Università Roma Tre

The pervasive character of the urban condition has generated unprecedented and complex city-forms. Metropolitan city, city-territory, generic city, etc., a proliferation of definitions has followed all trying to catch the emergence of the urban condition, to mark its limits, at most denying their existence. A proliferation of images/figurations and counter images/figurations—Ecumenopolis, No-stop city, Stop-city, etc.—have been worked out by the urbanism culture all bringing to radical terms the effect of the logics underpinning nowadays urbanisation—and the modern urban condition.

At the same time, the notion of rural continues to navigate not only in common sense but also the administrative and political spheres. Still vast areas are de facto rather isolated or just do not offer the same conditions for the full realisation of an urban lifestyle and yet they are still subject to the forces of urbanisation and the proliferation of its multiple potential implications. These territories are often stimulated by the relentless global competition of attracting flows of investments and tourists if not merely to offer the basic living requirements for the active population to stay in place (a job, basic services, an active social life, etc.).
Over the last years, in Italy, a country historically characterised by strong polycentrism resulting in a smear of minor centres and hamlets, the attention towards those areas that are far from the main urban centres has been increasing. This has brought to the launch of the Strategia Nazionale per le Aree Interne—or inner areas—in 2012 (SNAI). Beyond the institutional definitions, the inner area can be regarded as the closest to a rural situation.

But where does the city end? Does it actually end and in what terms?
In the broader formal and political concept of city form, the definition—and concept—of spatial and political but also mental limit is at stake (see Aureli and Tattara, 2011).

The course gives the possibility to develop a critical view on today urbanisation, specifically on urban-rural dynamics and their implications on specific inner areas of the Italian territory.

A longitudinal section of the Italian territory—or transect—is the preferential situation investigated, the source of insights and the testing ground of hypothesis. The transect cuts through a given territory spanning from a specific, identifiable urban condition—and city form—to a rural situation that falls within a particular inner area of Italy as defined by the SNAI. Along this territorial section it will be possible to read the transition between what is commonly recognised as urban and, on the other side, what is commonly defined as rural.

Lefebvre, Henri (1973) La rivoluzione urbana. Roma: Armando Editore.
Mitrašinović, Miodrag (ed.) (2016) Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion. New York: Routledge.
Secchi, Bernanrdo (2008) La città del Ventesimo Secolo. Bari: Editori Laterza.

The Studio deepens and experiments some methodological theses on the construction of the urban project with particular attention to the formative reasoning of the design qualities and to the contents, holding counted of its economic-operational feasibility and of the attended spatial results.

The objective is to teach to produce a deduced interpretative reasoning and a scheme of territorial organization that allows, using the tools of plan, to direct the transformations, to choose and to put in coherence the different proposals, in reference to the character-value of the places and local demand.

In the preparation of the plan, particular attention is turned to territorial demand, to the evaluation of the objectives and the strategies of the change, to the configuration of the programmatic organizational model and the actions of plan.
Integrative lessons in the studio are:
A) the formative reasoning of the plan ( problems, values and local demand)
B) urban structure reading and evaluation methods, the plan construction and his technical and normative expression
C) typologies of intervention reference to: the form-structure, the graphics and normative expression …

Method:
The formulation of the problem, beginning from the survey of the local demand, to find the general objectives to assume for the plan: interpretation of the context and the place reading using the structural paradigm of the characters and the component systems (systems of environmental and historical values, green discontinuity and residual rural landscapes; urban typologies; uses;infrastructure); synthesis of the existing structure and selection of the trasformation dynamics; Plan operations of construction / transformation of the structure; formal and spatial results of the proposed solutions; evaluation of the compatibility and the effectiveness of the plan in comparison to the objectives and feasibility of some proposed operations.

Organization of the studio and examination
The work is developed in group. The studio is offering specific contributions and readings. The final examination is based on the discussion of the plan.

- Catizzone, A. (2007), fondamenti di Cartografia, Gangemi ed. Roma.
- Gabellini, P., (2001), Tecniche urbanistiche, Carocci ed.
- Gabellini, P., (1998), La rappresentazione nel piano urbanistico, Nis ed.
- Nucci, L., (2012), Verde di prossimità e disegno urbano, Gangemi Editore, Roma.
- Nucci, L., (2004), Reti verdi e disegno della città contemporanea: la costruzione del nuovo piano di Londra, Gangemi Editore, Roma.
- Secchi, B., (2008), La città del Ventesimo Secolo, Laterza Ed., Bari.
- Campos Venuti G., Oliva F (a cura di), (2010), Città senza cultura. Intervista sull'urbanistica, Laterza Ed., Bari.
- AA.VV. (2018), Governo del territorio e pianificazione spaziale, città studi edizioni, Milano.

In the last fifty years of the last century, cities have more than doubled their physical size and, in general, land use, for urbanization purposes, has grown exponentially. It is an urbanized area that, in some cases, has also become a metropolis but without passing through the city. A territory whose structure is not stable but where everything still needs to be rethought, modified.
An increasingly diverse and fragmented population crosses this territory, inhabits it, uses it and transforms it. The city is crossed less and less by the inhabitants and increasingly by individuals who use it. A floating population crosses the places of the city, uses them, demands that the city works but does not care for it: the city as a product, not as a social construction.
In this scenario, traditional urban planning tools risk being reduced to mere knowledge of techniques without understanding, or without being aware of, the effects and implications of doing.

The course brings students closer to the main approaches inherent in the problems of contemporary urban conditions. Lessons and laboratory activities, with the active participation of students, will explore the main theoretical evolutions of urban studies. Students will be offered the twofold theoretical matrix of urban planning: the theories of why, in the sense of the reasons for urban planning, and the theories of how in the sense of the formation of the city and the structuring of the territory produced by different anthropic activities.
The course has the following objectives:
1. give students a representation as comprehensive as possible of the theoretical conceptualizations of urban problems;
2. to help students develop their creative skills and critical sense in the perspective of an operational practice that concerns the transformation processes of the built city;
3. enable students to read an urban context through urban exploration and the collection of indirect data;
4. enable students to formulate an urban project that contains appropriate intervention proposals for urban restructuring processes.
In addition, students will be called upon to argue the proposals for intervention, to support and defend them through public communications.

Rieducazione alla speranza
Patrick Geddes Planner in India, 1914-1924
Capitolo secondo, L’arte di guardare la Città, pag. 75-114
Un Mondo di città
Giorgio Piccinato
Prefazione e Capitolo primo
a scelta uno degli altri capitoli
Patrizia Gabellini
Fare urbanistica
Parte Prima
Esperienze: la riflessione nella pratica, pp.13-72