting from the standard configuration of Milanese residential buildings, where the ground floor is intended for public activities while the upper floors are residential, we have reinterpreted this concept, making the distinction between these two spheres more blurred by inserting elements that allow this exchange. These elements are the staircase, the gallery and the services facing the residence located on the ground floor, in the middle of the square.

Starting from the staircase module, considered as the generative core of the project, we have outlined a grid that follows a module of 2.8 m. Following this grid we were able to insert public and residential functions, also balancing the balance between the two spheres.

The staircase module has been repurposed mirrored in each building.

The space that is thus created has equal importance with respect to the stair, it is a space in which the degree of sharing is maximum and can be considered a public space in all respects despite being delimited by walls.

[Pic. 1 - 4] - Diagrams explaining the volumetric design process

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5.2 KEY-THEMES 5.2.1 THE LIVED WALL The first main theme of the project is that of the inhabited wall. The curtain, previously analyzed, is taken up again within the design process.

No longer as just a curtain, but an element with a different function from ripamonti but which incorporates its morphology.

Within the process, the curtain is considered as an opportunity which creates a situation of porosity and a direct visual opportunity that connects exterior-interior. The elevation on the ground floor is marked by various openings and entrances that are not immediately recognizable. In fact, the “opening action” was carried out in a rational way, always guaranteeing privacy for those spaces that are intended for residential use.

Along the path of the wall there are seats and different views that have the same function of collaborating to ensure a common.

By introducing a hole into the wall, a seat element is created. This element is configured as a niche, therefore usable only from the outside of the building or as a real window that connects the street to the inside. This window is usable from both sides, so this results in a continuous dynamic activity level. Many functions take advantage of this opportunity such as the reception, having a further view of the street.

The second type of opening in the wall manifests itself as a real access portal. The entrances direct you towards the core, towards the square.

Inviting people who walk on the north side to want to find out what happens on the opposite side. These openings ensure a direct connection.

By further enhancing the concept that links the private sphere with a public one, a paradox could be the possibility of using the inhabited wall and hanging the clothes in the square. Once again eliminating the limit between these two spheres and reconnecting to the concept of Ugo La Pietra, “to live is to be everywhere in one’s own home.”

Furthermore, the inhabited wall will be taken up in the apartments with the concept of the furnished window.

[Pic. 1] - Isometric diagram showing the north side of the building, highlighting the idea of the lived wall. The wall becomes an opportunity for creating different spaces.

[Pic. 2] - The wall becomes a sort of bench, a space to stay and rest.

[Pic. 3] - The curtain opens to the building and the public square.

[Pic. 4] - Through the openings in the wall the activities on the ground floor are in relation with the outsides.

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LIVE THE WALL AS YOU PREFER

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5.2.2 STRAIRS/STREETS FLOORS/SQUARES The second design theme is the one of the stairs. In our interpretation we have compared the staircase to a vertical street, while the floors that meet the staircase to the squares. The staircase element is the one that, starting from the public space par excellence, that is, the square on the ground floor, brings this level of public into the private part of the apartments. Like a promenade, along the staircase on each floor you will encounter elements that would normally be encountered in a public context.

The staircase takes the form of a seat on each floor: like real benches along the road, even sitting on the part of the staircase used for this purpose you can observe the different activities that occur on each floor or you can stop and rest beforehand to continue climbing.

Along the path of the staircase you can also have a view on the activities of those spaces that connect the clusters to each other, the jolly spaces that we will discuss later. These spaces open with windows on the staircase, in such a way as to show that the building lives on dynamic and always different activities.

In addition, the clusters also open onto the staircase and onto the spaces on the floor through the windows that overlook them.

The goal of designing the staircase in these ways is to increase the chances of exchange and meeting not only between the residents of the building but also with those coming from the city. In fact, on the rooftop there is a terrace that can be used by everyone and reachable through this vertical distribution device.

The stairs become the core of the building. The public and the private gradually merge, meet and converge to create an intimate experience, and a transitional series of spaces between the public sphere and the semi-public, the semi-private, the private and the intimate.1 This element becomes the real identity of the building , which fostered meeting and a sense of community. 2

[Pic. 1] - Isometric diagram showing that the stairs create between the private sphere and the public one. The stair can be considered as a vertical street, whereas the common spaces at the different floors as a square.

[Pic. 2] - The stairs become a sort of bench, a space to stay and rest and see what happens in the different floors.

[Pic. 3] - From the stairs it is possible to have a view over the different activities that happen in the shared spaces.

[Pic. 4] - The clusters open on the common spaces. Public and private are mixed.

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1 2

refering to Jane Jacobs theory of “eyes on the street�.

DASH #01, Editorial, New Open Space for Living

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EYES ON THE SQUARE

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NORD

[Pic. 1] - North elevation

[Pic. 3] - East elevation

[Pic. 2] - West elevation

[Pic. 1] - South elevation

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5.3 THROUGH THE PLANS 5.3.1 GROUND FLOOR The ground floor of the north complex, like the one of all the other buildings, has been designed in such a way that most of it is free. The relationship that is established with the square is strong. Not only because all the spaces enclosed by walls overlook it, but above all because it can be said that it is the square itself that enters the building and defines the character. The flooring always remains the same: there is no threshold that delimits the two spaces, everything flows continuously.

This alternation of open / covered and closed spaces creates a scenario in which it is not possible to define a real limit between public and private spaces. The vertical distribution device, the staircase, starts from the ground floor, leading to the upper floors, bringing the public inside to the private one. At the same time, there is also a staircase that with a more generous path leads to the basement for parking.

The design of the space appears as four blind volumes on two or three sides, while the remaining sides can always be opened. Through different opening devices, such as doors or panels, the relationships that are established are different. In addition, the perimeter walls also have openings that allow you to use this element going beyond its structural function.

The functions that are integrated into the ground floor of the northernmost building are linked to the university environment, given its proximity to the complex of the University of Milan. There are therefore the functions of the library and study room, which offer their spaces not only to students but also to the residents of the building.

There is also a basketball court with terraces or an open space for indoor physical activity. The spaces that could be considered more passing, may actually be occupied by temporary activities, such as bars or markets, it is important to ensure a continuous use of these spaces both throughout the day and throughout the year. The element that becomes the core beyond the staircase is a room that can be used for meetings, presentations etc .... the peculiarity of this space is that it can open completely towards the square, also functioning as a support building for activities that take place outdoors.

In the building to the south, on the other hand, there are classrooms and multipurpose spaces that can be used for artistic and cultural activities.

These spaces are extremely flexible, can be expanded as needed and can open not only towards the central square but also towards the public part further south.

We have also placed the laundry room on the ground floor in such a way that the residents of the building find themselves having to follow a set path, crossing all the levels in full and being able to use this moment as an opportunity for exchange and casual encounter not only with their “Cluster neighbors� but also with external people who frequent these spaces.

[Pic. 1] - Ground floor plan

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5.3.1.1 FUNCTIONAL PROGRAM

LIBRARY

RELAX ROOM PLAYROOM

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LAUNDRY SPORT FIELD

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Titolo del grafico

RECEPTION HALL MEETING

OFFICE ROOM DANCE ROOM

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FLEXIBLE ROOM

owned by residents but shared 08

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[Pic. 1] - Groundfloor plan, highlighting the equipments for the residents.

[Pic. 2] - Isometric diagram of the functional program.

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private for residents

CITY’S GARDEN IS YOUR GARDEN

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5.3.2 MEZZANINE FLOOR The mezzanine floor is outlined as a continuation of the ground floor as regards its layout and also as regards its functional program.

The space occupied by the volumes takes up only half of the available space as it leaves a double-height ground floor space. The functions of the floor are accessible through a balcony that distributes the flows in the different spaces.

The rooms therefore overlook the balcony and not directly onto the square. For this reason the gallery acquires a key-role in the plan, it is not a linear element but has enlargements in its section in such a way as to cover greater importance. It is not just a space for distribution to the various environments but plays the role of a meeting and sharing space.

In the north building, continuity can be seen with regard to the functional program: the library and study rooms are developed starting from the ground floor. It is in fact possible to reach these spaces through a vertical distribution inside the library, which thus allows to facilitate flows within the same function. There is also a room intended for residents but which can also be rented externally. This space can be used as a meeting room or as a cinema club, in general it is a multipurpose space that can take on different meanings and uses.

As for the building to the south, however, we also find here a continuity of functions: there is a museum space that can be used as an exhibition space. There is also a gym open to everyone. The last element on the floor, which is the one most intended for residents, is a rentable space as a place for co-working.

[Pic. 1] - Mezzanine plan

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5.3.2.1 FUNCTIONAL PROGRAM

Titolo del grafico

LIBRARY CINEMA TERRACE RELAX ROOM BAR GYM CO-WORK

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MUSEUM

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public

owned by residents but shared 08

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[Pic. 1] - Mezzanine plan, highlighting the equipments for the residents.

[Pic. 2] - Isometric diagram of the functional program.

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private for residents

5.3.3 FIRST FLOOR_THE APARTMENTS The floor of the apartments extends over the entire area of the ​​ building.

The project interfaced several challenges to understand what had to be private and what had to be public. We initially included the common areas of exchange and socialization.

Everything that characterizes and gives meaning to the idea of living ​​ in community. An element that integrates more with this aspect and that could link the staircase with the private area is the gallery. It is an element that acquires significant importance as it initiates a scan of degrees of sharing on the floor. It has a maximum degree of commonality as it is as if it were a continuation of the road since there is no breaking point between the staircase and the areas. The clusters overlook the gallery through windows and doors, emphasizing more the sense of this “indoor street”. It becomes a degree of transition between the private and public dimensions. The use of brick collaborates with this important aspect that defines new levels of porosity between two dimensions: gallery cluster (internal-internal).

The apartments are like clinging to shared spaces: the clusters.

The clusters identified on the floor are three. They are configured within the plant giving more importance to the shared space, creating a further level of transition between public and private space.

Shared spaces have a similar service block within them that repeats across all clusters. The block is inserted between the transition from shared zone to private zone. The kitchen becomes the core of the common space while the bathrooms fit into the apartments.

As a link between the clusters, the “jollys” play an important connecting role, creating a dynamic and continuous space.

On some levels the balconies take up the space of the apartments on the other side, offering a visual connection from both sides of the city.

[Pic. 1] - First floor plan

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5.3.3.1 FUNCTIONAL PROGRAM

Titolo del grafico

CLUSTERS 1

JOLLY SPACES SQUARES

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public

owned by residents but shared 08

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[Pic. 1] - First floor plan, highlighting the equipments for the residents.

[Pic. 2] - Isometric diagram of the functional program.

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private for residents

Apartment_Private Living_ Shared among apartments Jolly _ Shared among cluster Square_Public [Pic. 1] - First floor plan, highlighting the degrees of privacy for the residents.

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[Pic. 1] - Second floor plan.

[Pic. 2] - Second floor plan, highlighting the equipments for the residents.

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LIVE THE SQUARE AT YOUR FLOOR

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5.3.4 ROOFTOP FLOOR Finally, the terrace is the top floor. It looks like the last step. Point of arrival of this journey that unfolds along the staircase. The terrace acquires a similar meaning to the square. From the conceptual side, the terrace is conceived as an extension of the square where it acquires a character of its own. This floor becomes a meeting point between the residents and the outside. It emphasizes even more the concept of continuous exchange between the two parties.

In fact, on the top floor, like all buildings, there is a cluster that is configured between the open and internal space and vice versa. A large public space inside the building is an urban resource, from here we wanted to take this concept to the extreme. The terrace design follows the usual grid of floors. It governs the staircase that fills the space, creating a continuous shared space.

There are elements that collaborate to increase the visual side towards the city by taking advantage of the mezzanine floors. The terrace therefore becomes a transitional space with which it dialogues in different ways with the city in a more intimate way than the square on the ground floor.

[Pic. 1] - Rooftop plan.

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5.3.4.1 FUNCTIONAL PROGRAM

Titolo del grafico

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CLUSTERS COMMON TERRACE

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owned by residents but shared 08

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[Pic. 1] - Rooftop plan.

[Pic. 2] - Isometric diagram of the functional program.

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private for residents

FROM THE GROUND TO THE TOP

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[Pic. 1] - Longitudinal section.

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[Pic. 1] - Cross-section.

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6. CLUSTER

[Pic.1] - Cooperative house at river Spreefeld, common kitchen. The picture shows one of the shared kitchen in the cooperative group of building in the Berlin outskirts. The kitchen is shared between a group of people living in cluster units. The space of the kitchen and a living area are common in this housing typology.

WHERE PUBLIC MEETS PRIVATE The clusters identified on the floor are three. They are configured within the plans giving more importance to the shared space, creating a further level of transition between public and private space before reaching the apartments. Each floor is characterized by a strong presence of spaces for shared use. In fact, a cluster is made up of a common central space, the service block and private apartments.

The service block that repeats in all clusters is inserted between the transition from shared zone to private zone. Inside of the blocks there are kitchens and bathrooms.

The kitchen becomes the protagonist of the common area, while the bathrooms are placed inside the apartments, therefore for private use.

There are sliding elements that perform the function of giving flexibility to the spaces, for example the kitchen can be hidden or exposed according to the function of the community.

On some floors, the balconies take up the space of the apartments on the other side of the existing balcony, offering a visual connection from both sides of the city.

The gallery creates its own relationship with the outside that wants to act as a link with the community: its public and multipurpose spaces become an expedient to promote sociability on the floor with the neighborhood.

The gallery is not the only an element of distributive flow of the floor.

As a link between the clusters, the “jollys” play an important connecting role, creating a dynamic and continuous space. The jollys of the building are configured as a real “melting pot” of users. Each floor accommodates different functions as needed. They can be shared or rented.

Each apartment, therefore, becomes part of a different dynamic and convivial organism, based on the cluster to which it belongs. The individual, therefore, has the ability to manage and decide their daily spaces and to mark their day according to the space in which to stay.

All the fixtures in the apartments are placed flush with the wall to ensure greater usability of the space. In fact, furnishings have been designed that could make the most of the space.

Ludovico Quaroni had observed “everyone thinks about building houses, churches, schools, markets, but nobody thinks that these things should be organized in a spatial and economic life. (...) no one thinks of financing the space of social and collective life, outside the schemes of the shop, school, cinema, church or social center, (...) and they do not take into account the most important fact, in the residence of a man, who is the possibility of continuous choice between collective life and the freedom of social control, the possibility of choosing between solitude and company, between the closed and the open, between the noise and the silence.” 1

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Guidarini S., Precisazioni sull’housing sociale in Italia, Politecnica, Milan, 2017

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CLIMB THE VERTICAL STREET

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6.1 CLUSTERS’ TARGET

FIRST CLUSTER 1:100 170 mq

FIRST CLUSTER 1:100 170 mq

The clusters of the north complex are configured according to the building they belong to.

As a research thesis we are not going to define a real target. In addition THIRD CLUSTER to diverse users, housing can host various THIRD CLUSTER functions. The benefit to that, is not only to target a wider range of occasional and permanent users,it SECOND can CLUSTER become a social place to promote a wider target of inclusion inside 1:100 130 mq the housing project.

In the north complex there are 4 different types of clusters that are repeated in the buildings. Each type of cluster has a shared space and a series of apartments that cling to the core.

SECOND CLUSTER 1:100 130 mq

SECOND CLUSTER 1:100 130 mq

FIRST CLUSTER 1:100 170 mq

FIRST CLUSTER

SECOND CLUSTER

1:100 170 mq

The first has a size of 170 square meters. Inside we find five rooms.

The second type has a size of 130 square meters with four rooms inside.

The third has a size of 145 square meters with five rooms.

FOURTH CLUSTER While, the one that differs most is the fourth type with 3 two-room apartments, to which they have a private living room. It has a size of 235 sqm.

THIRD CLUSTER

THIRD CLUSTER

1:100 130 mq

1:100 145 mq

1:100 235 mq

SECOND CLUSTER SECOND CLUSTER

1:100 130 mq

FOURTH CLUSTER

1:100 145 mq

SECOND CLUSTER 1:100 130 mq

1:100 145 mq

THIRD CLUSTER

1:100 130 mq

1:100 235 mq

THIRD CLUSTER 1:100 145 mq

THIRD CLUSTER 1:100 145 mq

1:100 145 mq

1:100 145 mq

FOURTH CLUSTER FOURTH CLUSTER

1:100 235 mq

1:100 235 mq

THIRD CLUSTER

FOURTH CLUSTER

1:100 145 mq

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1:100 235 mq

FOURTH CLUSTER 1:100 235 mq

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FOURTH CLUSTER 1:100 235 mq

FOURTH CLUSTER

[Pic. 1 ] - Use of the common space in the Mädcheninternat Kloster project, Disentis - Switzerland, 2001-2004by Gion A. Caminada

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[Pic. 1] - Cluster typologies.

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ROOM

SERVICE

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SQUARE

JOLLY + STAIRS

LIVING

[Pic. 1] - Cluster’s section and plan

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SERVICE

ROOM

[Pic. 1] - Elevation and section

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6.2 THE “JOLLY” SPACES

1. closed on both clusters

The spaces that we define as “jolly” are the key elements of sharing between the various clusters. These rooms are the place where the exchange takes place on the floor in a slightly more private level than the gallery. They are spaces that have two openable fronts and two fixed ones. The side facing the staircase is completely glazed. This allows it to be visible from the outside and to create a dynamic exchange between what is the public and the private sphere. The two walls that are shared with the clusters are made up of wooden panels that can be closed or opened in a package.

In this way the space takes on a strong character of flexibility. The jolly space can take on different shapes: (i) it can be closed on both sides, thus creating a space that guarantees a greater level of privacy, in which it is possible to study or carry out activities in small groups. (ii) it can partially open on both spaces, thus allowing air recirculation, for example when sports activities are carried out (iii) it can be closed only on one side, thus giving more space to only one of the two clusters between which it is shared (iv) or can be open on both sides. This last conformation allows to completely unite the two clusters giving a spatial continuity to the entire floor, eliminating any type of constraint.

2. semi-open on both clusters

3.open on one cluster

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4.open on both clusters

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6.3 THE SERVICE BLOCK The service block is defined by three bands on each floor. These bands occupy the entire extension of the floor of the apartments on their shortest side. Following a perspective of privacy bands and public parts, these blocks appear as the first element of privacy that is encountered when moving towards the room (which are the elements with the greatest degree of privacy).

everything is open_no privacy

The block of services consists of: a central part determined by the kitchen, this element is of shared use among all the inhabitants of the cluster. Although shared, however, it can be made more private thanks to the presence of a curtain that can be closed thus ensuring greater privacy.

The other elements that are part of the service block are the bathrooms.

These elements are for the private use of the rooms, as regards the central apartments, while for shared use with the cluster, as regards the lateral ones.

In addition, the service block also includes access to individual apartments. In these environments it is possible to obtain space to insert furniture elements.

half open half closed_half privacy

everything is closed_privacy [Pic. 1 ] - Uses of the service block

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6.4 THE ROOM “An environment has, by nature, four walls. The room with a total glass window instead has three walls and a void. The room with the furnished window again has four walls, one of which is transparent .. And on this transparent wall the compositional design that is on the other walls continues.�

Gio Ponti The last element analyzed is the room. Each apartment, therefore, becomes part of a different dynamic and convivial organism, based on the cluster to which it belongs. The individual, therefore, has the ability to manage and decide their daily spaces and to mark their day according to the space in which to stay. The room represents a level of total privacy and is seen as the last step of the journey from the public to the private.

It is defined as a simple and essential room that however guarantees a livable square footage.

All the apartments are located towards the outside of the building, which is why they enjoy good exposure to light. The most important wall in fact turns out to be the glazed one. All the fixtures in the apartments are placed in line with the wall to ensure greater usability of the space.

In fact, furnishings have been designed that could make the most of the space. The glass wall is bordered by a solution consisting of a wooden seat, similar to an alcove, and a small table, where you can study or carry out other activities. The opaque part, on the other hand, is filled with a wardrobe.

Although the part of the apartments is the most private, through its openings you have always put yourself in a visual relationship with the city, so you can choose whether to stay in your own privacy or participate in the activities that the city and the public space offer.

There are different typologies of room, in fact they can host different users, such as: single student, single workers, couples or if the rooms are joined they can host a wider range of people. The rooms differ in the square meters and in the furniture disposition.

[Pic. 1 ] - Uses of the lived window

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ROOM’S TYPOLOGIES

Single student’s room

Single worker’s room

Couple’s room

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[Pic. 1 ] - Various scenarios in the elevation

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7. CONCLUSION In this thesis we wanted to put into practice what we concluded with the “AH 2019 - AFFORDABLE HOUSING DOMESTICITY RELOADED” course through the definition of masterplans within a suburban and transforming district, to design complexes immersed in urban greenery by establishing a system of spatial relationships that keep public spaces and private spaces. Then up to the structure of the clusters that make up the apartments of each building, outlining elements and creating permeability hierarchies that end with the design of the individual room.

By developing the project on different scales, we were able to verify how the relationship between public and private can manifest itself both on a large scale in the city and on the small scale of the apartment. In order to develop the project, it was essential to analyze the concept of Urban Commons.

The Urban Commons refers to the relation between public and private dimension, namely the one that happens between the city and the building, and it occurs through the presence of three different spatial characteristics: hotspot, porosity and diversity. It’s not only the city but also the smaller scale, concentrating on sharing spaces between the inhabitants of the same building and the people who live the spaces.

In our investigation it emerges that does no longer exist a separation among the different disciplines, indeed, on the contrary, we might say that Housing & Commons produces the slash architecture. To slash something implies bringing it together with something else. As a matter of fact, in the Housing & Commons, architecture, planning, managing, ownership e sociology play the same role in importance.

The project of Urban Commons works on the design of devices that regulate the demarcation between private and public space, marking gradual transitions between spaces with different degrees of porosity, inviting to an appropriation, but suggesting its temporariness. However, it is confronted with limits that are not traced, not declared, but equally capable of marking the space that is generated by the uses of individuals or groups. The use or actual occupation of Urban Commons can transform a square, an opening, a portion of asphalted land into the privileged meeting place of a certain group of people. These spaces are characterized by the degree of permeability to the eye, by the possibility of being crossed by other individual, and by the level of contamination with other groups and other users of that same space.

This is Urban Commons for us.

And this is how it can be applied to a project.

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8. BIBLIOGRAPHY Augé M., Non-Lieux, Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, La Librairie du XXe siècle, Le Seuil, 1992 Avermaete T., Another Modern. The postwar architecture of Candilis-Josic-Woods, NAI Publisher, Rotterdam, 2001 Calvino I., Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988 Casey E., Stavrides S. and Vradis A., Edge, common space and the spatial contract: A three-way conversation with Ed Casey, Stavros Stavrides and Antonis Vradis, Political Geography, Volume 71, pp 142-147, 2019 may Comune di Milano, PGT 2030, Milan, 2019 Consalez L., Navigare sulla carta bianca: cinque idee di città e di architettura, art.Attraverso la città. Il disegno dei comportamenti collettivi nel paesaggio urbano, Lettera VentiDue, 2013 De Angelis M., Stavrides S., An Architektur- On the Commons: A Public Interview De Matteis F., Marini S., Nello spessore. Traiettorie e stanze dentro la città, Hortusbook, Roma, 2012 Ellin N., Integral urbanism, Routledge,Taylor & Francis Group, New York, 2006 Gehl J., Vita in città. Spazio urbano e relazioni sociali, Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 1991, p.83 Gelsomino L., Marinoni O., Territori Europei dell’abitare: 1990-2010, Compositori Edizioni, Bologna, 2009 Guidarini S., New Urban Housing: l’abitare condiviso in Europa, Skira, Milan, 2018 Guidarini S., Precisazioni sull’housing sociale in Italia, Politecnica, Milan, 2017 Ilardi M., Il tramonto dei non luoghi. Fronti e frontiere dello spazio metropolitano, Melteni Editore, Roma, 2007 La Pietra U., Abitare è essere ovunque a casa propria, Corraini edizioni, 2019 Jacobs J., The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Random House, New York, 1961 Koolhaas R., Generic city, in Junkspace, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2006 Lembi P., Moro A., Esperienze nello/dello spazio. Appunti sulla relazione tra persone e luoghi, Maggioli Editore, Milano, 2010 Lynch K., L’immagine della città, Marsilio, Padova, 1969 Maas W., The Why Factory, The Vertical Village, NAI Publisher, Rotterdam, 2012 Madden D. J., Marcuse P., In Defense of Housing: the Politics of Crisis, Verso Books, London, 2016 Mela A., La sociologia delle città, Carrocci, 2006 Muller M., Niggli D., Together! The new Architecture of the collective, Ruby Press, 2017

Oxman R., Shadar H., Belferman E., in “Casbah: a brief history of a design concept” Piccinno G., Lega E., Spatial design for in-between urban spaces, Maggioli Edizioni, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 2012 Russi N., Background. Il progetto del vuoto, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2019 Russi N. Coricelli F., Quaglio C., Rolfo D., Re-housing: La casa come dispositivo di integrazione, Quaderni, Torino, 2017 Sennett R., Open City, lecture in City Museum of Stokholm, 2011 Sennett R., Costruire e abitare: etica per la città, Feltrinelli, 2018 Smithson A., Team 10 meetings, Rizzoli, 1991 Strauven F., Aldo Van Eyck. The shape of relativity, Architectura and Natura Press, Amsterdam, 1998 Stavrides S., Common Space as Threshold Space: Urban Commoning in Struggles to Reappropriate Public Space in Commoning as Differentiated Publicness, Footprint, Spring, 2015 Theunissen K., The architectural articulation of the social, housing in an expanding Europe: theory, policy, participation and implementation, Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 2006 TWF, Maas W., Porocity, Nai Publishers, Rotterdam, 2018

RINGRAZIAMENTI È difficile riassumere in poche righe tutto quello che ci sarebbe da dire per ringraziare chi ci ha aiutate a portare a termine questo lungo percorso.

Innanzitutto vorremmo ringraziare il Professore Lorenzo Consalez per averci dato la possibilità di terminare i nostri studi con una tesi che oltre alle nostre conoscenze ci ha aiutato ad ampliare i nostri orizzonti, ma soprattutto per averci guidate nella stesura della tesi in un periodo particolare che ha messo in discussione anche gli aspetti più semplici della nostra disciplina, quali trovarsi intorno a un tavolo a disegnare e progettare.

Ringraziamo inoltre Marco Jacomella per averci indirizzate nella stesura della parte teorica di questa tesi che è stata fondamentale per lo sviluppo progettuale. Inoltre ringraziamo i nostri amici e compagni Valeria, Marta, Simone, Davide, Matteo e Mahshid. Grazie per aver reso facile superare i momenti di difficoltà e sopratutto per aver saputo rispondere giorno e notte ai punti della situa. #commoners Grazie a tutti i nostri amici e compagni che hanno reso questi anni indimenticabili che porteremo sempre nel nostro cuore.

Laura e Letizia

“Nothing exists in isolation, only in relation.”

N.Ellin