ABITARE

Abitare Milano

Thomas Pagani

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Housing dimensions suspended between the operation of urban planning and re-planning the " new parts of the city " that could become.

In the last twenty years the demand for social housing has reached levels of complexity and articulation such as to undermine the standardized response promoted by government. This new request of "home " has taken on the character of the emergency and requested an urgent and effective response to new and diverse needs of which it bears.

The initiative "Vivere a Milano", a program of the Department House of the City hall of Milan in collaboration with a team of experts from the Politecnico of Milan, stands as a crucial first step in the testing of those that are considered new and more effective policies for the house. The uniqueness of this program lies in the desire to build all parts of the city and not just public housing buildings .

The new interventions are not aimed, only, of responding to a diversified housing demand, but also to become an opportunity to intervene within the historic areas of public housing in the suburbs.
The descriptions of the design competition is not merely a report of the standard quantity of square meters of green areas or services to be guaranteed, but real descriptions of methods of interaction between new and existing: " the district extends to the park, which in turn extends to the city"."The transformation of the area tends to shape an environment that can be crossed in itself constitutes a set of places and services "."Within this strategy that attempts to establish opportunities for the emergence of synergies between existing services, it is proposed to dedicate the built volumes expected to forms of temporary residence. a new non- sedentary population could thus help activate promising forms of exchange".

This is in few words the theory. The bet still to be played, it will be seen whether and how these parts of the city that still appear largely uninhabited will be able to enter into a relationship with the city and with the existing populations to establish a virtuous circle, called for by the municipality and designers. This is the future that there is still suspended from the photographs shown by Pagani: several parts of the city waiting to be inhabited.

Statement written in collaboration with Daniel Pennati