Bazzichiamo
Piazza Bazzi / Via California
The area we analyzed in our project is located in Municipio 6, west of Milan. The project plans to work on two adjacent spaces: the axis of Via California (in the portion between Via Foppa and Via Valparaiso), and Piazza Bazzi. They both are considered the future entrance gate to the QTS. QTS is a district composed by a large number of places related to the field of design, fashion and creativity, many of them concerning formal and informal subjects (associations, committees, groups). This meant that inhabitants, are already active in the area, and also are very interested in promoting the livability and activation of the surroundings.
Because of the current situation, at first we thought it would not be easy to carry out a community analysis without actually observing, experiencing or living the place, as we usually would do for this kind of analysis. We didn’t know how to have a good communication without talking face to face with local people. So the solution was to create an online survey and share it on some Facebook pages whose members were residents in the area. In the survey we tried to include certain themes that were very significant for our quantitative and qualitative research. For quantitative results, we analyzed aspects such as age, gender, employment, level of education, family unit, etc. While for the qualitative results, we included subjective questions such as the reason why they frequent the area, their feelings about it, if they know “Piazze Aperte” initiative, which are consider the main places of aggregation, etc. We received a hundred responses in total, this showed us, as we hoped, that inhabitants are very active and participative. The followers of the webpages were willing to help us by being very precise in their responses, and this helped a lot to have a more clear and complete analysis. Few of them suggested some changes to improve the survey, which meant to us that they are trustfully interested on the change of the zone. Among the actors who care of the intervention and are involved in the implementation of the area we found BASE Milano. It has contributed to the urban regeneration of the Tortona district by giving back to the city the historic spaces of the former Ansaldo factory. BASE is today a center for the production of cultural initiatives that offers to the public a dense program of exhibitions, shows and workshops. For this reason we decided to contact one of the member of BASE, Monica Righetti , to share with her our ideas and survey. She suggested other channels to share the survey and other associations that support “Piazze aperte” project, such as Massa Marmocchi and Museolab6 Milano Sud Ovest. Massa Marmocchi is a voluntary association made up of Milanese citizens who organize themselves to take their children to school by bicycle. Bergognone primary school is in front of Piazza Bazzi so we think that a child safety program is important to consider for implementation. Museolab6 is a free Cultural Association to promote the memory, protection and care of the territory, with the involvement of the local community. Lastly, Monica suggested us not to forget of involving the shopkeepers in the area. They are an integral part of the neighborhood and may have different opinions or points of views than the residents, in particular regarding the fact of loosing parking spaces. We discovered that there are several associations and groups active in the area and that the inhabitants of the neighborhood are very lively.
In the other hand, with the spatial analysis, we also had some issues getting a clear perception of the intervention area because we were not able to go, visit and explore it as we usually would do. Even though, we did not went physically to the place, there are so many tools in the internet that turned out to be very helpful for the development of the analysis to explore the space virtually. For the service and green area map, to have a more specific result, we travelled block by block in google maps to categorize the use of each building into mixed use (residential and commercial), religious, public services, sports, cultural and historical, only residential use, only commercial use, academic and health care. In this map we observed that on the South part it can be found more historical, cultural and commercial use and less green area. While in the middle and North part it can be seen academic and religious uses, and also a bigger percentage of public and private green areas. For the transportations map, we concluded that thanks to the presence of different kind of public transportation in the area such as the train, tram, bus, preparation of bicycle paths, and the future construction of M4 metro line, it becomes easier for people to access, mainly because the whole city is very well connected and there isn’t any difficulty to get there. In the other hand, for the people and traffic flow analysis we tried to simulate how it manifests in the surroundings. We observed in the survey that almost 40% of the inhabitants consider that the area around Piazza Bazzi has a high level of traffic, most of the times because of the Fashion week and Fuorisalone events. And finally for the rest and parking areas analysis we found out that on Via California, the large central traffic divider is now used to park cars and motorcycles on the left side (13 parking spaces and 5 for motorcycles), and also that there is a frequent presence of illegal parking on the right side, with cars that invade the adjacent green space. Rest areas for citizens are mainly identified in Bazzi Square and Parco Solari. The square is frequented by the elderly inhabitants who stop on the benches, especially during the summer. However, in the survey answers it emerged that many of the people do not consider the square as a meeting place, someone defines it as a “non-place”, without identity and some others as a “degraded space”.
With all of the above, we can conclude that the route of via California / piazza Bazzi, is an area with huge potential, it is considered the future entrance axis of the QTS, eventhough nowadays is an underrepresented and partly degraded space. It is a strategic space of intervention because of the active participation of its inhabitants and its location. We consider that carrying out a tactical project in this area is achievable mainly because the level of active participation is quite high, this means that people will be willing to collaborate to have a significant impact on the area of intervention, showing us a possible interpretation for the project. Moreover, the area is very well defined because of the presence of activities related to art, design, communication, history, fashion and culture (Laboratori della Scala, Mudec, BASE, Superstudio, Silos Arman, etc.) giving an identity to the place. Also we can observe that Vincenzo Muccioli garden and the Solari park are important points of attraction for different targets: from adults to children, from associations to sports groups. The presence of the school poles in Via Bergognone that overlook the square is very significant. It becomes a place where many parents and grandparents wait for the end of the lesson time and the first arrival of the children when they leave school. The two twin areas of Piazza Bazzi are considered a way to define a welcoming space and a meeting point for the realities of the neighborhood to promote their initiatives, moments of meeting and aggregation for the inhabitants of the area.
TEAM #5
Mariangela Ippolito, Federica Moioli, Ilaria Pigozzi, Sara Zambotti, Alejandra Zermeño Frias
