by Marco Quaglia | Jun 17, 2015 | The Urban Media Lab
Berlin 11th-28th June 2015. The German capital is the venue of the first “Make City Festival – Re-sourcing the Urban”. The goal is trying to imagine the urban landscape of the future, and moreover, how to discover and optimize our resources.
The Festival brings together over 100 founding partners, among them: architects, designers, developers, civic groups and many others. Founded upon the notion of collaboration and participation, the issues at stake are several, and many of them are familiar to LabGov. Is it possible to re-think and renegotiate the urban space? How is it possible to open up spaces for new forms and practices of use? What is the future of our shared spaces?
To make the debate more challenging, the organization of the festival has found 3 main topics around which different levels of consultation and public events will spin, namely: urban commons, urban open sources, and urban living/working.
The city of Berlin, the venue of this first edition, was not chosen by chance; the city itself is a testimony of large-scale urban transformations, ad-hoc appropriations and new urban prototypes. The act of commoning is necessary for a city with the past and the present of Berlin. Collaboration among different levels of institutions is therefore contributing in the regeneration of many sites: RAW in the district of Friederichshain is an example. The organization RAW-Tempel, in collaboration with the city borough, has been managing independently this site – formerly a place for the maintenance of locomotives – for 15 years. RAW is now a hotspot for sports and other events. What is interesting in this case is the role of the public sector; the State was neither the planner nor the initiator, but was brought in to find a solutions between the owner and the squatters.
On the other hand, there is another case that needs to be mentioned here, and it is the one of the public referendum on the city government’s master plan for the re-development of the former Tempelhof Airfield (the largest open common of the city, now a park with urban gardening experiences). Citizens with their “nein” to this plan, showed that they want to be involved directly when it comes to decide about the use of their common spaces.
Although this successful cases, it is precisely to avoid the volatility of legislators (sometimes forward-looking, but way too often blind), owners, voters and sometimes squatters, that a more comprehensive and structured approach toward the issue of commons and urban regeneration is needed. The Berlin festival is an important moment along this path. We as labgovers and our community are of the very same idea. Professor Christian Iaione will be among the panelists, Friday 19th of June, to discuss with other experts on the issue of “Re-thinking Urban Governance”. Specifically, a governance that through participative processes will be able, in the future, to respond to global, economic and political changes.
Il festival “Make City” si terrà a Berlino dal 11 al 28 giugno. Tema centrale sarà quello di trovare soluzioni alternative per le città del futuro. Organizzato da più di 100 partner diversi – da architetti, a designer fino a gruppi della società civile – si cercherà di rispondere a domande fondamentali: come dovranno essere gestiti gli spazi pubblici in futuro? Come creare la sinergia necessaria per il bene comune? La città di Berlino è da anni hub culturale di un movimento, quello della rigenerazione urbana, che sta prendendo sempre più piede. LabGov, nella persona del suo coordinatore, il professor Christian Iaione, sarà presente nel panel del 19 giugno sulla ricerca di alternative per una governance urbana.
Marco Quaglia
by Marco Quaglia | May 12, 2015 | The Urban Media Lab
Cities are fundamental sites of creativity and art. It has always been like that. However, the recent waves of privatization and over-legislation, especially from the ‘80s onwards , have drastically reduced the spaces for that very same creativity and art. London, as emerged in the Guardian’s article is possibly the biggest example we have in Europe. The dominant approach to the governance of the city contributed in the change of our urban areas. The landscape in itself changed. This tendency that created ‘legislated city’, or as Andrea Mubi Brighenti, in his ‘Urban Intersitces: the Aesthetics and the Politics of the In-Between’ says, ‘lawscapes’, is becoming more and more unacceptable. In the field of developing new approaches to the governance of the city and of its spaces there is a new tendency that is gaining momentum. and LabGov is a proud pioneer in Italy.
Public spaces, especially in our European tradition, serve as democratic and multi-use fora that are free and open. The role they play in the development of ideas, political views, communities, business and interactions among citizens is second to no one. Indisputable evidence is how the more authoritarian regimes are afraid of public spaces, see the case of the Napoleonic III transformation of Paris, with its gigantic boulevards; or Buenos Aires, or many other capitals of former authoritarian regimes. Urban commons, although defined in economic jargon, are not that different. To re-think art in urban spaces, thus, is not only to satisfy people’s aesthetical lust. It has to be considered as one of the main guideline of a complete and drastic change in the way cities are run, and our democracy feed.
There are countless example to date, of citizens and artists, that de facto had the upper hand in the struggle for the governance of abandoned places, which are in many cases the perfect scenario for an artistic regeneration. To some extent, it is possible to say, that it was the response to the economic crisis; to the shrinking cities’ budgets, that made impossible for the government of the city to maintain and regulate public spaces. Funnily enough this transition, although ‘facilitated’, by the shortcoming of the official governance, it was in the first place hampered by the very same cities that are always afraid of losing the grasp in what they still consider as their sphere of influence, and legitimate power.
As already said, though, the wind has changed and artistic commons are becoming more and more popular and socially accepted by all. All things considered, their role should be of a powerful leverage for a broader change in the governance of urban commons. In Rome, for example, there is recently a complete new approach to urban arts. 40 international street artists were invited to modify the aesthetic of some periphery, usually the places forgotton by the official governance. So, be aware and open your eyes, you could run into an artistic performance just around the corner!
http://video.repubblica.it/edizione/roma/roma-i-luoghi-della-street-art/193291/192266
Beni urbani artistici: ripensare l’arte negli spazi pubblici
Le città sono da sempre i maggiori centri culturali e artistici di una comunità. Noi italiani in particolare ne dovremmo sapere qualcosa. Purtroppo l’ondata di privatizzazioni, e in generale di legiferazione, che hanno avuto come oggetto le nostre città, ha finito con il ridurre drasticamente gli spazi liberi e aperti alla creatività e all’arte.
Fortunatamente qualcosa sta cambiando, e ormai da qualche anno. E’ infatti partita un’ondata altrettanto forte ma in senso opposto a quella precedente. LabGov, ne è tra gli orgogliosi pionieri in Italia.
I cittadini, associati o meno, stanno riprendendo in mano gli spazi pubblici e gli spazi urbani caduti in disuso. Esplorarne le ragioni, significa in qualche modo, ragionare del fallimento conclamato di un modello organizzativo. La crisi economica in questo ha avuto il suo classico effetto di acceleratore di eventi.
La restrizione dei budget comunali in particolare ha finito con il costringere la governance classica della città ad abbandonare molti spazi, lasciandoli in disgrazia. I cittadini dunque sono tornati protagonisti, e il fenomeno di ri-appropriazione, o meglio di restituzione a se stessi è solo iniziato.
This is the link used as a source and where the picture has been taken.
by Marco Quaglia | Apr 28, 2015 | EducationLabs
The project is called “Greenmore”, its creators are IED and Coldiretti Giovani and the city of Milan is the first Italian hub. What am I writing about? A project on sustainable agriculture designed and promoted by young people for the rooftops and other unconventional spots of our cities.
The idea stems from the fact that by 2050, 80% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. One of the biggest challenge of this phenomenon of migration is that agriculture, as it was known all along, will need to adapt to the urban environment. The possibility to move at least part of the daily production of food in the city is something that needs ideas and further analysis.
In Italy, 1 out of 4 people, spend some time on do-it-yourself agriculture. However, the majority of these people are adults. New generations, on the other hand, are not involved, and apparently, not interested in this topic. Apparently.
In 2009 a pilot project called Campagna Amica was at the base of the biggest European network of food trade, with more than 20,000 points of sale. This campaign represented the starting point of a cultural trend that is gaining more and more momentum, also among young people.
Thanks to a working process of some 4 month, IED and Coldiretti Giovani, developed a project that is ready-to-use for all the municipalities and farmers that may be interested in implementing urban agriculture. What it does emerge is that through the use of platforms – mobile and social connection – it is really possible to promote the consumption of food and products that are made “in your backyard”. Literally.
The creative process was based on the experience of other realities – Detroit in particular, a city that was destroyed in the aftermath of the collapse of its industrial structure, and that, only through a change in the attitude of its most dynamic citizens is experiencing a second birth. From motor-town to farmer-town.
The project designed by these young people is easy to replicate, appealing, cozy, open and technological. LabGov, this year, was the promoter and the designer of a garden for the LUISS University. For this, and many other reasons, the Greenmore project and its future development will be observed and studied with great attention.
For more info: http://www.corriere.it/tecnologia/15_febbraio_24/sfida-ied-rendere-orti-milanesi-piu-affollati-discoteche-02f415ea-bc2f-11e4-9889-956e36696542.shtml
http://www.benessereorg.it/index.php/lo-sviluppo-sostenibile-delle-citta-digital-il-progetto-greenmore-ied-coldiretti-giovani/
Gli orti urbani stanno prendendo piede in tutto il mondo. In Italia anche ci sono delle esperienze che stanno emergendo in termini di innovazione, replicabilità e apertura ad un pubblico eterogeneo.
Il progetto, chiamato Greenmore, è stato sviluppato a seguito di 4 mesi di incontri, da giovani designer dello IED e di Coldiretti Giovani. L’idea è quella di creare un modello che possa rendere il più facile possibile l’avvio di piccoli orti in contesti urbani, sfruttando i principi e i benefici della sharing economy.
Il coinvolgimento dei giovani è favorito da l’utilizzo di piattaforme che garantiscano la creazione di spazi smart e conviviali, in cui anche l’estetica gioca un ruolo essenziale. Questo progetto, e quelli simili che nascono, meritano tutta l’attenzione possibile. Portare un po’ di verde e di profumi tra i tetti e i palazzi delle grandi città è un fine meritorio di per sé. LabGov da questo punto di vista non fa e non farà mancare il suo impegno.
by Marco Quaglia | Apr 26, 2015 | EducationLabs
The city of Rome will host on May 21-24, the “Biennial of Public Space”, at the headquarter of the department of Architecture (University of RomaTre). The event, promoted by the Public Administration, the University and many associations of citizens has one goal: comparing experiences, best practices and future challenges in the field of social innovation.
The three thematic areas of this year will be: the road, urban regeneration and the unequal city. We should spend some words for each of them. Roads are the most common public spaces in the world – in fact they occupy the majority of the surface of our cities. It is not by chance that one of the most typical case study of what is now known as the “tragedy of the commons” (Garrett Hardin, 1968) is the traffic jam. Mobility is clearly the first element that pops up to everyone’s mind, but is not the only one. If you cannot move easily and reasonably fast, so many things will be precluded to our lives. Long story short: the road is the quintessential connective element of our life.
The second topic, urban regeneration, is something definitely more common to us at LabGov. Public urban spaces are central to our social life, and play a big role in the development of new ideas and other forms of innovation – just think at all the co-working spaces that are emerging. Rome, in particular, needs to re-think and re-shape its phenomenal public space, which in many cases, corresponds to its historical heritage. (On our site you can read just about everything on this topic).
The third and final day will be devoted to the unequal city. Years of globalization and the recent economic crisis are leaving a legacy that is also a challenge: the majority of the world’s population is living or is about to live in cities. Many of our cities were and still are unprepared to receive and accomodate with dignity this mass of people. Peripheries in particular, are under greater and greater pressure, and we are not that far from reality if we say that, it is precisely in these forgotten and sometime neglected spaces, at the border of our urban conglomerates, that some of the most problematic issue are overstocking, and about to explode.
The legacy of the event will be a document called “The message of the Biennale” that will receive international attention, and that will be hopefully, an important step towards an operational turn to the Charter of Public Space, and other similar documents that are getting credit at the international level.
LabGov will be following the event closely; but the Biennale is open to all. So if you are in Rome, and are interested to get a better grasp of what is going on around you, don’t hesitate.
(more info at http://www.biennalespaziopubblico.it/blog/nav-2015/il-profilo-della-biennale-2015/; http://unhabitat.org/habitat-iii/)
Dal 21 al 24 maggio, Roma, nello specifico negli edifici della sede di architettura di RomaTre, sarà il luogo di incontro della “Biennale dello Spazio Pubblico”. Con lo scopo di mettere a confronto idee, azioni e soggetti, la biennale sarà un momento chiave in questo anno, per avere una visione più ampia su alcune delle tematiche più interessanti nell’ambito dell’innovazione sociale degli spazi pubblici.
Le tre aree tematiche saranno: la strada, la rigenerazione urbana e la città diseguale. Ognuno di questi temi, a cui sarà dedicata un’intera giornata, saranno dei punti di partenza per altre decine di tematiche collegabili.
L’eredità della tre giorni sarà un documento chiamato “Il messaggio della Biennale” che aspira ad essere un contributo importante nel dare rilevanza operativa alla “Carta dello Spazio Pubblico” e ad altri documenti analoghi emersi in ambito internazionale.
Aperta a tutti, si possono avere maggiori informazioni al seguente sito: http://www.biennalespaziopubblico.it/blog/nav-2015/il-profilo-della-biennale-2015/?lang=en.
Vedi anche: http://unhabitat.org/habitat-iii/
by Marco Quaglia | Mar 28, 2015 | The Urban Media Lab
Expo2015 is closer than ever. As every Italian knows the issue at stake will be: “Feeding the Planet: Energy for Life”. We still do not know if it will be a success or not, but what we already know, as LabGov, is that there are few topics of such relevance.
In our society, according to one of the last report from FAO, we are told that each year 1.3 billion of tons of food are wasted (or trashed). Consequences are, as easily understood, not only from an economic perspective; but also in terms of the environment, of use of resources and so forth. Let alone the gigantic moral question…
Citizens, network of people, are trying to solve this issue which is more radicalized in our daily life than one would expect. Germany is certainly a pioneer in this field. In many urban centers (Berlin, Colonia, Munich and other) familes decided to join their effort to tackle this issue. They decided to create an online platform (foodsharing.de) where people can simply signal their food excess. Food exchanges are also possible. What is the rationale behind food-sharing? Encourage people not to trash the food they are not going to use. Simple as that.
The platform in Germany evolved faster than expected. Right now it involves also firms, restaurants and supermarkets which are usually the places where the majority of food transits, get processed and eventually wasted.
What about Italy? In our country every household, single included, trashes on average 35 kilos of food every year (Rapporto 2014 Waste watcher – Knowledge for Expo). The economic value is impressive: some 8 billions euro. According to Coldiretti, this mountain of food would be enough to feed 44 millions people. Each year.
This is the reason why also here, food-sharing needs to gain momentum. This phenomenon is one of the many case in which collaborative economics, with eco-friendly spillover, can promote the change in the whole production and supply chain of an entire sector.
To date there are at least two important platforms where you can start
to share your food:
ifoodshare.org and scambiacibo.it.
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Il food-sharing per sconfiggere vecchie abitudini
Con l’avvicinarsi di Expo2015, che avrà come tema “Nutrire il pianeta: energia per la vita”, LabGov vuole introdurre un tema che all’estero sta prendendo molto piede, nella speranza che sia replicabile anche qui da noi: il food-sharing.
Ogni anno sprechiamo oltre 1 miliardo di tonnellate di cibo; le conseguenze sono enormi sia in termini economici, che ambientali; per non parlare di quelle morali.
Le buone pratiche dell’economica collaborativa però ci stanno offrendo una soluzione al problema: la condivisione del cibo. Nata in Germania, dove ha preso piede in alcune grandi città, così come in piccoli centri; anche in Italia è oggi possibile fare riferimento a diverse piattaforme online per la condivisione delle eccedenze alimentari.
L’obiettivo, come da tradizione di LabGov, è quello di mettere in luce ogni tipo di fenomeno collaborativo che possa determinare un cambiamento di approccio e soprattutto una correzione alle distorsioni dell’economia che le istituzioni non sono in grado di affrontare da sole.
