Form and sense of public space: a morphological reading of informal city

La ciudad informal surge como respuesta concreta a la necesidad primaria del hogar, en gran parte desatendido por las políticas sociales incapaces de sostener la urbanización imperante que vincula el futuro del hombre con el de la ciudad. El espacio público, de interés secundario, se sacrifica o se reduce a a su mínima expresión, donde la función social se lleva a cabo mediante un camino o una plaza temporal y cambiante, pronto ocupada por nuevos edificios. La ausencia de espacios públicos es una característica común de los asentamientos espontáneos, pero, por otra parte, constituye su contradicción más evidente. Si la ciudad informal se basa en relaciones de necesidad mutua entre habitantes que construyen el tejido social antes de componer espacios urbanos, ¿cómo puede esa comunidad no exigir lugares dónde reunirse? Si hay un prototipo de espacio público, ¿cómo se define en términos de recognoscibilidad e identidad? Refutando la posición de quienes asocian la informalidad con el fin de la ciudad, la investigación intenta responder a estas preguntas a través de la lectura de las formas urbanas configuradas en el signo de la autonomía. El estudio analítico, basado en las teorías morfológicas de la escuela Italiana (Muratori, Caniggia), se realiza sobre la Villa 21-24, un caso de estudio emblemático en la historia de Buenos Aires. Desde la perspectiva de la sostenibilidad urbana y la inclusión social, este trabajo trata de superar la dicotomía habitual entre las ciudades formales e informales. Regenerar la ciudad a partir del espacio público significa redescubrir su función original, restituir la forma y el significado a los lugares, crear una nueva identidad entre sus habitantes

26. Ámbito 4. Forma y sentido del espacio público. Una lectura morfológica de la ciudad informal

Comunicación de Deborah C. Lefosse; Rosalba Belibani para ISUF-H

Regeneration and Sustainability: a comparison of practices

In a view of a city as a living system reframing urban theories and images starting from the 20th century, regeneration is the organic metaphor with which a contemporary city was represented,1 as well as a very common term in political programmes and latest generation planning tools. The biological meaning applied to the urban environment does not only mean rebuilding spaces and renewing functions, but restoring new dignity to places for life where citizens can identify with. The concept of “urban regeneration” implies policies and intervention projects to improve abandoned, unqualified or socio-economically, spatially and environmentally degraded urban areas.2 This notion has evolved over time to meet the growing needs of an even more dynamic reality, shifting from punctual rehabilitation action within the urban fabric to integrated programmes extended to the entire urban area aimed at promoting economic activities, restoring sociality, recovering urban ecosystems.3 The purpose of regeneration is to take into account the complexity of urban habitat by encouraging development and improvement in many sectors simultaneously, so as to foster economic growth, decrease social and cultural inequity, strengthen community cohesion and social capital, minimize climate change risk.4 Such all-embracing nature of urban regeneration is also its greatest limitation: difficult challenges along with the need to satisfy multiple interests have produced partial and incongruent outcomes favouring people or business alternatively. This is why sustainability, in its various declinations, is embedded with urban regeneration policies, especially regarding the interaction of initiatives to support the city economy, living standards, climate change adaptation and mitigation. Regeneration aims to favor new urban life processes capable of generating social and economical dynamics, but mainly environmental ones: indeed, awareness and protection of the built environment form the basis of the whole concept of sustainability. However, including sustainability in the urban practice is to be supported by a significant cultural change, in the absence of which the essence of sustainability remains a mere label with no real content. Regeneration goes far beyond the objectives, aspirations, and results of urban upgrading

From hospitality to Urban Conflict. Morphologies in Transformation in Mediterranean Ports

Port is a complex non-place to analyze, it narrates the history of the Mediterranean, expresses the ethos of its populations, their deep sense of hospitality. Often the port coincides with the foundational nucleus or with the city gate, the economic pole, the favorite place for meetings and comparison. However, it also represents a limit, a closed perimeter that excludes the gaze and the presence of the citizen. Thus, the port is conceived only as an operational area, takes on typical forms that are difficult to integrate into the urban fabric, and can soon become an abandoned area, often in decline. The increasing migratory flows make the waterfront a very topical subject for social and design disciplines: issues of segregation and coexistence are associated with problems related to the use of public space. The aim of the research is to understand the mutual interactions between city and port, the morphological dynamics that have transformed the landscape into a territory, the role of design as a vehicle for spatial regeneration and social integration. With an integrated approach between morphology and design experimentation, applied for now only to the case of the city of Messina, the work aims to reconstruct the evolution of historic ports in the Mediterranean, recognizing the port heritage and enhancing it with inclusion strategies. Regenerating the city from the waterfront means rediscovering spaces and habits, expanding economic and cultural horizons, creating new community identity

The Affective City - vol. 1

Il volume affronta le prospettive di studio contemporanee sul tema del rapporto fra percezione della città e dimensione emotiva