A-round Corvetto
Development phase
With the phase of Co-design we found out which activities were the most needed and useful for the community of Corvetto. Starting from the two visions of the Concept assignment [1], we distinguished the point of strength of each proposal with the help of some members of the neighborhood, stakeholders, inhabitants, workers and the proponent of the intervention, Giacomo Sarasso.
On the west side of the street, we kept the Wall of Kindness, a place in which you can leave any kind of object or announcements for the community and take it if you are in need of it, and a meeting area, useful both for associations and workshops.
On the east side, there is a street food area, with tables and seats to rest and eat something.
At last in the underpass we want to put a collective artwork, made by the citizen, something that represents the neighborhood and makes the crossing more pleasant.
As we recognize the most liked elements, we tried to figure out a new concept that could match all the elements in a unique vision.
The new concept, A-round
The final vision for the future of Piazzale Corvetto is to create a place where different activities could happen, keeping in mind that the main aim is to provide to the community something that they really need. The principal goal is to create connections between people coming from different cultures and with different ages.
“A-round” refers both to the position of the neighborhood, in the suburbs of Milan, near to the countryside and to the aesthetic we choose for the ground pattern and the structures.
Although all the activities developed in this vision were already present in the previous stages, now they acquired greater importance in the light of the present situation, because they can respond to the future needs of the community and they can allow creating a connection between different groups.
We were asked to imagine a tactical urbanism project for 2020 that could act as an experiment for a permanent project to develop in for 2030, deepening in our values and aims.
2020 Tactical Urbanism Intervention
With all the values and the activities defined by the previous stage, we needed to think about the design of our project.
We started with the idea of a common space. This neighborhood needs to be unified, because of the large variety of cultures and ages of its inhabitants, so we wanted our project to link different kinds of people and to be built by them.
All the residents (especially the younger ones) need to be involved in the project, because they need to perceive the new “tools” as a “common good”.
So we started designing our structures with the idea of providing a good shape and aesthetic, but that would be also easy to construct all together.
Due to the historical context of our intervention we want to draw a pattern on the floor to underline the area of intervention which has also to help for the social distancing for 2020. But we don’t want just to suggest the idea of distance, we also want to show the strong connection between the inhabitants of Corvetto.
We also want to insert some directions for a better orientation in the square. These would be written in white color inside the green circles of the pattern in order to integrate them well with the grid. We want to provide indications for neighborhood attractions and for pedestrian paths and transports.
We divided the whole area into three parts and we create a specific structure for each one.
The meeting area, with a central table to do workshops and open meetings, also for the associations of the territory, and behind the Wall of Kindness, divided into three parts, one for public announcements, one for clothes and the last for books and other kinds of objects.
The street food area with a street food truck, some classic tables to eat a whole meal and some higher tables, only to stand and take something to drink.
To match the structures with the pattern we designed them to make the green (circular) steel part fall inside the circles on the ground, as an extension of it.
For all, we wanted to use as much cheap material as possible so we chose to use steel pipes and metal joints using a possible rent from scaffolding company [2], wood bought with possible financing by La Scuola Dei Quartieri [3], and paint and bike racks from the municipality toolkit.
We provides also a customer journey trying to imagine how every kind of user could do in the space.
2030 Permanent Intervention
The aims and the goals for the permanent intervention remained almost the same as the tactical urbanism one, but developed and enhanced to be permanent, with more resources and more technological.
Basing on these ones we decided to emphasize the round part of our structure, creating more complex structures all circular.
The west part with canopies to provide shadows, higher tables for small meetings and workshops for adults, smaller ones for children activities, some bicycle parking modules, a central work station and some modules for trees where you can also sit.
In the central work station we wanted to provide photovoltaic panels, Wi-Fi, tables with plugs and seats.
For the east part, we designed tables with different dimensions and some modules for trees, and then we provide a new kiosk, instead of the truck of the tactical urbanism project.
For this one we imagine a half served and half automatic part, to give to the users an always open option for the night.
We decided to use recycled material to build these structures: Studio Segers has figured out a way to turn household plastic waste, like yogurt cups, butter tubs, and plastic bags, into environmentally-friendly outdoor seating for ECO-oh!
Then we thought about the street in the middle of our area of intervention in the optic of adding more trees and make the crossing less difficult.
