Università degli Studi dell’Adriatico “G. D’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara
Dipartimento di Architettura di Pescara
Corso di laurea in Architettura
Corso del 4° anno – A.A. 2019-2020
COMPOSIZIONE ARCHITETTONICA QUATTRO
Prof. Carlo Pozzi
Arch. Giovanni Rasetti
Premise
The Composition 4 course of this academic year addresses the theme of the planetary dimension of the Informal City, analyzing and carrying out project proposals in two completely different contexts but with analogies on the theme of the spontaneous realization of the slum and the construction of new centralities.
The contexts are those of the Borgo Mezzanone, on which the September 2019 workshop will take place, and of the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, on which the course design exercises will be held in the second semester (2020).
Design themes
September 2019 Workshop _borgo Mezzanone
The project starts from the major problem of the Municipality of Manfredonia, a problem that is not local but national, with the abusive settlement of thousands of non-EU citizens in the hamlet of Borgo Mezzanone, on the border with the municipality of Foggia (45 km from Manfredonia and 15 km km from Foggia). The abusive settlement is totally devoid of minimum hygienic conditions, located near the CARA, a reception center for migrants, the third largest in Europe, which hosts 1,500 refugees.
The hamlet of Borgo Mezzanone is home to "the runway", a former reception center, now a shanty town, a real city without rules, with residents for over ten years, many of whom are farm laborers exploited in the Capitanata fields. Bars, refreshment points, car shops, water and electricity "stolen", but no medical assistance. Inside of course there are strong problems also linked to widespread crime, prostitution and various types of abuse, in addition to the total absence of the state, which is no longer even able to enter the area, now no man's land.
The innovation proposed for European funding involves working with the territory and with people, trying to find shared solutions that can be inclusive. The presence of immigrants is evidently excessive for the settlement, and if we could somehow "lighten" the settlement, we could think of accompanying a transformation process to an urban dimension of what is now informal.
In the sub-Apennines dauno, territory bordering Campania, many villages are at risk of survival due to unstoppable depopulation, caused also by the scarce local economy. The loss of the garrisons of the territory has incalculable damages, not only on a cultural level, but above all because the lack of "care" and constant maintenance, can cause consequences also due to the escalation of the problems linked to climate change.
The project idea on which you will work in the September workshop is to work in synergy on the one hand on the villages of Dauni and on the other on the informal settlement of Borgo Mezzanone, defining contact spaces of the "community building" type that manage a path of training / information able to relocate part of the families that today live in conditions of extreme insecurity and total degradation, in the Apennine territories now abandoned, to help repopulate them.
Bibliography
1. AA.VV., The Other City, in Boundaries n. 4, Roma 2012
2. Secchi B., La città dei ricchi e la città dei poveri, Laterza, Bari 2013
3. Moroni S., La città responsabile, Carocci, Roma 2013
4. Pozzi C., Il clima come materiale da costruzione e altri scritti su Le Corbusier, Libria, Melfi 2015
5. Manigrasso M. (a cura di), Brasile. Imparando dalle favelas, Quaderno n. 4 di PPC, LIst, Rovereto 2015
6. AA.VV., The inevitable specificity of cities, Lars Müller Publishers, Zurigo 2015
7. Manigrasso M. (a cura di), Regenerating Kibera, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2018
8. Fabietti V., Pozzi C., From Sprawl to Slum, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2018
9. Rasetti G., Tensioni. Architetture nei paesaggi, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2018
10. Biraghi M., L’architetto come intellettuale, Einaudi, Torino 2019