Angela Koch, ImaginePlaces 

Host: Carlotta Fontana, DAStU 

Public Spaces are arguably the most important part of our shared ‘urban’ lives. It is difficult to imagine an attractive city, town or neighbourhood without busy public streets and squares balanced by perhaps more calming parks and garden experiences. The challenges around designing, programming and maintaining attractive Public Spaces are often related to the diverse range of needs that need be negotiated and co-exsist: the full and complex spectrum of urban users and the growing/living things such as trees, plants and bodies of water. This set of diverse sometimes conflicting user needs and priorities does change during the course of a day, a week and the seasons while rarely changing its principal spatial extent and form. Streets and spaces show great persistence in time; are cherished; often defended by local users against change and they are part of a continuum – a network of public streets and spaces.

Our workshops will explore and perhaps unearth some of those complex characteristics of public spaces, user needs and conflicts as well as wishes and ideas for improving public spaces in one of Milan’s most diverse neighbourhoods: Via Padova. We will be working together with local and citywide stakeholders on design briefs, concepts and ideas that can help  improve the attractiveness and vitality of public spaces and perhaps strengthen the role of public spaces in economically, socially and culturally diverse neighbourhoods. Weather permitting, some of our shared work will be developed in situ so discourse and interaction with local users through rapid feedback loops are enabled and embedded in local contexts and day-to-day experiences. At the heart of our design process are conversations with users and stewards e.g. those that look after public spaces, deliver event and activity programms, are in charge for instance of traffic management, public works and security.

Our ambition is to translate the gained insights into propositions and interventions that reflect well on what we learn from local users and stewards as well as our understanding of what might support the creation of more attractive, looked after and well used public spaces.