Imparare dai playground. Luoghi collettivi diffusi per la città contemporanea

The purpose of the research is the investigation of the possibility to re-define a structure of collective places in the contemporary city, focusing on the local scale. Its legitimation arises from the neglected conditions of many public spaces: they are often unsuitable for contemporary needs, for the architectural quality, for the dimension of space and for their location. Is the space property, or rather its being public, enough to develop in the inhabitants the feeling of identification in it? Or, in other words, is it able to translate a public space into a collective place? Some occurrences, like the insurrection of the banlieues or, on the contrary, the community gardens, make one reflect on the deep distance between the quality of open spaces and their actual use, between those who design spaces according to abstract principles and those who live these places with their true needs. Due to the phenomenon of the sprawl of cities, with its erosion of the ground, according to many observers, it is necessary to reflect on the contemporary way to regenerate the city itself, which can be interpreted as a Common Good. By the year 2050, 70% of the world population will live in cities and in their surroundings, that have to be designed as comfortable places where people have the right to live. In opposition to the Plan Voisin of Le Corbusier, Richard Sennet suggests the regeneration of a more open and democratic city, with active boundaries, incomplete forms and an open narrative. The thesis tries to look at the contemporary city with an introspective practice which, starting from the generated phenomena, looks for their underlying principles. Some of the contemporary public spaces are designed according to the abstract and ideological principles of the Modern Movement, that degenerated into the urban extensions of the second half of the twentieth century. By recalling the themes developed by CIAM and Team X, it is possible to identify some milestones in the Charte d’Athènes and in CIAM's view of the city and urbanism in order to understand the principles of the public space’s design in the contemporary city. The research tries to establish an alternative path for the progressive denial of the values of the place, reviewing some masterful projects. The criticism of the concept of space, as a homogeneous, isotropic and discontinuous background proposed by the Charte and by the Modern Movement, opens different perspectives and visions of the city, primarily as a place of memory to interact with, a plot open to modification and as a social structure. The project of Amsterdam’s playgrounds designed by Aldo van Eyck is taken as a counter-milestone of a different way to interpret the city and the citizens. Some authors have deeply investigated his work (Liane Lefaivre, Francis Strauven, Vincent Ligtelijn just to mention a few), however van Eyck's playground designs are often widely underestimated. The use of secondary sources is legitimated because they are used to suggest a project for the contemporary city and not as a new interpretation of the work of Aldo van Eyck. His designs of playgrounds show how it is possible to create a system of collective places with site-specific interventions, but with a clear belonging to an overall project (variation in repetition): changes in geometry according to the context and the fact of valuing constraints and boundary functions are considered as positive elements of the project. More than 700 playgrounds were built in Amsterdam in a lapse of time of around thirty years. This shows how the possibilities to generate a collective place could be found everywhere. Moreover, playgrounds have always been created following the request of the inhabitants who lived in the surrounding area. Children have used them as an extension of their doorstep, as playgrounds represented the threshold between the private dwelling and the public sphere. Liane Lefaivre has recently tried to interpret van Eyck’s playground as a participative, interstitial and polycentric system. She tested her model in two different contexts in the city of Rotterdam, noting interesting observations. The research assumes her interpretation of van Eyck's playgrounds and her project on Rotterdam and tries to go beyond it, deducing some teachings for the contemporary city. Those teachings are multidisciplinary, and they reflect the approach to the research: it is possible to define some issues in the field of architecture from the point of view of spatial qualities (one tool), in the field of urbanism – as a diffuse incremental system in the dimension of time (one strategy) – and, last but not least, in the relationship between inhabitants and their local context (one tactic). Nowadays those issues are configured in few themes like, for example, the design of boundaries and the link between citizens and places. They are essential aspects to support the use of the space and to promote social integration. It is also important to define an urban strategy that allows those modifications due to the continuous change of the inhabitants’ needs. Moreover, looking at the contemporary city, it is possible to recognize new ways of using the city as, for example, the collective places created by the citizens in residual and abandoned areas. The writings of Gilles Clement are indicated as a turning point of a new consciousness towards the environment and the landscape. They had an influence in the field of architecture, urbanism and in the cultural behaviours to biodiversity and residual areas. The research tries to apply those teachings to the city of Milan. It starts by looking at the topic of the “public interest”, which has changed during the last twenty years. It then highlights recent experiences of the community gardens, in particular for their potential for the city transformation. In addition to the N.I.L. (Nuclei di Identità Locale) and the D.U.C. (Distretti Urbani del Commercio), the community gardens created by the inhabitants are interpreted as new resources thanks to which it is possible to develop a new system of collective places on a local scale. Unlike the formers, that are planned by public administration, the latters are often bottom-up experiences that express the citizens’ behaviours as the real actors who take care of their own city. Those experiences support a re-generation of the city and the citizenship through a new structure of collective places that could spread all over the city. It is possible to stratify this polycentric constellation on the regional environmental system. Learning from “Playgrounds” wants to express the value that could be discovered inside the experience of Amsterdam of over fifty years ago. Nowadays a reflection on that project is important because it was able to generate a system of collective places, actual experience of social aggregation, spread in time all over the city. The playgrounds by Aldo van Eyck recognised the necessity of space where children could play. It is fundamental to investigate everyday life from a new point of view that allows one to reach the actual needs of contemporary society. Nowadays it is possible to interpret the collective gardens as an answer to an inhibited willpower. In these places the citizens show a new responsibility and a new relationship with their own urban environment. At the same time, this experience of voluntary shared space fosters the social integration between people from different ages and backgrounds. Finally, the dissertation reflects on the role that the architect and the urban planner could have in this process where the inhabitants take care of their own city.

Questo lavoro si inserisce nel filone di ricerche che si interroga sulle forme dello spazio pubblico nella città attuale indagando il rapporto tra qualità urbana e vita civile. Il lavoro, prendendo spunto dalla riflessione di Richard Sennet sui caratteri di una possibile nuova idea di “città aperta e democratica”, si interroga sul ruolo di Architettura e Urbanistica rispetto alle nuove modalità di riappropriazione e trasformazione dello spazio aperto. Ripartendo dall'esperienza dei playground di Aldo van Eyck, si riflette su come tale progetto possa essere attuale e utile per configurare un sistema diffuso e incrementale di luoghi collettivi, articolato in molteplici esperienze puntuali. Rifiutando la retorica delle derive moderniste contemporanee che ha assunto la forma della città, si prova a rileggere l’esperienza moderna individuando un nodo cruciale negli ultimi CIAM e nella critica alla Carta di Atene da parte del Team 10. Il progetto dei playground di Amsterdam viene preso come emblema di un modo diverso di intendere non solo il progetto dello spazio aperto, ma anche l'Idea di città e il valore delle sue pratiche quotidiane. Si ritiene che non sia possibile trattare il tema dello spazio pubblico restando confinati all'interno di un’unica disciplina. La ricerca è impostata a partire dunque da una lettura trasversale dei playground secondo una dimensione architettonica, urbanistica e sociale: come luoghi specifici e non come spazio astratto; come modello incrementale invece che come Piano precostituito; e nel rapporto con le esigenze e l'uso dei singoli individui. Non si propone una reinterpretazione dell'esperienza olandese quanto invece se ne suggerisce un uso progettuale riscontrandone diversi caratteri di estrema attualità. Vengono evidenziati tre possibili insegnamenti: il primo consiste nel riformulare il progetto dello spazio aperto come strumento per la rigenerazione delle città esistenti, attraverso la valorizzazione delle specificità locali e il progetto dei suoi bordi; il secondo è individuabile in una strategia urbana diffusa e incrementale, in grado di adattarsi a contesti differenti e che accoglie le modificazioni; il terzo risiede nel prendere in considerazione l'uso collettivo, non prescrittivo, dei luoghi attraverso tattiche spontanee di riappropriazione del proprio territorio. Si propongono diverse concretizzazioni attuali del concetto di “in-between” in una dimensione architettonico-spaziale, urbanistico-temporale e delle pratiche sociali. La ricerca articola una riflessione su Milano, a partire dal passato prossimo, prendendo in considerazione le recenti esperienze dei giardini condivisi. Queste nuove realtà sono presentate come luoghi collettivi che interpretano in modo innovativo il tipico conflitto istituzione-cittadino e aprono a nuovi possibili scenari. La ricerca sostiene che anche queste esperienze possano essere parte di un più ampio sistema diffuso di luoghi collettivi di prossimità concretizzabile attraverso occasioni puntuali sempre più dense. Un nuovo scenario degli spazi pubblici potrebbe dunque esserre costruito sovrapponendo i giardini condivisi alla riqualificazione delle centralità locali dei NIL. Questi sistemi di spazi aperti alla scala locale costituirebbero una nuova potenziale figura da far interagire con la scala vasta delle invarianti ambientali come i sistemi agricoli e fluviali oltre che i grandi parchi periurbani. I cittadini, attraverso lo strumento dei giardini condivisi, si riappropriano direttamente della costruzione del proprio territorio, agendo in prima persona, praticando lo spazio. Gli insegnamenti dell’esperienza olandese dei playground sono dunque ancora estremamente utili e attuali perché si basano su un rapporto con la città che parte da un ascolto attendo della quotidianità con cui elaborare un progetto di ampio respiro.