The Transformation of the Great Decommissioned Farini Railroad …
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and destinations for leisure, promenades, hangout, and parks are fully and truly
public places that have rightfully become part of the city. In American cities like
New York or Chicago, the presence of green areas means higher real estate values:
in cities that have no real tradition of squares, large parks are true urban collective
spaces, the core of public life. They characterize their districts just like churches
used to characterize theirs in the past and qualify the housing that enjoys their view,
proximity, and presence.
But can green spaces at a smaller scale, with a different identity and size, characterize the places of housing and even be the place of the house?
The second condition we wanted to experiment was the coexistence of different
kinds of housing and ways of living and connecting the house with its surroundings
in the same block, thus creating different housing environments.
The block may be a mixed unit that includes several building types each developing
its own spaces that coexist and interrelate: the courtyard, the aligned house, the tall
house, and their complements—the space of the courtyard, the frontage of the aligned
house, and the view from the tower. Facilities, workshops, offices, and shops also
contribute to the definition of these collective places within the block.
We expect this unit to express both a general principle that is as recognizable
as that of the old city and formal features that may change based on the location,
requirements, activities it accommodates, and on the buildings it includes, so that
each block is different, unique, and identifiable; the city represents a community that
is the sum of many different individuals. The only way to transform the "tumult in
the whole" into a rich environment is a clear order in the housing models.
3 The Second Project, 2012. First Variation 3
The project explores a possible variation within the previously established principles
of organization of the block and based on the observation of the modern city and the
studies on the changing house–street relationship.
In the project, here proposed each block incorporates public urban space—a green
space that expands in the combination of the blocks themselves, and is at the same
time a place the houses look out onto, a public collective facility, a place of distribution
to the buildings and the activities there located, and a place of life for the residents
and of facilities open to the city. Being only accessible by pedestrians and bicycles,
it is separated from the streets that divide the different blocks and are merely for
service and car access to the buildings.
Several separated places, alternated in succession, look out onto the central green
area: houses and buildings for collective activities are articulated to provide open
courtyards and small squares, also green, and are intentionally conceived to establish
3 See Footnote 1. Design Group, Raffaella Neri, coordinator, with Federica Cattaneo.
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and destinations for leisure, promenades, hangout, and parks are fully and truly
public places that have rightfully become part of the city. In American cities like
New York or Chicago, the presence of green areas means higher real estate values:
in cities that have no real tradition of squares, large parks are true urban collective
spaces, the core of public life. They characterize their districts just like churches
used to characterize theirs in the past and qualify the housing that enjoys their view,
proximity, and presence.
But can green spaces at a smaller scale, with a different identity and size, characterize the places of housing and even be the place of the house?
The second condition we wanted to experiment was the coexistence of different
kinds of housing and ways of living and connecting the house with its surroundings
in the same block, thus creating different housing environments.
The block may be a mixed unit that includes several building types each developing
its own spaces that coexist and interrelate: the courtyard, the aligned house, the tall
house, and their complements—the space of the courtyard, the frontage of the aligned
house, and the view from the tower. Facilities, workshops, offices, and shops also
contribute to the definition of these collective places within the block.
We expect this unit to express both a general principle that is as recognizable
as that of the old city and formal features that may change based on the location,
requirements, activities it accommodates, and on the buildings it includes, so that
each block is different, unique, and identifiable; the city represents a community that
is the sum of many different individuals. The only way to transform the "tumult in
the whole" into a rich environment is a clear order in the housing models.
3 The Second Project, 2012. First Variation 3
The project explores a possible variation within the previously established principles
of organization of the block and based on the observation of the modern city and the
studies on the changing house–street relationship.
In the project, here proposed each block incorporates public urban space—a green
space that expands in the combination of the blocks themselves, and is at the same
time a place the houses look out onto, a public collective facility, a place of distribution
to the buildings and the activities there located, and a place of life for the residents
and of facilities open to the city. Being only accessible by pedestrians and bicycles,
it is separated from the streets that divide the different blocks and are merely for
service and car access to the buildings.
Several separated places, alternated in succession, look out onto the central green
area: houses and buildings for collective activities are articulated to provide open
courtyards and small squares, also green, and are intentionally conceived to establish
3 See Footnote 1. Design Group, Raffaella Neri, coordinator, with Federica Cattaneo.