La condizione abitativa della periferia

Il paper si addentra nel termine ambiguo di “periferia” ponendo l’accento sull’eterogeneità e sulla pervasività delle situazioni insediative che possono a esso essere ricondotte. La periferia, condizione sintetica transcalare di marginalità sociale, economica, estetica, segna regioni o parti degli stati, porzioni di aree metropolitane, di città, di quartieri, di edifici, di porzioni di essi, e incerti spazi. Nell’Agenda urbana 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile delle Nazioni Unite la periferia diviene una dimensione planetaria, in relazione all’urbanizzazione. Ciò evidenzia un portato etico che subentra ai precedenti modi di costituire l’ufficialità dei valori, di legittimare le azioni di trasformazione dell’habitat. I processi in corso sottolineano come le operazioni di rigenerazione e di upgrade intraprese in Europa e in Italia negli ultimi decenni non hanno diminuito la distanza reale e immaginaria tra i territori esterni e i centri città; anzi in questo momento segnalano la permanenza della condizione periferica. In ciò si annidano forme di disuguaglianza, ma anche opportunità. Due situazioni italiane (Torino, la periferia Nord e Falchera; Genova, i quartieri di Marassi, Sturla e Forte Quezzi) fungono da esplorazioni locali delle dinamiche globali di urbanizzazione. L’esito è un resoconto sull’opportunità di abbandonare le logiche di assimilazione delle periferie a contesti urbani generici. Occorre deviare da ogni obiettivo di “normalizzazione”, a favore della valorizzazione della specificità non eliminabile di queste situazioni in chiave di rilancio progettuale e immaginativo

Abitazione e dispositivi geopolitici di inclusione. Gli insediamenti per i rifugiati

The issue of international migration, cultural and universal rights of individuals, the classification of the population in relation to temporary conditions of hospitality has become global. The rhetoric of return to belonging and lasting identity, the interdependence and the informality of the conditions of conflict have created permanent housing emergency conditions. Refugee camps are dramatic political expression of this issue. Despite this is a field of research and direct investigation in situations where access is often difficult, it is clear that settlements of this extension and life-span cannot consist in the combination of individual housing units, subjected to regimes of military security. Random and forced cohabitation necessarily develops some basic social functions, which should be considered by current refugee camp design, beyond the logic of emergency

I campi mondiali per i rifugiati politici. Tracce di socialità

The specific condition of political refugees fleeing from subnational, national and international wars concerns Italy, Europe, the global geopolitical order, and the governmental and non-governmental organizations that deal with it by statute (and in various capacities). The issue, in spite of the topicality and urgency, tends to be invisible, or hidden within the more general issue of immigration. The initial research question is the way in which dwelling is provided to people in a state of suspension of the right (Agamben 1995). An overview on the technical literature for the planning of refugee camps, and a mapping, albeit provisional of existing camps, justify the claim that these settlements have gradually moved away from the search for urban form, albeit temporary, while approaching to emergency solutions. Communitarian and participatory approach, which until the eighties were present in camp design, were subsequently replaced with approaches based on minimum standards and predetermined military-style layout, which have focused on control by the international institutions. The main aim is to respond in a coded way to the needs of increasingly large masses of displaced persons in conditions of extraterritoriality. The average duration of a refugee camp is 7 years, with extremes of over 40 years, and the population level can exceed 200,000 persons. The one-size-fits-all camp design promoted by technical literature (UNHCR 2007; Sphere Project 2011) and implemented by international agencies, is not appropriate in local contexts. A more realistic unpredictability, in relation to armed conflicts whose duration cannot be known in advance, would generate models that could be more flexible and responsive to the needs of the users (Kennedy 2008). In this temporary situation, which may last months or years, the research analyze which levels of sociability and exchange develop between the inhabitants, and which measures and spatial principles may favor them. The social sciences deal with the impacts of the permanent temporariness on people. Persons recognized as refugees live a bare life, in which citizenship rights are obliterated (Agamben 1995) and only the biological functions are guaranteed by a "western transfusion". Despite everything, when duration is extended over time, camps develop a specific urban vocabulary (Herz 2013), really different from the initial planning: places of segregation independently produce exchange, meeting, informal economy

ReHab. Living, Inhabitants, Houses

At the beginning of the economic crisis in 2007, housing became a central commodity in the short-circuit system of mortgages granted to private individuals and businesses. In the aftermath of the crisis, and in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, housing -as a right, in its most radical form- re-emerged due to local housing, migration, and health emergencies. In light of an eclipse of a general discourse on housing, a new secular and international ethics arose, both foreign and superior to nation states. This book returns to a broader notion of hpousing: using metaphors of sanitary and salvific reinstatement, it retrieves case studies from the 1950s for re-conceptualising the housing question in contemporary architecture and visual arts

Las historias generales de alojamiento y las clases en la literatura

El artículo se enfoca en la inestabilidad teórica como uno de los rasgos del asunto de los orígenes modernos del tema a la condición contemporánea. El alojamiento en la arquitectura y urbanismo relacionado con la interpretación disciplinaria del tema residencial no componen una colección unívoca. Esta declaración se remite a la condición moderna, que viene establecida con la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y durando hasta el día de hoy. La clave específica para investigar el campo es buscada en las historias y teorías generales de la casa. La condición para conseguir una clasificación de la evolución de la casa es obtenida por la escritura de una historia de evolucionista lineal, directamente inspirada por la biología y por el pensamiento científico. Esta estructura del texto tiene que ser analizada en sí misma, y también en cuanto a otras explicaciones generales del asunto, mencionando la estructura del discurso que permite hablar sobre "la casa", para conceptuar y diseñar.The paper focuses on the theoretical instability as one of the steady features of the topic. Housing in architecture and urbanism related to the disciplinary interpretation of the residential theme do not compose a univocal set. This statement is referred to the modern condition, established with the second half of the XIX century and lasting until the present time. The specific key by which to investigate the field is searched in the general histories and theories of the house. The condition by which to get a classification of the evolution of the house is obtained through the writing of a linear evolutionist history, directly inspired by the biology and by the scientific thought. This structure of the text has to be analyzed in itself and regarding the other general explanations of the topic, discussing the structure of the argument that allows to speak about the “house” conceptualizing and designing it