Research Group
MSLab _Measure and scale of contemporary city
DAStU _ Scuola di Architettura e Società_ Politecnico di Milano
METROPOLITAN ARCHITECTURE MANAGEMENT Workshop.
The medium/small size of the city facing metropolitan explosive growth.
Politecnico di Milano 25-01-2014 / 01-02-2014
Program
The Workshop is arranged for comparing the experiences and proposals of different international
groups about the proposed theme. Each group will discuss the issues and projects of its urban
reality according to a metropolitan perspective; these should have been previously developed at
the University, in a moment dedicated to the Metropolitan Architecture Management Workshop.
The project phase of the workshop will be about a case study that will be defined by the
scientific board; after the theoretical section, the participants will have the remaining days
to develop strategies, solutions, scenarios and define their project proposal; each day a
series of seminars will be held from 6.00 p.m., when each group will have the chance to
discuss topics, methods of analysis, interpretation and design under the supervision of a
scientific committee. The last day will be dedicated for the final review.
Hereafter, participants can find the program of the Workshop:
1. Saturday 25-01 / (scale 1:50000 ) Room B.4.1 – 10.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Meeting at the University of Politecnico di Milano
Theoretical section / First phase + Practical Section / First phase
Morning Session: Presentation of the project areas by MSLab (Measure and Scale of the
Contemporary City Laboratory)
Lecture about metropolitan context:
The case studies of Tacloban and New York / by Professor Jose
Danilo Silvestre (University of Philippines Diliman) and Professor
Grahame Shane (Columbia University)
Afternoon Session: Student’s team-work / Redefining the strategies of intervention and
identification of the main Hinge Points at the metropolitan scale:
between geography and history, between green and gray infrastructure
The main aims of this phase will be:
− Mapping of the gray network/ infrastructural existing nodes and spines
− Mapping of the greeen network
− Growth rate and main socio-economical information about the project area
2. Sunday 26-01
Free
3. Monday 27-01 / Room U.2 – 9.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Theoretical section / Second phase
Morning Session: The Metropolitan Architecture Management Issues: Lectures by
Professors Pedro Ortiz, Nathalie Roseau and Grahame Shane
With the partecipation of Gabriele Pasqui (Director of DAStU)
Afternoon Session: Seminar Section / Lectures about metropolitan contexts:
The case studies of Cairo and Istanbul / by Professors Nabil Elhady
(Cairo University) and Eda Yucesoy (Sehir University of Istanbul)
4. Tuesday 28-01 (scale 1:50000 / 1:5000) / Room B.4.1 – 9.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Practical section / Second phase
The main aims of this phase will be:
− Definition of the strategic environmental skeleton and its articulated actions
− Public Transport strategic skeleton network infrastructure
− Urban (and Urban-Design) strategic interventions as an interface between scales
− Perspective over governance management, planning and financial administrative
procedures
Afternoon Session: Seminar Section / Lecture about metropolitan contexts:
The case studies of Milano / by Professor Ernesto d’Alfonso
(Politecnico di Milano)
With the partecipation of Mr. Giovanni Vetritto (Ministero della Coesione
Territoriale) and Mr. Andrea Calori (Associazione Economia e
Sostenibilità, Presidente URGENCI)
5. Wednesdays 29-01 (1:5000 / 1:2000) / Room U.2 – 9.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Practical section / Third phase
The main aims of this phase will be:
− Review and redesign of the landscapes and the urban scale, in relation to the analysis
previously carried out
− Strengthening of the foundations at the local, glocal, globally
− Strengthening natural elements in relation to the project
− Enriching of the master plan and the ground project
− Locating a meaningful structure of the urban project
Afternoon Session: Seminar Section / Lecture about metropolitan contexts:
The case studies of Tehran / by Professors Ali Madanipour (NewCastel
University) and Mehrdad Javidinejad (Islamic Azad University Central
Tehran Branch)
6. Thursdays 30-01 (1:5000 / 1:2000) / Room Q.1 – 9.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Practical section / Third phase
Afternoon Session: Joint Lecture with “Thinking The Edge” – Aula Rogers / 2.30 p.m.
TURKISH ARCHITECTS and THE AGA KHAN AWARD
Murat Tabanlioglu / Between Architetture and Urbanisme
Han Tumertekin / The Scale of Architecture
7. Friday 31-01 (1:2000 / 1:1000 / 1: 500) / Room U.2 – 9.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Practical section / Fourth phase
The main aims of this phase will be:
− Defining a smaller scale of the significant elements (probably gate)
− Realization of explanatory models in material and digital format
− Layout and presentation
8. Saturday 01-02 / Room B.4.1 – 10.00 a.m. / 8.00 p.m.
Objective: Final Review / open debate about the project results within other teams and professors
The workshop participants will attend to ad hoc themed lessons taught by the visiting
professors Pedro Ortiz, Nathalie Roseau, Grahame Shane.
Invited Professors and Guests: Alessandro Balducci, Ilaria Valente, Gabriele Pasqui, Giovanni
Vetritto, Andrea Calori, Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Bertrando Bonfantini, Carolina Pacchi, Guja Bertelli,
Emilio Faroldi, Daniele Bignami, Maria Cristina Rulli.
The urbanization process is speeding up around the world. Since 2010 more than half of the
population of the planet lives in cities. In the next 20 years the urban population is expected to grow
by 2.000 million inhabitants. Cities must be able to receive and house such large numbers.
Contemporary cities can be seen as complex systems equipped with a network-armature rooted in
specialized multiscale nodes, which set an archipelago of island of urban landscape with various
grains. In this perspective, the infrastructural processes running over a territory are decisive in
fixing the characters that build its memorable image and, therefore, their links with the identity of a
place; a process which is clearly demonstrated by the history of the Italian landscape and towns.
It is up to the Polytechnic and Departments of Architecture and Urban Studies to come up with the
solutions to this complex problem, by studying and comparing alternatives, good practices,
methods, as well as the models best able to address this issue. We are delighted to benefit from
the strong and continuous support of international professors, who contribute towards the
comprehnsion of the scale of the question and help to establish new relations with international
univeristies and institutions, believing that it’s fundamental to harmonize different disciplines and
expertises.
Facing the historical structural transformation of the type of settlements, we should provide some
guidance on both the methodology and the scale able to guide and determine in a progressive
sense the architectonical, agro and urban restoration, as well as the conservation and the future
development; these should then lead to an intervention process and to a particular local form of
metropolitan net-city. We need to face the “Metropolitan Design” and, more specifically, we need to
define how it’s possible to shape both the new public realm and the metropolitan city fabric.
The multiplicity nature of the problem depends on the cultural environment, therefore it’s
fundamental for the workshop to include examples and case studies from the different global
regions:
a) Latin America and Caribe.
b) Middle East and North Africa.
c) Sub-Saharan Africa
d) Europe and Central Asia
e) South Asia
f) East Asia and Pacific
Our topic as architects and urban studies researchers, is to study and research the adaptation of
the city regarding the issues mentioned above through a multiscalar-approach. The aim of the
workshop will then be the dialogue between two scales, the Urban and the Metropolitan ones,
which need to be treated in a complementary way, considering that the metropolitan physical
project asks for a compatibility between scales. Of course, every scale differs from the others in the
type of disciplines it deals with and in the way it tackles in the response: in order to get to a wider
viewpoint, we are therefore going to deal with the 1:50.000, the Metropolitan, and the 1:5.000, the
Urban; beyond them, we have the Urban Design scale, 1:500, and the Architectural scale, 1:50.
Aiming at defining the Metropolitan City, the workshop proposes experimentations on both
metropolitan and urban systems, as well as on architecture, focusing on the nature of the
phenomena of space consumption – quality space issues – resulting from the relentless growth of
the city. The result will be a study of the social-economic-political development, but conducted
through the physical spatial matter. In fact the project concentrates on the new sustainable
metropolitan production system and it involves different groups, who contest, negotiate, get to
compromise and collaborate in order to carry out agreements: this new knowledge represents an
important form of “capital asset” and “social capital”.
This is a perspective through which set up a project on:
1) Empowering the neighborhoods
2) To complement the urban service provision
3) To study how to pass from the neighborhood centralities (to be defined, located and designed) to
the individual consumption
4) To study how the neighborhood centralities provision (Top-down) has to be provided by the
formal sector (Public+Private)
5) How the bottom up complementarity has to be extended to the network provision, yet to interact
with the neighborhood (Informal-Formal) in different forms
And to study the integration of:
6) The Economic, Social, Environmental and Infrastructural informality
7) The bottom-up and top-down approach and dialogue
8 ) The formal and informal mechanisms
9) The private and the public sectors
10) The urban and local scales
The general question
The general question is about the project of the void inside metropolitan city, aiming at defining
a project proposal for the Metropolitan Architecture: new resilient metropolitan typologies for the
metropolitan city. Each of them could be defined through a name/key word:
1) The edge in between formal and informal (Cairo)
2) The dismissed infrastructure (airport) in the middle of the city (Teheran)
3) The metropolitan landscape through a dismissed industrial area (NY)
The workshop is open for both professors and students, and it’s divided into 2 sections: a
theoretical and a practical one. During the theoretical one, we will present our metropolitan
architecture project strategy and we’ll introduce the three case studies and their metropolitan
architectural issue; each applicant as professor is furthermore asked to discuss one of the 3 topics
mentioned above from his/her experienced local metropolitan problems. The results of the
theoretical section will therefore inform the practical one, incorporating new contents and
international hypothesis.
Out of the analysis will follow a discussion between each participant and the scientific international
board. The focus for the participant professors and professionals will be the discussion about the
local metropolitan issue of each metropolitan city which has been presented. As a consequence,
each applicant as student will have an accomplished panorama related to the global metropolitan
architecture management issues.
During the practical section, we will have 2 options:
1) each group can go down into a metropolitan architecture project related to his own city (for this
purpose, before January, we need to receive from each group who chooses this option, both
maps and related documentation able to introduce the specificities of the topic)
2) each participant could choose between four main metropolitan case studies, on which to apply
our methodology :
− an area the city of Milan
− the city of Cairo
− the city of Teheran
− the city of New York
It’s clear that a part of a course project will be share, discuss and interact with the results of each
metropolitan city question until we’ll get to the project. The proposed model system of network,
among universities, students, professionals and final local institutions should therefore be
systematic, creative and participative, facing issues of the social and physical sphere. The result
will be a competitive, fair and sustainable model of collaboration.
Some open themes for the particular project
1. Mobility. Metropolitan spatial strategy.
Metropolitan Net-city and mobility: private traffic and parking, public transportation and slow
mobility. The envisioning of an integrated system could configure the city as a fast net that both
interweaves relations in specialized nodes and defines an archipelago of local enclaves with inner
slow mobility and a brand new landscape. These new hierarchical relations will set a new spatial
strategy for the city.
2. Urban agriculture: feeding growth.
Poverty and urbanization rates according to well know models seem to be directly proportional. The
defense and promotion of local models of urban farming could allow to controvert this relation
proposing urbanity scenarios which link living and feeding in accordance to local models. New
living and land-use typologies can be studied considering the local property policies to propose an
original model of urban farming for the low-grain developments of the city.
3. Energy and sustainable infrastructure.
The urge of making up for the present infrastructural lacks to offer higher standards of livability
suggests the development of low-cost models of urban infrastructure based on innovative
technologies able to overcome the limits imposed by the low availability of electric energy; i.e.
exploitation of renewable sources, low-tech water treatments, low power consumption lighting and
lighting management, liquid and solid waste treatment, etc. It’s necessary to set a locally fitted
ecological balance for the informal evolving settlements, able to produce a specific recognizable
urban landscape.
4. New building typologies: between informal and formal.
It is necessary to understand the relation between formal real estate market (and its imported
models) and informal settlements dynamics. Identity/cultural aspects link with
typological/climate/energy aspects under the common framework of sustainability. A wide
spectrum of issues can be combined in the definition of new morphological schemes as well as
typological solutions, thanks to parametric and associative design.
5. Climate change. Natural hazard.
The importance of agriculture and the relation with the water are great resources for the city, but
the future scenarios about the climate change are uncertain; they need to be monitored and their
effects have to be taken in consideration for the present planning decisions, producing evolving
dynamic scenarios and focusing on urgent actions about water management.
For further information, please contact:
Prof. Arch. Antonella Contin
Politecnico di Milano, DAStU / via Bonardi 3, 20133, Milano
e-mail address: antonella.contin@polimi.it
phone address: 0039 02 2399 5527
web site: www.metropolitan-architecture.polimi.it
