Starting from relevant architectural design experiences applied to buildings for public services and facilities in historic residential quartiers from the Fifties to the Sixties of 20th century, it is possible to reveal some methods for conceiving and planning urban settlement in which mix of private/public activities and spaces was an important part of the strategies followed by the architects and engineers involved in these projects. These historical experiences show the lack of quality of their public spaces, due to some factors, as for example: different and incoherent building phases of public parts of these settlements; unadapted use of some private/public spaces coming from new needs (parking lots, sporting facilities, orchards and kitchen-gardens) that are increasingly evident from the phase of project to the following building and maintenance phases; the difficulty to give space to new uses (sometimes new building additions) coming from new ways of life expressed by social changes in families. This lack of quality of public spaces is possible sometimes to compare to the extraordinary quality of the architectural single “pieces” that form these urban residential quartiers built in the second part of 20th century, considering the opposite reasons of conservation of the most relevant buildings in these settlements and, in the meantime, the reasons of innovation/transformation of public space and of some minor parts of the same architectural system. Through this analysis, it is possibile to link these experiences to some good practices of innovation/transformation of european residential quartiers, aimed to increase the quality of their public spaces through some architectural design techniques: adding/enlargement (buildings connected to the existing ones adding some new non-residential functional characteristics); filling/density (introduction of new uses aimed to increase flexibility in existing buildings); mixing/hybrid (realization/transformation of buildings in order to give space to different public services and facilities, including co-housing and co-working spaces).
Additive and polysemantic strategies for improving quality of suburban building stock
MASSARENTE, Alessandro
2012
Abstract
Starting from relevant architectural design experiences applied to buildings for public services and facilities in historic residential quartiers from the Fifties to the Sixties of 20th century, it is possible to reveal some methods for conceiving and planning urban settlement in which mix of private/public activities and spaces was an important part of the strategies followed by the architects and engineers involved in these projects. These historical experiences show the lack of quality of their public spaces, due to some factors, as for example: different and incoherent building phases of public parts of these settlements; unadapted use of some private/public spaces coming from new needs (parking lots, sporting facilities, orchards and kitchen-gardens) that are increasingly evident from the phase of project to the following building and maintenance phases; the difficulty to give space to new uses (sometimes new building additions) coming from new ways of life expressed by social changes in families. This lack of quality of public spaces is possible sometimes to compare to the extraordinary quality of the architectural single “pieces” that form these urban residential quartiers built in the second part of 20th century, considering the opposite reasons of conservation of the most relevant buildings in these settlements and, in the meantime, the reasons of innovation/transformation of public space and of some minor parts of the same architectural system. Through this analysis, it is possibile to link these experiences to some good practices of innovation/transformation of european residential quartiers, aimed to increase the quality of their public spaces through some architectural design techniques: adding/enlargement (buildings connected to the existing ones adding some new non-residential functional characteristics); filling/density (introduction of new uses aimed to increase flexibility in existing buildings); mixing/hybrid (realization/transformation of buildings in order to give space to different public services and facilities, including co-housing and co-working spaces).I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
