Spatial Tensions in Urban Design

This book provides an original research perspective in the field of contemporary urban conflicts. Even though violent conflicts have transformed cities during the whole XX century, it is nowadays possible to identify the softer phenomenon of "Tensions" as a specific contemporary both social and spatial urban changes catalyst. Through a collection of essays from various disciplines focusing on international case studies-from India to Europe to Latin America-the publication explores the multifaceted concept of "spatial tensions" as a lens for better understanding contemporary urban transformations. While tensions many times depend on spatial dispositives and superstructures, they also offer a powerful key for design practices and strategies.

Auteur

Ianira Vassallo is an architect, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Urban Planning at DIST, Politecnico di Torino. Her research interest focus on the relationship between urban practices and projects of spatial transformation in the contemporary cities. Since 2016, she has been part of the LABSUS Association staff, and she works on the production of discourses, spaces, knowledge and values related to the urban commons processes.

In 2021, she carried out a teaching and research experience at Institut d'Urbanisme et de Géographie Alpine (IUGA). Currently, she works in the research project Lifelines (2020-2022) that focuses on the possibility to analyze the new infrastructures of care, of work, of production that the COVID situation are defining.

Michele Cerruti But is an architect, Ph.D., an adjunct professor in Urbanism at DIST, Politecnico di Torino, and an academic coordinator at Accademia Unidee-Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella. Since 2018, he has also tutored courses in Arts and Social Engagement at the Fine Arts Department of ArtEZ (NL).

His research focuses on the contemporary urban condition, specifically focusing on a collective transdisciplinary approach straddling urbanism, social sciences, and public arts and aiming at exploring the relations between society, economy, and territory. Since 2014, he works on the issue of the city making of contemporary manufacturing production, and on this topic he defended his Ph.D. research, co-authored and co-edited international peer-reviewed essays and books, and co-organized international conferences. He currently works on the issue of mediality and medial territories in Europe as the very platform of Western modernity and key space for tackling climate change.

Giulia Setti is an architect, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Architectural and Urban Design at DAStU Department, Politecnico di Milano. Her researches focus on disposal, reuse, and recovery of productive architectures, and to the different typologies of contemporary public spaces. Currently, she works in the research project called Territorial Fragilities, coordinated by DAStU Department, with the aim to define projects and strategies able to respond to the growing fragilities of the Italian territory.

In 2014 2015, she carried out teaching and research activities at the School of Architecture, CEPT University, Ahmedabad (India). Moreover, between 2016 and 2018, she carried out research at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Xi'an Jiao Tong University coordinating international exchange activities and workshops.

Agim Kërçuku is an architect and urbanist, has a Ph.D. in Urbanism at the Università IUAV di Venezia. Since December 2018, he is a research fellow at the DAStU Excellence Department of the Politecnico di Milano. In 2020, he carried out a visiting experience at Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (IfL). Research activity focuses on the dimension of fragility in the territory marked by dynamics of demographic contraction and lack of care and maintenance of social fixed capital.

Résumé
This book provides an original research perspective to the field of contemporary urban conflicts. Even though violent conflicts have transformed cities during the XX century, it is nowadays possible to identify the phenomenon of Tensions as a specific contemporary both social and spatial urban changes catalyst.
Through a collection of essays from various disciplines focusing on international case studiesfrom India to Europe to Latin America the publication explores the multifaceted concept of spatial tensions as a lens for better understanding contemporary urban transformations. While tensions often depend on spatial dispositives and superstructures, they also offer a powerful key for design practices and strategies.

Contenu
Part I: The Janus-faced concept of spatial tensions.- A new vision regarding spatial tensions in urban design.- Part II: Spatial and design perspectives.- Extractivism as a field of tensions.- Urban society in tension: The Santiago's Commune.- Latent tensions and urban change in two Milan neighbourhoods.- Fear and segregation: Anxiety beyond the gated communities. The Costa Rican Case.- Common(s) tensions. Design as a tool to ground rights in the case of Cavallerizza Reale in Turin.- Spatial tensions: Dispositives, practices, projects from tensions to design: Building inclusion with Roma communities in Milano.- The Beach is Boring. The collective space of co-living.- The two faces of Matera: Diachronic narratives of changing perspectives on Heritage.- Design experimentation in a context of cultural division: The case of Ahmedabad.- Resisting gentrification by reclaiming a work-life balance. An exercise of research by design in Brussels.- Reconfiguring the neoliberal city: Three stories of urban pioneers in Berlin.- Infrastructure of segregation: The case of road 75 (Israel).- Parts III: Out of the public: The archipelago alternative.- Aging and space. An emerging catalog of spaces in tension.- Spatial tensions in architectural design: Strategies, projects and visions.- The case of Milan as a tool to understand its transformations.- Too many rights - Too many people without rights.