42
C. Merlini
3 Reorganization. Remove on One Side, Remit It
on the Other
Facing a demolition’s representation of this kind, the current territorial conditions
introduce inevitable elements of complexity and force us to reformulate the terms.
For the urban project, two perspectives emerge in particular.
On the one side, a partial and selective demolition, like what has been done in
recent public housing redevelopment projects, in which the residual value assigned
to the building and the recycling of the materials removed is accompanied by the
redefinition of urban relations (Infussi and Orsenigo 2008; Laboratorio città pubblica
2009; Di Palma 2011; Lepratto 2017). On the other side, an idea of demolition where
the building’s value is dematerialised and transferred elsewhere, becoming the tool
for a broader territorial reorganisation design.
This second aspect deserves to be more investigated by referring, for example, to
the role that demolition could play in the redevelopment of those parts of the città
diffusa that are facing a greater crisis today. The generally modest quality of these
territories, the loss of attractiveness, the social composition with increasing amounts
of elderly population, the high levels of pollution, and soil waterproofing, poses new
challenges to urban planning.
In particular, underutilisation phenomena emerge, often linked to a general redefinition of relations between living spaces and workplaces. This is attested, for example, by the changing of the family house, which has had a big impact on the urbanisation processes between the 1960s and 1990s, both in the single-house format and
in hybridisations with working spaces. A space that is no longer able to intercept
the preferences and investments of the new generations, who sometimes see that
inheritance more as a burden than as an advantage (Merlini and Zanfi 2014). Or it
is attested—to give another example—by the production building in which add up
the obsolescence, the inefficient accessibility, the dearth of support services for the
company, the criticality of a landscape impact.
These buildings do not always show advanced degradation conditions, but nevertheless it is difficult to imagine them in a redevelopment perspective what restores
them to a new life cycle (Zanfi and Curci 2018). In such situations, a responsible judgment is forced to be selective and also consider the possibility of demolition, because
of a number of factors that consider the scarcity of available economic resources,
while also promoting a territorial vision aimed at restoring security and urbanity
conditions. For the urban design, a reflection therefore opens up that primarily seeks
to recognize those situations in which it is possible to recover and transfer value,
through mechanisms of subtraction and addition of volumes. It is essentially a case
of promoting a reorganisation process based on identifying source areas and areas
of fall in volumes, made operational through volumetric transfer mechanisms, while
also evaluating the factors that ensure economic feasibility (Lanzani et al. 2014).
Demolition is in this case the tool of a territorial reorganisation that recognizes
a divergence of values. On the one hand, buildings that decline and that might have
a future only through the value generated by their volumetric rights; on the other,
C. Merlini
3 Reorganization. Remove on One Side, Remit It
on the Other
Facing a demolition’s representation of this kind, the current territorial conditions
introduce inevitable elements of complexity and force us to reformulate the terms.
For the urban project, two perspectives emerge in particular.
On the one side, a partial and selective demolition, like what has been done in
recent public housing redevelopment projects, in which the residual value assigned
to the building and the recycling of the materials removed is accompanied by the
redefinition of urban relations (Infussi and Orsenigo 2008; Laboratorio città pubblica
2009; Di Palma 2011; Lepratto 2017). On the other side, an idea of demolition where
the building’s value is dematerialised and transferred elsewhere, becoming the tool
for a broader territorial reorganisation design.
This second aspect deserves to be more investigated by referring, for example, to
the role that demolition could play in the redevelopment of those parts of the città
diffusa that are facing a greater crisis today. The generally modest quality of these
territories, the loss of attractiveness, the social composition with increasing amounts
of elderly population, the high levels of pollution, and soil waterproofing, poses new
challenges to urban planning.
In particular, underutilisation phenomena emerge, often linked to a general redefinition of relations between living spaces and workplaces. This is attested, for example, by the changing of the family house, which has had a big impact on the urbanisation processes between the 1960s and 1990s, both in the single-house format and
in hybridisations with working spaces. A space that is no longer able to intercept
the preferences and investments of the new generations, who sometimes see that
inheritance more as a burden than as an advantage (Merlini and Zanfi 2014). Or it
is attested—to give another example—by the production building in which add up
the obsolescence, the inefficient accessibility, the dearth of support services for the
company, the criticality of a landscape impact.
These buildings do not always show advanced degradation conditions, but nevertheless it is difficult to imagine them in a redevelopment perspective what restores
them to a new life cycle (Zanfi and Curci 2018). In such situations, a responsible judgment is forced to be selective and also consider the possibility of demolition, because
of a number of factors that consider the scarcity of available economic resources,
while also promoting a territorial vision aimed at restoring security and urbanity
conditions. For the urban design, a reflection therefore opens up that primarily seeks
to recognize those situations in which it is possible to recover and transfer value,
through mechanisms of subtraction and addition of volumes. It is essentially a case
of promoting a reorganisation process based on identifying source areas and areas
of fall in volumes, made operational through volumetric transfer mechanisms, while
also evaluating the factors that ensure economic feasibility (Lanzani et al. 2014).
Demolition is in this case the tool of a territorial reorganisation that recognizes
a divergence of values. On the one hand, buildings that decline and that might have
a future only through the value generated by their volumetric rights; on the other,