Temporary reuse for urban modification The current condition tells us that the past half-century city model is nowadays useless. It will take years, perhaps decades to recover it definitively, if the present economic scenario does not change its course. Decades of desertion, urban space deterioration and consequent social degradation. Rather than let urban voids wait long for economic resources and appropriate uses, would it not be more logical to introduce a new life cycle between existing and forthcoming elements? Therefore, it becomes necessary to review with humility and intelligence the way we design the city, radically changing the intervention methodology on urban modification. Within the city, new actions should be defined in order to reflect changes due on one hand to economic uncertainty and on the other to cycle-of-life, work, and entertainment briefness. These actions are intended to be linked to temporary reuse. The temporary reuse is a new life-cycle of a building, a middle-earth between old and new uses, awaiting economic resources that allow to act in a definitive way. For this reason, the National Association of Architects, Urban Planners, Landscape Designer, and Conservators of Reggio Emilia - together with the Urban Regeneration Office of Reggio Emilia Municipality - has set a design workshop that could involve other associations and technical colleges to experience design methodologies for the temporary reuse of S. Croce district in Reggio Emilia. The outcome consists of simple and exact projects, realisable with self-construction techniques. In this picture, one can find three out-of-fashion virtues that seem to be forgotten by architecture but, if rediscovered, may improve the design methodology – based on the principle that everything is temporary, nevertheless its consequences are permanent – and so the result. The three virtues are simplicity, accuracy, and technique. Simplicity, which is different from simplification or regularisation, is a way to invite the architect, and therefore architecture, to favour necessity and essentiality instead of pure decoration. The easiest way to assign simplicity is by a sensible reduction. Reduce the unnecessary, using less to achieve more, is an ethical principle at every level of life. Furthermore, accuracy is the idea of serving a specific cause, rather than the concept of measurement precision, although fundamental to the practise of architecture. Accurate, in this way, means effective, chosen, and defined. The pursuit of accuracy means to combine the efficiency of technological research with the effectiveness of architectural composition choices. In addition, the act of building signifies establishing a technical order: the technique has to regain its role to strengthen the concepts of contemporary, durability, adaptability, flexibility and disassembly at the end of service-life. It corresponds to the idea of a design by layers, which can be identified by the designer and recognizable by the user. recuperoeconservazione 136 – settembre 2016 – art. 41 – ISSN 2283-7558 | © DELETTERA WP 3 A design by layers has a simple and immediate character and it is perceived to last and to be reversible over time. It is flexible because it can adapt to various existing means, it is coherent as it creates a sense of belonging and recognisability, and it is clear as long as it is well known to all actors involved. Each layer has its own function, a durability and an economic impact.
RE-USE RE-START Il riuso temporaneo per la modificazione urbana
RINALDI, Andrea
2016
Abstract
Temporary reuse for urban modification The current condition tells us that the past half-century city model is nowadays useless. It will take years, perhaps decades to recover it definitively, if the present economic scenario does not change its course. Decades of desertion, urban space deterioration and consequent social degradation. Rather than let urban voids wait long for economic resources and appropriate uses, would it not be more logical to introduce a new life cycle between existing and forthcoming elements? Therefore, it becomes necessary to review with humility and intelligence the way we design the city, radically changing the intervention methodology on urban modification. Within the city, new actions should be defined in order to reflect changes due on one hand to economic uncertainty and on the other to cycle-of-life, work, and entertainment briefness. These actions are intended to be linked to temporary reuse. The temporary reuse is a new life-cycle of a building, a middle-earth between old and new uses, awaiting economic resources that allow to act in a definitive way. For this reason, the National Association of Architects, Urban Planners, Landscape Designer, and Conservators of Reggio Emilia - together with the Urban Regeneration Office of Reggio Emilia Municipality - has set a design workshop that could involve other associations and technical colleges to experience design methodologies for the temporary reuse of S. Croce district in Reggio Emilia. The outcome consists of simple and exact projects, realisable with self-construction techniques. In this picture, one can find three out-of-fashion virtues that seem to be forgotten by architecture but, if rediscovered, may improve the design methodology – based on the principle that everything is temporary, nevertheless its consequences are permanent – and so the result. The three virtues are simplicity, accuracy, and technique. Simplicity, which is different from simplification or regularisation, is a way to invite the architect, and therefore architecture, to favour necessity and essentiality instead of pure decoration. The easiest way to assign simplicity is by a sensible reduction. Reduce the unnecessary, using less to achieve more, is an ethical principle at every level of life. Furthermore, accuracy is the idea of serving a specific cause, rather than the concept of measurement precision, although fundamental to the practise of architecture. Accurate, in this way, means effective, chosen, and defined. The pursuit of accuracy means to combine the efficiency of technological research with the effectiveness of architectural composition choices. In addition, the act of building signifies establishing a technical order: the technique has to regain its role to strengthen the concepts of contemporary, durability, adaptability, flexibility and disassembly at the end of service-life. It corresponds to the idea of a design by layers, which can be identified by the designer and recognizable by the user. recuperoeconservazione 136 – settembre 2016 – art. 41 – ISSN 2283-7558 | © DELETTERA WP 3 A design by layers has a simple and immediate character and it is perceived to last and to be reversible over time. It is flexible because it can adapt to various existing means, it is coherent as it creates a sense of belonging and recognisability, and it is clear as long as it is well known to all actors involved. Each layer has its own function, a durability and an economic impact.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
