September 29

Post-eartquake L’Aquila and Expo 2015: our next chances

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I’ve walked among the streets of L’Aquila’s “red zone” for hours.
Before the night of April 6, 2009 the historical center was the working heart of the city. It housed more than 40.000 people, about 4500 shops and firms employing almost 20.000 people.
I walked in a deserted city, hurt by Mother Nature. I wandered about the streets and lanes, surrounded by an inhuman silence which clashed with the richness and space quality L’Aquila was able to create over the centuries.
Broken buildings all around, crashed churches, streets crammed with ruins and laden with grief. And then, the first works of structural containment, the delicate care used by the Civic Protection and the Superintendence towards the wounded places. An unreal landscape, asking for careful and important solutions concerning the future.
I wonder about the micro-migrations compelling people, resources and stories from the centre towards other places. What kind of city will L’Aquila be? And, as soon as the city center will be re-opened, in eight or ten years, who will come back? What kind of desires?

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Chiesa Santa Maria del Suffragio, the spider supporting framework set by firemen on june 5

Chiesa Santa Maria del Suffragio, the spider supporting framework set by firemen on June 5

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August 25

The 12xMilano series
Milan Section Week by MARC

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[Read the Italian version of this post, with an interview to Subhash Mukerjee]

(Here’s the eleventh video from 12xMilano, the exhibition currently on show at Milan’s Urban Center. Today we’re presenting you the project Milan Section Week by MARC)

In a recent issue Corriere della Sera featured a statistic according to which the world’s 5 most visited museums are all in New York and Tokyo. They are the most attractive cities in the world.

But in both cities few buildings are really recognizable for their image.

Architectural languages give the illusion of an identity. But if we strip buildings of their image, we discover that the section of a city, made of horizontal slabs, is almost indifferent.
If we think carefully, we remember cities for their intensity much more than for their buildings.

Milano Section Week proposes:

- to take Milano’s “clothes” off, focusing urban politics on section indifference;
- to forget its façades, taking advantage of its horizontal surfaces’s vitality;
- to look for its identity through compact public spaces, instead of architectural images or through big spaces, impossible to “activate”.

Milano: identity and indifference. Read more

August 24

Piazza Municipio in Povegliano (TV) by Microscape

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[Read the Italian version of this post]

(Text by MICROSCAPE, photos © Francesco Castagna © MICROSCAPE)

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In Povegliano, the administration’s choice to pursue the definition of a genuine “civic center” through design is even more courageous if you think that here the “res publica” or the society’s best values are placed as a guide for planned urban expansion instead of being a result of it. Read more

August 18

The 12xMilano series
Public spaces, homeopathy and test cases on wheels by ExternalReference Architects

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[Read the Italian version of this post, with an interview to Massimo Tepedino]

(Here’s the ninth video from 12xMilano, the exhibition currently on show at Milan’s Urban Center. Today we’re presenting you the project Public spaces, homeopathy and test cases on wheels by ExternalReference Architects)

BUTTERFLY VERSUS ELEPHANT

Butterflies are lightweight insects with powerful large wings, if compared to the size of their bodies. Their sense organs range over a wide number of items, including eyes for vision and antennae for smell. Butterflies are prompt in responding to the stimuli coming from the environment and have a short lifecycle. On the contrary, elephants last for decades but are not lightweight. If their environment changes, it takes some time for them to change as well.
Our proposal is to work on butterfly buildings, light and movable pavilions which may activate temporary public space within the city of Milan. Read more

August 13

The 12xMilano series
Urban Presents, by Ghigos Ideas

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[Read the Italian version of this post, with an interview to Ghigos Ideas]

(Here’s the eighth video from 12xMilano, the exhibition currently on show at Milan’s Urban Center. Today we’re presenting you the project URBAN PRESENTS by Davide Crippa, Barbara Di Prete, Francesco Tosi [Ghigos Ideas])

Buildings can be unexpected presents to public space: unexpected outgrowths, unforeseen functions, furnishings that are still domestic yet urban, because they extend from the houses onto the streets and intersect with the flow of passers-by.
Each building opens up to the city in its own way: it’s an urban planning which, literally, “blooms from the inside” to later reflect itself onto the urban field, in the territory between public and private, so rich in project opportunities yet to seize. Read more

July 28

The 12xMilano series
Gran Milano, by Ludens

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[Read the Italian version of this post]

(Here’s the third video from 12xMilano, the exhibition currently on show at Milan’s Urban Center. Today we’re presenting you Ludens Architetti’s Gran Milano project)

Milan has 1.300.000 inhabitants and 600.000 commuters. Half of those travel by train, the second half by car. Most likely they are the same people who lived in Milan until the Seventies, when the city consisted in about 2 million people. Because of the increasing prices, many of them fled downtown Milan in favor of the hinterland.
Considering these data, the current administration’s ponderation on the “recostruction of Big Milan” are interesting to us: trying to reduce commuting by building new houses in the Municipality of Milan, in order to catch the people who left and now travel everyday. But let’s consider an opposite hypothesis: instead of rebuilding Milan as a bigger city, taking the commuters back in, let’s serve the commuters themselves in the very places they’ve decided to live, by developing an adequate rail transportation system, like those in the major european cities. This would help reduce the use of private cars, and allow people to live in areas where the cost of living matches their income, while they can move faster.

What if Milan, instead of a more densely populated city, was a wider city within a 45-minute reach?

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June 11

New City Landscape: Paris and Milan

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April 16

Dreaming Milano opens tomorrow

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The holding Il Sole 24 Ore and Graniti Fiandre present the precious exhibition Dreaming Milano (vernissage on April 17; open from April 22 to 26), curated by our Luca Molinari in occasion of this year’s Salone del Mobile week in Milan.
The event’s goal is to tell with immediacy and simplicity Milan’s ability to breed architectural and urban visions in order to build its future along the 20th Century. The exhibition also aims at stimulating a more courageous approach to building an innovative and more sustainable metropolis for the future coming.
Milan is crossing the threshold of a new and essential phase of its development. It’s facing the 2015 Expo challenge and it’s launching the instruments for its urban and territorial growth for the next decades (specifically the PGT, Piano di Governo del Territorio, strategic plan for Milan). It’s a crucial test which asks for boldness, innovative ideas and visions able to build a unique urban identity. Read more

March 13

Two new projects by MVRDV

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You guys know we like MVRDV and there’s no need to repeat it, so let’s get down to business and talk about two of their most recent projects: the Westerdok Apartment Building and a vision for Greater Paris 2030.

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Westerwok Apartment Building by MVRDV. Photo © Rob’t Hart

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Greater Paris 2030 by MVRDV Read more

March 11

A book as a pretext

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Tomorrow afternoon Yearbook’s Vice-Director architect Nicola Russi also teaching Urbanism and Contemporary Project at Facoltà di Architettura Civile in the Milan Politecnico, will present Architettura e territorio. Una ricerca attraverso il progetto, a book by Cesare Macchi Cassia and Ugo Ischia. For the occasion several speakers will participate in a seminar at Dipartimento di Progettazione dell’Architettura. Read more

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