Breathing Capuana
A place to get active
In a design project, one of the most important objectives is certainly to understand the feasibility and usefulness of an idea or concept and one of the best ways to understand this is the participatory approach to the project. The co-design sessions, or interactive conversations between the designers and the experts of the place, are one of the simplest and most effective methods to get in direct contact with the users to whom the final project is addressed and therefore, discuss and design together in order to obtain important informations regarding various aspects to be followed during the design phase.
During the co-design session, a great deal of information and ideas were obtained for the project concerning Piazzetta Capuana, which made it possible to derive the positive aspects of the two initial visions, one more focused on sport and the other on culture, in order to develop a definitive concept: Breathing Capuana.
Breathing Capuana
The aim of this concept is to create a meeting place for the neighborhood, through a space where people can play, train and have fun together. In a new environment that combines urban style with sport, people can play together on the courts painted on the ground, or train in the workout area; even children can have fun thanks to games such as Mirror Me or Twister, also designed on the ground, while tables have been designed for adults to play chess. In addition to promoting a healthier lifestyle, another goal is to push people to reflect on issues such as sustainability and environment, starting from the care of the gardens placed in the square and the numerous plants arranged next to the benches, so to provide shadow areas that are not currently present. Always to offer a shaded area in which to relax and a space to organize collective dinners, the central flowerbed has been furnished with picnic tables and a simple but extensive fabric cover that guarantees shelter from the sun. In addition, the largest area of the square has been designed almost entirely with drawings on the pavement and not physical elements, in order to allow associations to take advantage of the large and obstacle-free space for organizing events without however depriving younger kids of an area to play together and run freely.
Besides, many of the furnishings used within the space have been characterized to facilitate the respect of the safety standards established for the recovery phases following the health emergency caused by Covid-19. Each bench, in fact, has been designed with a standard basic structure but with the seats that are spaced out by seedlings so that people cannot find themselves too close together and at the same time the green present in the square is implemented. Even the children’s games or the drawings for the workout have all been arranged with a distance of at least one meter, while orange circles have been added to the fields to play with the ball, inside which the players should remain while playing, thus maintaining the safety distance and experimenting with a different way of playing, with new rules but also new potential.
The purpose of each tactical urbanism project is to temporarily experience the benefits and positive aspects that an urban intervention can bring, understand if the changes can be positive and improve the relationship between people and the environment, thus making your stay or simply the transit through the spaces analyzed more pleasant. If the project is beneficial and appreciated by users, it is possible to think of making these experimental changes permanently.
Therefore, for Piazzetta Capuana two different solutions have been designed, one thinking about the short term, as a real tactical urbanism intervention, which can therefore be put in place immediately, the second instead, thinking about the space in ten years, working on the long term with permanent intervention. These two projects, with the same objectives to be achieved and needs to be resolved, are similar in certain aspects such as the layout of the different areas and functions present in the square; however, the furnishings and materials change which, being designed for a permanent project, are more durable, less subject to usury and consequently also more expensive. The areas that mostly change within the two projects are the workout area and the central flowerbed designed for dinners and collective lunches of the associations of the square. The workout area, in the project for 2020, has been developed with simple elements all designed for a bodyweight workout, therefore with drawings painted on the pavement, which act as guidelines for the exercises, or furnishings such as benches and simple steps. Instead, in the long-term project the area is enlarged, paved with an impact-resistant material and equipped with professional equipment that results more voluminous, however necessary for a more complete and intense training. The flowerbed area, for the tactical urbanism project, was equipped with standard picnic tables and a colored fabric cover. In 2030 it will include tables and seats equipped with sockets, so that people can also use this area to work on their computers or simply to recharge their mobile phones. The roof that provides shade in this case will consist of several circular elements, some smaller and lower, equipped with solar panels that bring electricity to the tables, and others larger and colored to characterize and shade the area. Therefore, the two elaborated projects remain similar in terms of function and division of the areas, but they change considerably regarding to the furnishings used.
The tactical urbanism projects are therefore an effective way to assess the impact of an urban change on the perception of a usually overlooked space, by people who for various reasons come into contact frequently with it. Thereby, through low-cost furniture and not so invasive intervention, a change can be studied, evaluating its potentialities or critical aspects for future improvements. So, using limited time and, especially, budget, potentially effective solutions can be experimented and then carry out permanent interventions without risking to make invasive and expensive changes that do not meet the needs of the neighbourhood and its inhabitants.
TEAM #6
Chiara Combi, Francesco Lamperti, Kaarin Pender, Asia Poli, Valeria Rossi
