An Experience of Urban Transformation in Multan-Pakistani Punjab
187
Sarafa Bazaar Project provides an integrated system for the urban arrangement through infrastructures; public lighting; shading system; new paving; facades
improvements and conservation of historic building’s façades.
Sarafa Bazaar Project foresees the restoration of the façades. This kind of process
is focused on urban and social problems with the purpose of a new general urban
quality. The regeneration of a part of Sarafa Bazaar with a wide re-design project of
the historic and recent building’s façades wants to face problems as organization of
public spaces, accessibility to the Old Town, insufficient lighting, traffic, security,
and so on.
The general goal is to improve the life quality of the inhabitants, encouraging
the tourism and make the city more attractive for the economic activities. So, the
facades and open spaces rehabilitation and the facilities services improvement could
have a positive effect on the re-appropriation of the spaces from the inhabitants that
could inspire further actions on the interior spaces and the contiguous areas with a
general improvement of the life quality. A regenerated space could become more
attractive for tourism, producing a general improvement of the local micro economy.
The urban rehabilitation requires, even more than the restoration of single monument,
an overall program to build a general agreement of ideas and a shared involvement
of the resident population.
The fourth and final component provided by the project is to develop a capacity
building programme, based on a University networking. Therefore, the execution
of the project offered a double opportunity: on the one hand, the collaboration of
Italian and Pakistani personnel in the execution of the works, on the other hand, the
opportunity to develop new skills in Pakistan in the architectural field. The proposed
topics are both related to practical and theoretical aspect concerning the project and
related to the architectural and urban planning theories.
The practical modalities and the intervention techniques with which it was possible
to achieve the project outcome are in fact closely linked to specific knowledge on
the restoration procedures as well as in the survey filed and data collection. Those
disciplines are, in cases like this, the tools themselves for the development of the
architectural project and its practice, especially in complex areas such as the Islamic
city.
In conclusion, as described, the project is an important example of cross-cultural
cooperation and collaboration project in the field of urban regeneration and transformation, showing how academic competencies, coordinated by a specialized structure of management of research and knowledge transfer projects can meet ambitious
objectives and the challenge of achieving real improvements of delicate, but precious
urban context (Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4).
187
Sarafa Bazaar Project provides an integrated system for the urban arrangement through infrastructures; public lighting; shading system; new paving; facades
improvements and conservation of historic building’s façades.
Sarafa Bazaar Project foresees the restoration of the façades. This kind of process
is focused on urban and social problems with the purpose of a new general urban
quality. The regeneration of a part of Sarafa Bazaar with a wide re-design project of
the historic and recent building’s façades wants to face problems as organization of
public spaces, accessibility to the Old Town, insufficient lighting, traffic, security,
and so on.
The general goal is to improve the life quality of the inhabitants, encouraging
the tourism and make the city more attractive for the economic activities. So, the
facades and open spaces rehabilitation and the facilities services improvement could
have a positive effect on the re-appropriation of the spaces from the inhabitants that
could inspire further actions on the interior spaces and the contiguous areas with a
general improvement of the life quality. A regenerated space could become more
attractive for tourism, producing a general improvement of the local micro economy.
The urban rehabilitation requires, even more than the restoration of single monument,
an overall program to build a general agreement of ideas and a shared involvement
of the resident population.
The fourth and final component provided by the project is to develop a capacity
building programme, based on a University networking. Therefore, the execution
of the project offered a double opportunity: on the one hand, the collaboration of
Italian and Pakistani personnel in the execution of the works, on the other hand, the
opportunity to develop new skills in Pakistan in the architectural field. The proposed
topics are both related to practical and theoretical aspect concerning the project and
related to the architectural and urban planning theories.
The practical modalities and the intervention techniques with which it was possible
to achieve the project outcome are in fact closely linked to specific knowledge on
the restoration procedures as well as in the survey filed and data collection. Those
disciplines are, in cases like this, the tools themselves for the development of the
architectural project and its practice, especially in complex areas such as the Islamic
city.
In conclusion, as described, the project is an important example of cross-cultural
cooperation and collaboration project in the field of urban regeneration and transformation, showing how academic competencies, coordinated by a specialized structure of management of research and knowledge transfer projects can meet ambitious
objectives and the challenge of achieving real improvements of delicate, but precious
urban context (Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4).