martedì 24 novembre 2015

Architettura da Cani


La Pet Economy è in continua espansione e la domanda di prodotti tecnologici, non solo gadget ma anche servizi, è sempre più forte. Basta pensare che gli americani possiedono 395 milioni di animali domestici e tutto il settore della pet economy è valutato 59 miliardi di dollari. 
Le stime prevedono che possa crescere al ritmo del 7% l’anno per i prossimi vent’anni.
Una vera vita da cani.

Oggi i proprietari di animali domestici  sono disposti a rinunciare a caffè, a weekend romantici a viaggi, ma non al buon collare, alla crocchetta buona e sana o anche perché no, all’ultima novità tech.
Una tendenza che porta gli imprenditori più attenti a ideare sorprendenti proposte.

In questo articolo di oggi parlerò dell’Architettura da Cani.

Quali sono le cucce più lussuose e belle mai progettate per i nostri amici a 4 zampe?
Vi parlerò inizialmente di due progetti di Architettura “Hight Level” per cani in cui Architetti di fama mondiale hanno ideato e progettato le migliori cucce architettoniche di design mai viste fino ad ora.



Si è svolta il 10 maggio al Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Kanazawa, in Giappone, la mostra 'Architecture for Dogs', dove personaggi del calibro di Kengo Kuma e Kazuyo Sejima, hanno esplorato nuove possibilità creative dell'architettura reinterpretandole dal punto di vista e dalle prospettive dei nostri amici a quattro zampe.
Il progetto comprende ben 28 opere di 13 architetti e designer, tutti dedicate ai cani.
Pezzo particolarmente creativo e inusuale della mostra, il cui direttore creativo è Kenya Hara, è stato il lavoro realizzato per il Chihuahua dallo studio di design Reiser+Umemoto.

Intitolato 'Chihuahua Cloud' consiste in una sorta di vestito arancione che copre la testa e il corpo del cane come una nuvola. Per il muso è stata utilizzata una rete per consentire al cane di guardarsi intorno. Sembra un abito di fantasia in una sfilata di moda, ma gli artisti sostengono che il loro lavoro vuole essere "architettura che viaggia con il cane."
Concettualmente un progetto davvero molto bello ma sarà davvero apprezzata dal povero Chihuahua??

Incredibile anche il lavoro di Hiroshi Naito, intitolato  'Dog Cooler', un pezzo fatto per uno Spitz e dedicato dall'artista al suo Pepe, il cane con cui ha trascorso 16 anni e che quando faceva troppo caldo era sempre spossato.
L'opera è stata creata collegando tubi in alluminio, un materiale ad elevata conducibilità termica, all'interno del quale si possono inserire sacchetti ghiacciati. Poiché solo l'alluminio sarebbe stato scivoloso, Naito ha anche deciso di infilare tra i tubi delle stecche di legno per dare ai cani qualcosa a cui aggrapparsi. Certamente un'architettura realizzata con un attento esame del 'cliente'.


I giapponesi Torafu Architects hanno creato ' Wanmock' per il Jack Russell terrier, una razza nota per avere un acuto senso dell'olfatto e dormire sui vestiti dei loro padroni per il loro profumo. Si tratta di una struttura a dondolo nella quale infilare vestiti del padrone in modo che il cane possa riconoscerne l’odore e dormire molto più serenamente.
Personalmente conoscendo l’iperattività di questa meravigliosa razza;  una maglietta al giorno potrebbe bastare??

L’opera di Toyoo Ito, che ha creato per il suo cane Shiba, appare invece come una cuccia-passeggino. L'artista ha detto che aveva il desiderio di creare un'"architettura mobile che aiutasse il suo amato cane ad andare in giro anche in età avanzata". 

Mentre Atelier Bow Wow studia una seduta-scivolo sovrapponibile in grado di mettere un bassotto allo stesso livello di un essere umano.

Guardando la varietà di opere d’arte realizzate, è chiaro che i creatori non considerano le loro opere semplicemente come "cucce". Tutti sembrano essere d’accordo sul fatto che un piacevole spazio per i cani può essere uno spazio piacevole anche per gli esseri umani e che essendo ogni cane particolare come il proprio padrone la “cuccia ideale” cambia da soggetto a soggetto.

Sicuramente Ispirati dal Progetto Architecture For Dogs Esteban Suárez (insieme allo studio Bunker Arquitectura), in collaborazione con altri nove studi emergenti e il sostegno di una catena di negozi messicani, ha progettato e realizzato 10 case per cani. 

Il risultato è stato reso visibile al Polyforum Siquerios di Città del Messico fino al 18 agosto 2013. 
Dogchitecture è una mostra che espone cucce di design pensate ad hoc per ogni tipo di razza canina.
Queste sono alcune delle immagini dei lavori realizzati.


Sino ad ora abbiamo visto molte proposte di Architetti o Designer circa le cucce più belle e ideali per i loro amici pelosi.

E se invece tutti NOI volessimo diventare Architetti e realizzare con tanta pazienza e amore il rifugio del  nostro amico a 4 zampe?
Ecco qui alcune delle idee migliori e semplicissime per poter realizzare una cuccia innovativa senza spendere una fortuna, utilizzando soltanto qualche vecchio oggetto che andremo a modificare con piccoli ma efficaci interventi.

Cuccia da Riciclo


1° - Pallet
Questi bellissimi moduli di legno possono essere riutilizzati dopo opportune modifiche per costruire tantissime tipologie di cuccia, dalle più piccole e modeste alle più grandi e particolari. Essendo il Pallet una composizione di dimensione standard modulare si presta facilmente alla veloce costruzione di una cuccia di grandi dimensioni  come la classica “casetta di Snoopy” o per realizzare progetti più creativi che prevedono l’aggiunta di un sistema di recupero dell’acqua piovana o l’installazione di un piccolo giardino pensile.

2° - Vecchi Comodini o Credenze
Potete trasformare in poche mosse un vecchio comodino munito di anta in una fantastica cuccia per il vostro cane. Prima di tutto occorre rimuovere l’apertura principale ( o la più agevole ) e stare bene attenti a levigare tutti gli angoli pericolosi e le superfici ruvide o che presentano schegge. Bisogna inoltre stare attentissimi a rimuovere qualsiasi oggetto metallico sporgente ( come chiodi o punti metallici ) che farebbero sicuramente del male ai nostri amici.
Preferibilmente con colori atossici  dipingete con colori allegri e sbizzarrite la vostra fantasia. Un bel cuscino morbido ( preferibilmente in ecopelle ) e il gioco è fatto!

3° - Vecchie Valige
Con delle vecchie valige dal fondo rigido è possibile realizzare un mini divano/cuccia perfetto! Separate la valigia in due metà ed utilizzatene soltanto una delle due, fissate delle viti con dei piedini ai quattro angoli per rialzare la valigia dal terreno . Volendo potete dipingere l’esterno della cuccia sempre utilizzando preferibilmente vernici atossiche. Utilizzate dei comodi cuscini fino a riempire la metà valigia e la cuccia/divano è pronta per fido.

4° - Vecchio Pneumatico
Rappresenta una soluzione semplice per riutilizzare un vecchio pneumatico. Potendo utilizzare soltanto  il volume interno del pneumatico per ovvi motivi questa cuccia può essere realizzata solo per cani di piccola taglia. Lavate e disinfettate precedentemente lo pneumatico, successivamente chiudete una delle due estremità con un fondo di compensato ( o comunque sia rigido ); foderate l’interno con del tessuto e sistemate il solito comodo cuscino all’interno .

5° - Vecchio Monitor o Tv a tubo catodico.
I vecchi  monitor e televisori a tubo catodico preventivamente smembrati internamente di tutti i componenti elettronici ( fare attenzione in questa fase )
possono essere utilizzati per realizzare delle simpatiche e tecnologiche cucce.
Verificata l’assenza di pericolose parti taglienti nell’interno lo scheletro in plastica del monitor o della TV può essere internamente foderato o dipinto.
La parte frontale può inoltre essere personalizzata a proprio piacimento con nomi, scritte o altro.

6° - Vecchia Botte
Questa è forse la soluzione più originale e perfetta per realizzare una cuccia con tante dimensioni diverse. A seconda della stazza del nostro amico possiamo scegliere una botte più o meno grande.
Realizzata un’apertura a piacere su uno dei due lati della botte, lavate e sterilizziate bene l’interno  onde evitare di sbronzare il vostro amico!!  Dipingete, foderate e incuscinate.


Ora che finalmente avete realizzato la vostra bella cuccia state attenti a non trascurare dettagli importanti per la disposizione all’interno della casa.
Per evitare che venga snobbata ricordiamoci di sistemarla ovviamente in ambiente riparato dal vento e dalle intemperie, e di disporla inoltre in modo da consentire al cane un’ottima visuale della casa.


Buona Architettura!! J

mercoledì 18 novembre 2015

Urban Rigeneration : Torino – The case of Porta Palazzo


Introduction



In the last ten to fifteen years the Italian city of Turin has dedicated increasing attention to neighbourhood regeneration. Since 1990 urban decay is widespread in the suburbs of Turin. These suburbs are places with a high unemployment rate and with a concentration of Italian and immigrant population groups that face social exclusion. A large amount of the recent immigration flows from north Africa, Eastern Europe and China settled in these areas as well.


An example to illustrate the urban regeneration and integration policies set up by the city of Turin in one of these particular districts is The Gate project. The Porta Palazzo Committee –The Gate is a social sustainable regeneration project, that can be a valid landmark of public policies’ realisation at a local level.

In this paper it is described how in Turin the current urban regeneration policy is related to the integration policy. The interventions through The Gate project are analyzed and the results are shown. At the end of the paper the question ”what have we learned after ten years of urban regeneration practice in Turin?” is answered.




Urban regeneration and integration policies in Turin



Since the late 1960s the city of Turin was reached and split up by immigration flows. The first immigrants came from the South of Italy during the economic boom.

Turin, being a factory-city, saw its population increase in two decades from 719.000 residents (in 1951) up to 1 million (1.167.968 residents in 1971) 1. Today most immigration comes from different parts of the world: Romania, Morocco, Peru, China, Senegal, Nigeria and the Philippines.


In the last 20 years many local administrations in Italy – and among these there was Turin – started to work at practical solutions to face a growing number of non-national residents.


In general, the city of Turin during this period (till 2006) adopted a sort of “ad hoc approach” to the immigration event, that means that municipal interventions - through the main local actors’ (private and public organisations) - were explicitly targeted to immigrants in specific difficult conditions. In the most recent years, consolidation of the intercultural discourse took place, generating a large number of practises and projects based on the notion of dialogue, mutual exchange and social interaction.

Neighbourhoods such as Porta Palazzo or San Salvario became, more than others in the city, the hosting-towns for the new immigrants, with complex consequences. On the one hand these neighbourhoods became vibrant melting-pot locations because of the mix of languages, colours and different smells from Moroccan cafés, bars, kebabs, Turkish and Chinese restaurants; on the other hand, all this diversity was accompanied by cultural conflicts, communication breakdown and the lack of social links.


Because these neighbourhoods are places where cohabitation and relationship rules are often brought into question over and over again, contradictions and global conflicts are intensified. In Turin, while some parts of the city were affected by big transformation plans (to deal with the large urban emptiness left by the collapse of industrial areas), in other parts the administration became aware of the importance to turn its attention onto suburbs and problematic neighbourhoods.

Many diverse urban recovery and regeneration processes were launched in combination with integration projects, either in urban semi-central neighbourhoods such as Porta Palazzo and San Salvario, or in public housing blocks (by the means of Urban Recovery Programs, Neighbourhood Contracts and Local Development Actions) for the re-composition of social cohesion in areas where identity and quality of life conditions were getting worse.



In 1997 the Progetto Speciale Periferie (Outskirts Special project) was set up, which later (in 2001) became Settore Periferie (Outskirts Department), to intervene in the urban environment on the habitat and structural settings and on social dynamics. Key elements of this project were: an integrated approach, citizens’ participation, procedural and organizational innovation, identity and sense of belonging, improvement and development opportunities.

Under the umbrella of the Settore Periferie many interventions took place all over the city.

One example is European Initiative Programme (Urban II) in the Mirafiori Nord neighbourhood, an industrial area, where a programme took place to accomplish three complex goals:

1.               to create a meaningful urban milieu for inhabitants, to encourage trade,

2.               social and cultural opportunities,

3.               to connect the neighbourhood with the city through high quality services.


Another example is the Corso Grosseto Recovery Urban Plan. This project started in 2000 and
Another example is the Corso Grosseto Recovery Urban Plan.

This project started in 2000 and focused on the refurbishment of two public housing blocks and the renovation of sport centres and meeting points in the neighbourhood.

The Settore Periferie promoted the creation of a social support plan run by architects, sociologists and communication specialists, in order to ensure the inhabitants’ involvement and their knowledge of all the phases during the urban improvement.



Interventions and local actions such as these have led to a range of policies, tools and best practises set up by the public sector in partnership with the private sector, by professionals, public institutions and citizens’ networks, to improve the quality of life and the urban fabric in many neighbourhoods.

In 2006, after 10 years of Urban Regeneration programmes, the Settore Periferie was replaced by the Urban Regeneration Department, wherein the coordination of integration policies became a new element. A deputy major was appointed for urban regeneration and integration








Urban regeneration local action: the Porta Palazzo Committee The Gate


Situated two steps from the historical city centre, Porta Palazzo has always been the immigration neighbourhood in Turin. The central square of the neighbourhood hosts the biggest daily open-air market in Europe. It is a dynamic neighbourhood.


On Saturdays, more than 100,000 people visit the open-air market and the flea-market (the Balon) in Porta Palazzo. At anytime and any day of the week, crowds of women, men and street vendors meet in the square, while kids are running around and hide under the handcart of their mother selling vegetables, clothes or cooking-pots. Possibly the peculiarity of the market and street life is what has always attracted newcomers to this area in search of accommodation. During the 1960s the neighbourhood experienced a migratory flow from the South of Italy, followed in the late 1980s by migration from China and Morocco and, most recently from Romania and Albania.


Officially some 22% of the neighbourhood’s population is of immigrant lineage (compared to 3-4% non-native residents in all the city), however when one takes irregular residents into account, the percentage adds up to around 40%. This significant concentration of immigrants means that different languages and cultures are present in the neighbourhood. It also means that Porta Palazzo experiences noise, discussions, legal and illegal negotiations, which are all part of a very complex system of internal and informal rules, overpopulation and a concentration of the most vulnerable people of the city.

Porta Palazzo has a rich urban and  architectural heritage and history, but most people consider this neighbourhood as unsafe, dangerous, noisy and prefer to pass through it as fast as possible.


In 1996 the City of Turin faced the unfavourable social conditions and overall urban decay in the neighbourhood and presented “The Gate-living not leaving” project to the European Union, in the context of the Innovative Actions of the European Regional Development Fund. This resulted in the creation of an Urban Pilot Project - the Porta Palazzo Committee The Gate 2 - in 1998. Located close to the market place, The Gate started to work at improving living conditions and the social economic status in the Porta Palazzo neighbourhood.

The Committee is a non-profit organisation with mixed participation of public institutions and private bodies. Its programme was mainly financed by the European Union, the City of Turin and the Ministry of Public Works. The Gate implemented a strategy of social, environmental, commercial, economic and physical (of both private and public spaces) regeneration in the Porta Palazzo neighbourhood. On 31 December 2001 The Gate closed the European phase of the project during which it had undertaken 18 actions: the urban regeneration process had been started.

The city council of Turin supported the process started up by the Committee and transformed the Porta Palazzo Committee / The Gate in 2002 into a Local Development Agency for complex urban regeneration projects under the Settore Periferie (Outskirts Department).


As a Local Development Agency The Gate maintained the same structure: a private body with mixed participation of public institutions, private companies, local community players. Presently, the Board of Directors consist of five deputy majors (Integration, Urban Planning, Economic Development, Social Policies and Security Policies), two Neighbourhood Councils, two Foundations, three trade organisations, the Chamber of Commerce and three local NGOs.


This body is able to promote active citizenship, involve local actors and citizens (associations, interest groups, people, etc) on one side, and on the other one is it able to negotiate and co-plan with other institutions working in the territory (Police departments, Health care services, Waste agency, etc).







The Gate organises fund-raising activities and responds to bids from private foundations, the local authorities, the district Council and national ministries.

The extended project of interventions co-ordinated by the Porta Palazzo Project Committee – The Gate is divided into the following five areas: built environment, social environment, cultural environment, economic environment and sustainable environment. In addition, there are also three services: the social support service, the territorial consulting services and the communication and information service.








Since the beginning The Gate has developed projects and actions aimed at activating urban development, working on a wide range of sectors in order to trigger key processes that today are finally making the district renewal visible and remarkable from a social, economic and architectural point of view. The Gate’s strategy has an holistic approach, looking at the economic, social, cultural and physical aspects of the urban regeneration process.

Interventions in the built environment


Most of the Porta Palazzo residents rent their houses. The few landlords who live in the neighbourhood are elderly or newcomers. In their condominiums the property management is complicated by no sense of belonging, indifference or no sense of responsibility. Owners don’t take care of their property and don’t know how to manage their possessions, or how and why to share responsibilities regarding communal areas. As a result, the building decay is getting worse and consequently the urban surroundings as well. Also, too often landlords overpopulate their flats with irregular immigrants (who are obliged to pay a stunning high rent for a 2 room-flat that they share with 20 people).

Between 2000 and 2002 The Gate’s project Bando Facciate (Façades competition) encouraged landlords to restore their condominiums, renewing the building facades facing the streets, and to take care about their own properties.
A total of 58 condominium facades were restored.


In 2004 the Abitare Porta Palazzo project (Living Porta Palazzo) was born, aimed at offering economic support and advice to landlords on the refurbishment of the condominium common spaces. At the end of the project, in 2006, more than 36 condominiums were refurbished for a total amount of over 2,5 million Euro.


This project was followed in 2007 by the Abitare a 360° project (360° of living). Meetings were set up in the courtyards for condominium residents to learn about domestic safety, energy savings, house-managers and inhabitants’ rights and duties. In the course of the project 46 condominiums in the neighbourhood were involved and more than 30 house-managers worked together with The Gate to improve the quality of life in the properties they managed.


Since 1978 Italy has a national law that allows local authorities in case of strong urban decay to force landlords to maintain and fix up their property. The so called Obligatory Recovery Plans are placed into motion by the City of Turin in 2001, under the project Piani di Recupero Obbligatorio in the Porta Palazzo and Borgo Dora area.

In 2005 The Gate, in collaboration with the Urban Regeneration and Integration department, the Urban Planning department, the Housing department of the City of Turin set up a wide range of consultation and support services, information and funds to help house managers and landlords to accomplish the renewal interventions. 4 blocks and about 400 flats have been involved in the project.

In all these interventions in the built environment The Gate used Arabic and Chinese speaking mediators, to ensure the involvement of the immigrant landlords and residents.




Economic interventions

The Gate also works on improving and strengthening the economic fabric of the neighbourhood. Some examples of economic interventions are:

Via dalla Strada (Out of the street) gives vocational training to young immigrants.

Se l’economia è sociale (If the economy is social) introduces rules and procedures of the Italian labour market to newcomers.

l’Sciangai: economia informale e cittadini stranieri (L’Sciangai, informal economy and foreign citizens) supports the integration process of immigrant citizens, who through informal or illegal economic activities try to make a living for themselves in the neighbourhood. In some cases economic activities can be regularized. In other cases The Gate tries out creative initiatives or solutions for the negative impact of the irregular and informal activities.


Cultural interventions

To invite people to stay and live in the neighbourhood and to promote Porta Palazzo as a cultural and touristic resource for the city, The Gate works on the enhancement of local resources and of local cultural products. Turisti per casa is a project in which diner walks were held in the neighbourhood, so people could taste the cooking of the three most represented communities in the neighbourhood: Islamic, Western African and Asian food.

A mobile library (Bibliomigra) that travels once a week around the neighbourhood has been created. People can choose from 700 books in 14 different languages.

Three times the football tournament 2 tiri a Porta Palazzo was organised in the main Porta Palazzo square. Among the teams competing to win the Cup were Romanian, Chinese and Moroccan residents, Porta Palazzo traders, the police department and Turin musicians.

Social interventions


To promote social cohesion, reduce marginalization, conflicts and feelings of insecurity, The Gate works on the participation of social actors and on establishing networks and coalitions between residents, entrepreneurs and social actors.


In piazza s’impara (learning on the square) offers free lessons in Italian (to newcomers), Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese and Romanian. These lessons takes place on the main Porta Palazzo square.

Percorsi di cittadinanza attiva (active citizenship paths) develops competences of citizens and their associations to analyse and resolve conflicts. The idea behind this project is that safety and social conflict issues are more effectively solved if not only institutions intervene but that citizens can assume an active role as well if they improve their interpersonal communication skills.


The results of the following projects emphasize the importance of working in the neighbourhood and to involve a public partner:

In 2000 The Gate social support unit set up an empowerment action directed towards those Balon operators (the flea market traders) that work without a regular permit. Tensions among non-regular and regular sellers were running seriously high.

The project staff worked directly in the field with the positive groups 3 of sellers and support them in forming an association. The Vivibalon association today is able to manage the market services: it represents an important voice in the neighbourhood and it interacts with the public administration.


The Comitato Sicurezza was born in 2001 at the request of the neighbourhood council, the Turin Prefect of the police forces and the mayor of the city. The Comitato Sicurezza tasks were to increase the institutional collaboration on public safety and to promote a direct relation between the police and the neighbourhood. The Comitato Sicurezza held special meetings in which citizens belonging to local associations and committees could speak directly with representatives of Turin’s institutions and authorities.


Another important project for networks is Tavolo Giovani di Porta Palazzo project (youth table), which started in 2003 and involved all the local actors dealing with youth (at risk).
This project has strengthened the cooperation among local actors by organising meeting points to realize socio-cultural events and by setting up video-making laboratories for youngsters. Youngsters were able to discover new communication channels and to build up a new sense of belonging.




Sustainable/Environmental interventions


Apart from specific projects as Energia di quartiere (Neighbourhood energy) and Da rifiuto a risorsa (From rubbish to resource) to deal with the waste of the market, The Gate is trying to pay attention to sustainability in all its projects, encouraging awareness of wastefulness and environmental consequences.


Results on the neighbourhood level

When one compares the situation in Porta Palazzo before the beginning of the interventions by The Gate and the situation at present, the neighbourhood has made a turn for the better.

Young people start to move to the neighbourhood and house-managers and residents are more confident in their abilities and responsibilities to take care of the housing heritage and want to participate to the urban regeneration process. They ask for improvement of public spaces yet untouched, participate in the European Neighbours’ day initiative, and they start to make contact with their neighbours.

What the experience in Porta Palazzo shows, is that the regeneration of urban public space can offer a chance to start a process of negotiation on neighbourhood’ rules.

The regeneration process can bring citizens, local actors and stakeholders closer, revealing that they share interests, wishes and expectations about their neighbourhood. As in many cases, the public spaces (squares, streets and courtyards) in Porta Palazzo formed the scene in which social exclusion, cultural conflicts and intolerance were visible.

And at the same time the public space represented the opportunity to meet each other, to share rules of use and also share expectations about the transformation of the neighbourhood.

When people meet on Sundays in the main square to learn Italian, Chinese or Arabic, they all understand the importance to be there, together, to share the same space and contribute to a positive and lively atmosphere of the neighbourhood.

The regeneration process is still ongoing, but the interventions by The Gate have already resulted in the enthusiastic participation of associations, committees, organisations, entrepreneurs, stakeholders and individuals, believing again in the social-economic and cultural renaissance of Porta Palazzo.

People from other parts of the city are coming back to live or visit the neighbourhood and appreciate its potential. The Gate worked hard at building networks throughout the area.

Citizens and organisations are constantly invited to participate actively in the reduction of conflicts, taking up their own responsibilities, to find new ways to contribute to the regeneration process and not just complain.
The participation of first and second generation immigrants in local initiatives and development opportunities in the neighbourhood as any other inhabitants in Porta Palazzo is a real demonstration of a growing sense of belonging and of a successful local approach to integration.

Bibliography:



Link at all refferring website:


Viviana Rubbo Case of porta Palazzo Analisys  - http://www.forum.nl