In the ordinary city. New ways to trigger contemporary spaces of contact

This research aims at exploring the ordinary spaces of contemporary cities and at investigating the way in which nowadays social dynamics and contacts express themselves in the urban mileu. Using as a reference Andrea Di Giovanni’s definition of spazi comuni, this thesis addresses urban spaces that are normal and ordinary, generic and simple, diffused and frequent, collective and public (Di Giovanni, 2010). It focuses on those parts of the city that often seem meaningless and unworthy of design attention, taken for granted as side-effects of current city developments: spaces whose dynamics are usually framed using as a reference the historical neighbourhood dimension, even if they are actually featuring relevant social transformations. Parts of the contemporary city that differ from emerging and gentrifying neighbourhoods, characterised by a rediscovered community dimension, as well as from inner city areas, animated by city users and outdoor life. Although ordinary spaces seem to be significant only to a few segments of the urban population, they cannot be discarded or overlooked: the majority of city inhabitants still reside there. Their interpretation should be questioned right through the new tensions put up by the emerging contemporary urban system. On one hand, ordinary spaces are in contraposition with the rising networked space that concentrates around nodes and centralities. On the other hand, they are the terrain for proximity, still relevant even if mutated after technological revolutions. Ordinary spaces, then, are still alive and host new forms of living the public sphere. The identification and selection of the specific physical context of Umbria-Molise area in Milan highlighted the potential character of ordinary urban spaces, firstly through an intensive exploration and an analytical observation of its public spaces and secondly through the development of a design proposal. Understanding the ground complexity through categories related to normality and everyday-life allowed to overcome the image of a flattened and banal space. On the contrary, it unveiled spontaneous forms of sociality reflecting spatial and social practices. In between the internal residential spaces of the household and the public dimension of urban centralities, contemporary spaces of contact find their reason of existing. Not only in a theoretical sense, but also in a physical one: a blurred threshold between internal and external spaces of two high schools and a student house is the means through which I aimed at the definition of a new place in Umbria-Molise. The traditional street is enriched by a different articulation of its borders, which enables forms of light interactions in relation with the public services. If we look at the urban ordinary spaces and to their possible enhancement with the same attention as the one which is usually placed on urban centralities, it is firstly possible to underline a relevant potential role of public investments and services, since these spaces do not provide for an immediate economical return. Moreover, it would serve to recognise and accept the complexity of nowadays urban contexts, which concentrate or scatter over broad territories. A complexity that not only deals with the built environment, but also with the way people experience it: acknowledging a role to ordinary spaces means to recognise the different ways in which the public sphere is lived and the different public dimensions that take place in it.

La ricerca di tesi si propone di esplorare gli spazi comuni della città contemporanea e di investigare le odierne dinamiche sociali urbane, con attenzione ai modi in cui si esprime la dimensione del contatto.