Towards Design Strategies for Requalifying the Rural: A Comparative Study of Hollow Settlements in China and Italy

Smallsettlementsincountrysideareascallforagrowingnumberofchallengesagainst the backdrop of global rural-urban transition. In this paper, we focus on the processes of depopulation and building abandonment in rural areas of China and Italy. We consider two similar experiences taking place in different contexts, and suggest useful design tools for strategies of architectural requalification. In China, we study a small village in Fujian Province as a paradigmatic example of the well-known phenomenon of “hollow villages.” The word hollow refers to the emptying of dwellings in the central parts of rural settlements, while, paradoxically, their fringe areas are the object of residential land expansion. This notion was coined in the early 1990s to describe the spatial, social and economic consequences of the combination of a rural exodus and a rampant urbanisation. In Italy, we consider a case study in the Province of Trento, where the evacuation of village central cores follow the sprawling towards the village’s outskirts. Even though the recent trends show that the demographic haemorrhage away from the village is declining, the abandonment of old houses in favour of the construction of new ones seems relentless. Such issues gather a growing interest by cultural, political and academic institutions. Never the less, little attention has been paid to the similarities of architectural experiences across national boundaries. Aiming to bridge this gap, we compare the results of our studies on the architectural requalification of rural settlements in both China and Italy. Our methodology embodies a graphic representation of our fieldwork, examines the relationships between the built form and its natural framework and analytically assesses the physical condition and use level of the existing buildings. Despite local specificities, there are significant overlaps from which these and other cases can gain insight. We observe that similar transnational issues can be stimulated by global transition processes driven by local forces and context-related patterns of spatial transformation. More specifically, the intensity and the extent of hollowing of Chinese villages stimulates the broad testing of a spectrum of methodologies and knowledges. These can be both inherited from other contexts or experimented with as innovative approaches. From this perspective, the Italian experience, where the abandonment dates backwards in time, is a fruitful source of comparison

Greenways as a New Potential for Shrinking Cities. The Case of Milan (Italy)

The paper aims to illustrate the transformation of Milan, focusing on its relationship with (urban) greenways. At the beginning of XXI century Milan was deeply converted into a mere service industry centre. The change modified also its territory. Brownfields took place of industries and logistic compounds, places without a use dotting its urban fabric. In the 1970s, visionary architects, planners, and landscape architects started to design a series of parks surrounding the town, creating a green crown fading its outskirts. North Park and South Park together with Boscoincittà (Wood-in-town) created a continuous green curtain setting the basis for a circular greenway. In the 1990s some studies, including the PhD thesis ‘Post-industrial Green’ by one of the authors and the academic research ‘Metro-Bosco’ by Stefano Boeri, demonstrated how Milan, while becoming a shrinking town passing from 2 million to 1.6 million inhabitants, could be transformed in a town where districts could be connected through green corridors. These theories, even if they had good dissemination and were widely published, actually didn’t become real as Milanese Administration imposed an anachronistic policy based on the developing of new neighbourhoods, trying to ‘sprawl’ a city that actually was decreasing. This proposal however bore a series of radiant green corridors starting in the centre of Milan (Raggi Verdi -Green Rays, a project by LAND, 2005). In the second decade of the new Millennium, it was clear that Milan had to accept to decrease, enabling at the same time a way to foster the quality of life for its citizens. In the last five years, the new Administration’s policy encouraged the abandoned areas requalification (actions ‘Re-shaping Milan’ 2015, and ‘Re-shaping Milan’, 2018-ongoing, developed with the Politecnico di Milano), and asked Italian Railways (Trenitalia) to ‘give back’ to the town six unused railways-yards encrusted in the city territory. This request, endorsed also by the common people - asking more and more green spaces and slow mobility in the town-, became real with the visionary plan “Fiume Verde” by Studio Boeri Architetti (Green River, 2016). This proposal designed a net of inner green corridors able to increase deeply the city green surface. In 2018, the first international competition to transform two railway-yards has been launched. One will be a linear park, the other will host the widest Milanese public park). The first concrete milestones for a green-way transformation of Milan

How 15-min City, Tactical Urbanism, and Superblock Concepts Are Affecting Major Cities in the Post-Covid-19 Era?

Producción CientíficaThis chapter analyses three strategies proposed to redefine current urban policies to deal with issues inherited from the contemporary city evolution. The case study analysis focuses on applying the concepts of 15-min City, Tactical Urbanism, and Superblock in global cities such as Barcelona, Shanghai, and Milan. Have these cities changed the urban environment and mobility patterns dealing with health, social, and economic inequities? Which have been the impacts of urban regeneration, governance, and inclusion towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 11, emphasizing the need for inclusivity and equitability in urban areas? These questions find the answer in three main aspects. First, the regeneration of the existing built environment; second, short-, medium-, and long-term governance issues; third, the concerns about the possible risk of gentrification. An introductive part explains the adopted methodology, follows an analysis of the three case studies, and, eventually, remarks on what we learned. Two are the primary outcomes: a comparison between different global cities and diverse ways to deal with the impacts of people-centered solutions for urban environments and an evaluation of 15-min City, Tactical Urbanism, and Superblocks feasible solutions for sustainable urban transition

Challenges of recovery and resilience: ArhiBau.hr 2022 scientific conference proceedings

Producción CientíficaSince introducing the new urban planning instruments in 2012 – Piano del Governo del Territorio (PGT) – Milan has commenced a new approach to the definition of its urban environment, the services availability, and the redevelopment of the public spaces. The PGT aims to improve citizens’ and city users’ life quality by implementing various tools addressing the contemporary urban agenda’s ecological, mobility, and cultural challenges. In particular, Milan is trying to align with the global metropolitan vision of the 15-minute City concept and to cope with this objective by applying traditional tools (long-term planning process) and smart city strategies (tactical urbanism). In a context of an emerging global ecological and socioeconomic crisis driven by the pandemic and the war, this paper aims to evaluate the PGT ten years after its introduction by interrogating how public spaces have changed in quantitative and qualitative terms and the perspective for 2030 goals introduced by the PGT update in 2020. Green corridors and tactical urbanism plans may be an interpretative key to illustrate elements of success, weakness, and threats for the future development of the metropolitan city

The chinese ‘high and slender’ condominium

The vertical dimension in the urban structure of Chinese megacities is the unique key that has allowed to cluster millions of people in highly concentrated areas. The exponential growth of Chinese cities since the ‘80s of the last century has been possible thanks to social and land policies in support of urbanism developed through models of constructions that have favored the vertical dimension alone. The essay, after having retraced the history of vertical urbanization in the Chinese metropolis, puts a critical emphasis on the typology of the Chinese condominium

Industrial heritage and landscape. The role of water in the architectural reactivation of the Burgo Paper Mill in Mantua

The paper is part of a research project, carried out within the Polytechnic University of Milan about the Burgo Paper Mill, an industrial settlement involved in the production of paper near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Mantua, on the banks of the Lago di Mezzo lake. The area represents an exceptional case study related to the topics of industrial reconversion, landscape, environmental design, and the valorization of cultural and natural heritage. The recent change in the site ownership fostered a new life cycle, which represents the occasion for the enhancement of its architectural and landscape heritage. The research project focused on a new system of relations between architectural artefacts and open spaces, with a particular consideration about socioeconomic and cultural themes, as well as the role that water can play in the future development of the site. Water plays a key role in the definition of cultural and natural elements in this research project, revealing new possibilities for revitalization of the industrial settlement as well as the whole territorial framework. Between theoretical thought and design experimentation, pursuing to tackle the problem in its whole complexity, the authors understood the necessity of a multi-scalar approach structured within a time-based strategy

Industrial heritage and landscape. The role of water in the architectural reactivation of the Burgo Paper Mill in Mantua

The paper is part of a research project, carried out within the Polytechnic University of Milan about the Burgo Paper Mill, an industrial settlement involved in the production of paper near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Mantua, on the banks of the Lago di Mezzo lake. The area represents an exceptional case study related to the topics of industrial reconversion, landscape, environmental design, and the valorization of cultural and natural heritage. The recent change in the site ownership fostered a new life cycle, which represents the occasion for the enhancement of its architectural and landscape heritage. The research project focused on a new system of relations between architectural artefacts and open spaces, with a particular consideration about socioeconomic and cultural themes, as well as the role that water can play in the future development of the site. Water plays a key role in the definition of cultural and natural elements in this research project, revealing new possibilities for revitalization of the industrial settlement as well as the whole territorial framework. Between theoretical thought and design experimentation, pursuing to tackle the problem in its whole complexity, the authors understood the necessity of a multi-scalar approach structured within a time-based strategy

Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning

Producción CientíficaOur proposal deals with the meaning of urban voids in the post-COVID-19 period to suggest new understandings of how urban green corridors can positively affect design for healthier and more sustainable cities. According to Secchi (1986), planning through the void involves a profound revision of the way we think about the city, reversing the points of interest, proposing as polarities the spaces that do not usually emerge. The void thus becomes an opportunity, a chance to improve the structure of our urban landscape (Lopez-Pineiro, 2020). A city is a powerful place, always in motion and transformation. It has an artificial spirit full of surprises and vague limits. It is the scene of remarkable transformations that in their wildness are partially ungovernable by the designers themselves. The desire to control them leaves a series of abandoned and unfinished spaces, “holes” that live from their discontinuity with the surroundings (Labriola, 2021). During a period of crisis, like the one that we are still living with COVID-19 (Fabris et al, 2020), it is common to re-think our cities to create better places for the community. After the long period of forced distance that we lived, an evolution of public space is recommended. During the pandemic, the emptiness of our cities permitted Nature to re-appropriate its spaces. Following this trend and thinking about a new kind of public space where Nature and its inside processes are the protagonists, it is possible to intervene in our cities. The porosity of the urban fabric in towns without humans, blocked at home by the never-ending lockdowns, became a new green corridor that revealed the presence of wildlife (both fauna and flora) as part of a forgotten urban layer that turned visible again. The preservation of this new asset should be possible. The spaces to allow this change can be the abandoned and empty areas present in the contemporary city’s sick body that we can finally heal. The so-called wastelands, voids, or terrain vague, have a significant value independent from the environment in which they are inserted, showing a relationship with the contemporary city extraneous to its rhythms. For this reason, they are the perfect place for experimentation in terms of greenways, a possible starting point to re-think how green can be part of the urban texture and how to conceive public and open spaces after the nowadays crisis. The paper considers the Metropolitan City of Milan as a remarkable case study to understand the pivotal role played by urban voids in the formation of greenways and their capacity of reshaping the environmental, aesthetic and healthy dimensions of urban landscapes

Urban Voids After the Pandemic. A New Chance for Greenway

Our proposal deals with the meaning of urban voids in the post-COVID-19 period to suggest new understandings of how urban green corridors can positively affect design for healthier and more sustainable cities. According to Secchi (1986), planning through the void involves a profound revision of the way we think about the city, reversing the points of interest, proposing as polarities the spaces that do not usually emerge. The void thus becomes an opportunity, a chance to improve the structure of our urban landscape (Lopez-Pineiro, 2020). A city is a powerful place, always in motion and transformation. It has an artificial spirit full of surprises and vague limits. It is the scene of remarkable transformations that in their wildness are partially ungovernable by the designers themselves. The desire to control them leaves a series of abandoned and unfinished spaces, “holes” that live from their discontinuity with the surroundings (Labriola, 2021). During a period of crisis, like the one that we are still living with COVID-19 (Fabris et al, 2020), it is common to re-think our cities to create better places for the community. After the long period of forced distance that we lived, an evolution of public space is recommended. During the pandemic, the emptiness of our cities permitted Nature to re-appropriate its spaces. Following this trend and thinking about a new kind of public space where Nature and its inside processes are the protagonists, it is possible to intervene in our cities. The porosity of the urban fabric in towns without humans, blocked at home by the never-ending lockdowns, became a new green corridor that revealed the presence of wildlife (both fauna and flora) as part of a forgotten urban layer that turned visible again. The preservation of this new asset should be possible. The spaces to allow this change can be the abandoned and empty areas present in the contemporary city’s sick body that we can finally heal. The so-called wastelands, voids, or terrain vague, have a significant value independent from the environment in which they are inserted, showing a relationship with the contemporary city extraneous to its rhythms. For this reason, they are the perfect place for experimentation in terms of greenways, a possible starting point to re-think how green can be part of the urban texture and how to conceive public and open spaces after the nowadays crisis. The paper considers the Metropolitan City of Milan as a remarkable case study to understand the pivotal role played by urban voids in the formation of greenways and their capacity of reshaping the environmental, aesthetic and healthy dimensions of urban landscapes

Design and circular economy. Architectures that regenerate the built fabric

Although the circular economy has occupied a crucial place in the development agendas of industrialized countries in recent years, the construction sector still seems far from a mature understanding of the cultural dimensions related to the notion of circularity since, until now, its focus has been mainly on improving technological solutions. However, the circular economy opens up new operational frontiers beyond the scale of the construction detail. It embraces more complex social and cultural fields that ultimately question the changing relationship between man and inhabited space. The article assumes this perspective and examines the possible implications of circular logics’ spatial organizations at larger scales that have a great impact on settlement forms, proposing a critical comparison between two case studies characterized by two built fabrics with different densities. The first one is the regeneration of the Ilot de l’Arc de Triomphe district (high density and compactness), and the second one is the transformation of Contrada Bricconi (low density and rarefaction). The two design experiences ensurie a second life to inhabited artifacts and soils