URBAN INTERSTICES IN ITALY. DESIGN EXPERIENCES by LetteraVentidue Edizioni

CONTENTS 6

Foreword

On the Precarity of the Impasse Sergio Lopez-Pineiro

URBAN REWRITING 23 Interstice Spaces as Urban Synapses, Rewritings, and Over-writings Bertrando Bonfantini 33 Plots of Memory Michela Bassanelli 41 About Acupuncture, Appropriation, and Activation Madalina Ghibusi

ARCHITECTURAL THRESHOLD 53 Urban Thresholds at Risk of Identity Loss Luigi Spinelli 61 Spaces for a New Collective Rituality Michela Bassanelli 69 Participation between Top-down and Bottom-up Madalina Ghibusi

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VISUAL NARRATION Marco Introini GREEN ROOMS 139 Interstitial Gardens Imma Forino 147 From Hortus Conclusus to Ecosystem Michela Bassanelli

157 A Garden as a Social and Ecological Device Madalina Ghibusi 171

CONNECTING PUBLICNESS 173 Human Interstitial Geographies Pierluigi Salvadeo 183 For a Geography of Spread-Out Living Michela Bassanelli 193 Infinite Interstices as Connectors and Activators Madalina Ghibusi

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EPHEMERAL DEVICES 207 A Carefully Annotated Tutorial Jacopo Leveratto 217 Activating Public Spaces Michela Bassanelli 227 An Open Process between Temporary and Permanent Madalina Ghibusi

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Sites of Connection and Disconnection Ali Madanipour

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ITALIAN INTERSTICES DESIGN MAP Michela Bassanelli, Madalina Ghibusi

314 319 321

Annotated Bibliography, in 20X4 References Photo credits Profiles of the authors

FOREWORD

“U

rban interstices” are the topic investigated by this book. The book does so with regard to the design forms for these types of spaces in Italy. What are urban interstices? And how to design them referring to different issues, opportunities, roles and concepts in their theming? The book proposes some possible answers to these questions according to five different views and keys in looking at interstitial spaces of the city, and their different design dimensions. Urban rewriting, Architectural threshold, Green rooms, Connecting publicness, Ephemeral devices draft a possible path to sound the spectrum of urban interstices’ design in Italy. The book’s five chapters are written by urban planners, architects and interior designers, and this already speaks perhaps of the “internality of the external” of these full-ofmeanings spaces. Urban space can be “interstitial” in its ambiguous capability of signification in the sense-making process: that is, in the double valence of a mute void—space without signification—or meaningful room—a small and dense universe of suspension. Sometimes the project for interstitial spaces aims to transform the former into the latter. Sometimes, on the other hand, the project transforms the interstice into an interface, connector, exchanger, membrane, space of interrelation. So that urban interstices become alternatively thresholds and pulsating rooms, and urban catalysts activated by specific design moves and devices. And somehow they also speak of a general “interstitial” condition of urban space today. A varied and complex panorama emerges in Italy, expressing the particularity of its open, public or semi-public places, and the different design responses that qualify them according to the people to be welcomed. The sense of openness and hospitality, which is typical of Italian culture and cities, finds a new declination in urban interstices thanks to the redesign of these places.

URBAN INTERSTICES IN ITALY: DESIGN EXPERIENCES

The critical path proposed here is based on the review of seventy contemporary cases. Sixty are collected in the second part of the book. Ten projects— two for each thematic key—are explored in brief monographic essays and by interviews with the authors. And they are the subject of the photographic essay, Visual narration, in the middle of the book. At the opening and the closing two authoritative and authorial points of view on the topic are provided—with Sergio Lopez-Pineiro’s radical introductory statement and Ali Madanipour’s final discussion. (BB, IF)

FOREWORD

ON THE PRECARITY OF THE IMPASSE Sergio Lopez-Pineiro

Cities are fabrics of capital accumulation. They are physical entities capable of attracting, absorbing, and holding capital. As David Harvey has argued, “cities have arisen through geographical and social concentrations of a surplus product,” and as a result, “urbanization has played a particularly active role in absorbing the surplus product that capitalists perpetually produce in their search for profits” (Harvey 2008, 24). Cities, then, are continuous resourceconsuming and capital-holding spatiotemporal fabrics. The term “urban void” is used to define the holes that appear within this continuum. Urban voids are gaps within the urban continuum of program, capital, expectations, and obligations. These spaces are intentionally or accidentally left outside of the smooth continuum of space, organization, power, representation, infrastructure, and control of the city. The term “void” typically projects bad connotations when discussing urban spaces and, thus, the expression “urban void” can be misunderstood. People interested in the redefinition of the city according to other ideologies or points of view that are not exclusively economic might argue that the spaces typically referred to as urban voids are not empty. They are full of other non-economic potentials. Due to their marginality, these spaces offer opportunities (ecological or social, for example) that other public spaces neither do not nor cannot provide. Following this line of thought, it could be argued that another term should be used. However, the label “void” is not used in this context to imply that these spaces are emptied of everything: voids are not vacuums. The term “void” signifies a place where capital and social control are no longer in existence. This use does not imply an adverse judgment. Rather, the term “void” signifies “a space of the possible, of expectation” (Solà-Morales 1995, 120). The expression “void” aptly encapsulates the tensions and contradictions between different socio-economic conceptions of emptiness and fullness. William Cronon’s depiction of the use of land by Native Americans from the point of view of the English colonists exemplifies the traditional sense of the term “void:”

URBAN REWRITING

INTERSTICE SPACES AS URBAN SYNAPSES, REWRITINGS, AND OVER-WRITINGS Bertrando Bonfantini

The endless rediscovery of the city’s public space Public space—or, with a more inclusive expression, open space—is the focus of attention and debate, once again. Its prominence in contemporary urbanism marks a new season of what is configured as a continuous, cyclical rediscovery of its “regenerative” properties, and of its values and potential for a transformation project of cities and territories that brings about progress. In one of the monographic double issues of the magazine Casabella, which featured the editorship of Vittorio Gregotti and became a reference point for architects and town planners, Bernardo Secchi wrote at the beginning of an article entitled “Un’urbanistica di spazi aperti” (For a town-planning of open spaces) that “The notion of drawing open spaces has gained importance in contemporary design practice.” But he immediately added that “Perhaps every generation, every epoch, returns to the subject with new eyes and new ideas” (Secchi 1993, 5). Similarly, with reference to parks and gardens, at the beginning of his Per i piaceri del popolo, Franco Panzini, commenting on the words by Bernard Tschumi to present the Parc de la Villette, observed that the “phrases, used to describe the park of the future, echo other forecasts made in the past” (Panzini 1993, 1)—an object and a theme of the project for the city that continually recurs, together with the ambition to bring something new; which ends up becoming a “permanent feature” (ibid.). A minimal timeline can be sketched for this cyclical renewal of the topicality of the open space project. “The park is what we have been fighting for and the gates typify what we have been fighting against” (Calvert Vaux, cited in Fein 1972, 13); “(it was) a democratic development of the highest significance” (Frederick Law Olmsted, cited in Fein, 1972, 14). In these lines that speak of the conflict that opposes Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to Richard Morris Hunt, responsible for modifying the original project of Central Park in New York by the first two, introducing gates and monumental entrances, we recognise as synthesised the evolutionary and distinctive characteristics of

INTERVIEW Project: Piazza Fontana Rozzano Interviewees: Labics (Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori)

MG _ The public space of the contemporary city is dotted with areas of reduced size that represent the residue of heterogeneous processes of discontinuity, fragmentation and marginalization, randomness or negligence. These spaces can be potential activators of urban and social regeneration pathways. Do you think your project is related to this type of public space? MCC _ If we talk in a general way, of course they represent a big opportunity. But I think that it is not a matter of size. Now there is a lot of experience about small-sized regenerated public spaces which are kind of interstitial advanced. But the problem is that the question is not about the sizes, but about the peripherical or central role. So, if you compare our project to a size reduced interstitial it is not correct. But if you compare our project to let’s say for example the one that is called Superkilen in Copenhagen, which are spaces that are abandoned in a way, or underused. So, our square is not small like we cannot compare to the typical small sized interstitial public space which is now very interesting to be transformed but it would be more useful to compare it with spaces which are average in size, like parking lots which are unused so which have a kind of a peripherical role in the urban space. Our Piazza Fontana is part of this typology of spaces which remind, which are undefined, underused. And then where there is an undefined, underused space usually you put a parking lot.

URBAN INTERSTICES IN ITALY:DESIGN EXPERIENCES

MG _ Public space represents the arena in which the most significant cultural interactions and social dynamics take place. In this sense, a better understanding of the project and the use of urban public space is considered fundamental to strengthen the sociocultural inclusion process. Can your project be defined as an inclusive public space? How was it received by the inhabitants and those who use it? FI _ I think that of course, the public space is quite important in order to encourage socio-cultural inclusion processes. So, we are deeply convinced that the role of public space is very important in the dynamic of the development of cities and we conceived our public space in these terms. So not like a place that is beautiful or not, or a place that can be in an architectural way defined in a closed form, but we conceived the Piazza Fontana as an interactive field, an interactive playground where citizens can find their way of interacting with the space in different ways because, as you can see in the space, it is not properly a square in the traditional sense. Because when you design a square, the most important things are the buildings that surround the space and that capacity of defining the special quality of the space in the middle. In this case it was at least the opposite because we did not get the chance to redefine the space as it was already there, so we played with a sort of interactive landscape that created a reason to go there. So, for example, for kids to play with some elements in the space, for old people to rest on benches and to gather around some what we call, “exterior walls,” for young INTERVIEW

people to sit on the different walls that the configuration of the space has created. So, a place where to do something, instead of a representative place in the traditional sense of a square. We have to say that we began from the needs of the inhabitants. At the beginning we had this kind of list of desires that came from a participatory process and so we started from the needs of the inhabitants trying to design the space. MG _ Which are the themes and objectives that defined your project actions? MCC _ What is very important is that nowadays, very often, when there is this participation process there are a lot of bottom-up projects. Also in the Biennale of Venice, the American pavilion was all about the bottom-up process of re-appropriation of the public space, made by the population. In this case our objective and aim as architects was to demonstrate that you can do an architectural project that is able to take care of these bottomup needs. So, because we think that participation alone is not sufficient. This is very important because you can treat the project of the public space in different ways. You can treat it as a bottom-up process where people make gardens and now there a lot of these projects which are very good. But on the other side we cannot lose the capacity of designing the public space as architects. And we need to do it in a new way that is not like it was in the Papal Era, or Baroque Era, or Emperor Era where the public space was the representation of political power. Now we have to design it in a different way, that is made for the people. So we

Diagrams of the pavement and construction elements used in the project for Piazza Fontana by Labics

URBAN INTERSTICES IN ITALY:DESIGN EXPERIENCES

cannot lose this capacity of this role in the urban discipline. The themes and objectives that defined our projects were to demonstrate that with the design, with the form, with the shape, with the project, we can answer to the needs of the people without renouncing to this capacity that Italian architects and in general architects that design public space have. We just have to switch and understand that the needs are different, the people are different, and we have to give a different answer. MG _ Can you briefly tell us about the process that characterized the project and what are the public and private actors who actively participated in the realization? FI _ So, about the process, before we received the task, the Municipality went through a participatory process. A specific company was in charge of this process that is called ABCittà and they spent about between six to nine months with the citizens in order to understand their needs and desires. At the end they came out with a long list and wide range of desires, starting from the needs of more green, more benches, fountains, a playground and some kiosks for ice-cream or some new porticos, and a new statue, a monument and so on. After that, we received from the Municipality the commission so that we were in charge of the design of the square starting from the participatory process. And the funds were private because it was a kind of a particular situation called urbanizzazione secondaria, like when a private developer needs to realize some public things in order to realize new buildings in other INTERVIEW

places. So, basically, in the Italian law, every developer when he builds houses, he has to pay something to the community. So this payment to the community can be a square, a school, a library etc. And so, we used the private funds of this developer to realize the square but our client was the Municipality with the architect Antonio Panzarino that was in charge with this. It is nice that, after the participatory process, there were a lot of the expectations from the inhabitants. So we had to present the results, the project to the inhabitants and we presented in a public meeting with all the people that participated to the process and it was very nice because at the beginning they were very skeptical about our proposal because it was very abstract and it was not really comprehensible at the beginning because as you know, our project is very rigorous in terms of geometry. Then, it took a lot of time to try to explain the project but then at the end they started to understand, to recognize the ideas in the project. And then, at the end we were much more relaxed than at the beginning because they were initially a little bit worried about what were we doing. MCC _ Probably there is another important thing to say that, instead of treating the space like a background that could answer all the desires, so like some objects or projects which are not coherent, we decided to use geometry like the tool that could put everything together. And this “enactive-ness” of the space of course is not easy to read for someone that is not an architect.

VISUAL NARRATION MARCO INTROINI

ITALIAN INTERSTICES DESIGN MAP MICHELA BASSANELLI MADALINA GHIBUSI

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URBAN REWRITING

2 Public Space in Gratosoglio

30 Piazza dell’immaginario

6 Pedibus Trieste

36 Orme: Orti metropolitani

9 Pedibus Firenze

37 Orto alto

15 Relazioni Cantiere aperto

55 Upla Lab!

18 2:2 Casa Piazza

56 Gardentopia

21 Le aule nel giardino

58 Giardini Venerdì

27 Flpp

60 Romanico automatico

18 55 6

2 36 37 60 30 9

21 56 58

ITALIAN INTERSTICES DESIGN MAP

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SERPENTONE RELOAD

1 Location: Potenza Year: 2000-10 Author: Archea Dimensions: 3,200 m2 Before: Abandoned space urban garden urban object underused space

In 1998 Enric Miralles was commissioned to redevelop Via Tirreno, the street that runs through the neighborhood. After his death, the assignment was entrusted to the Archea studio whose project involves the street’s transformation into a green corridor, a large semi-underground public building with a garden roof. This imposing object has been, since its construction, at the center of strong controversy, substantially unused and unfinished and nicknamed “the ship” by the inhabitants of the neighborhood. The project takes place in the summer of 2014 with key moment in September in a workshop conceived as an action research aimed at exploring different new uses of abandoned or underused spaces in the neighborhood. (MB)

References • Amato, Federico, et al. 2015. “Serpentone Reload an Experience of Citizens Involvement in Regeneration of Peripheral Urban Spaces.” Lecture Notes in Computer Science (9156): 698-713. • ————. 2015. “The Importance of Participation in Regeneration of Peripheral Urban Spaces: The Experience of ‘Serpentone Reload’.” In Proceedings of Real Corp 2015 Tagungsband: Plan Together Right Now Overall, edited by Manfred Schrenk et. al, 895-904. Ghent. • Volumezero. 2014. “Serpentone Reload.” Accessed November 20, 2019. https://volumezeroinfo.wixsite.com/vzero/ serpentonereload.

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URBAN INTERSTICES IN ITALY: DESIGN EXPERIENCES

PUBLIC SPACE IN GRATOSOGLIO

2 Location: Milan Year: 2002 Authors: Cino Zucchi Architetti Dimensions: 1,000 m2 Before: Abandoned space public space requalification residual space

The aim of this project is the stitching of an urban space in the first periphery of Milan integrating the existing elements with minimal interventions and giving social significance to an interstitial space. A low concrete wall, veneered on the interior façades embraces the new square which rests on the trace of the old Roman way to Pavia, connecting the surviving bodies of a farmhouse, an existing public covered market and the tram stop. A green rampart screens the space inside the tram roundabout, and a white pebble canal on its peak funnels the water of a new fountain to fall into a cut in the pavement. (MB)

References • Di Meo, Elviro. 2010. “Il non luogo: L’altro volto dello spazio pubblico.” OFARCH International Magazine of Architecture and Design (115): 112-117. • Pellegrini, Pietro C. 2005. Piazze e spazi pubblici: Architetture 1990-2005. 24 Ore Cultura: Milan. • Zucchi Architetti. 2002. “Public spaces in Gratosoglio quarter.” Accessed November 20, 2019. http://www.zucchiarchitetti.com/ projects/landscape/pa004/. ITALIAN INTERSTICES DESIGN MAP

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