Maggioli Editore: Politecnica

The idea of utopia not as abstract model but as an absolute form in reality and against the reality. The usage of the utopian project to address the future as it used to happened in the XIX century when utopia was active politically and not only metaphorically. Formalized and decisive thought which, not finding immediate application in contemporaneity, is often re-actualized. In this way it does not die along with the society which generated it but it is transformed into heritage finding application in successive times. Utopia, objectively based on world’s dynamism. Exactly as E. Bloch’s defined the bond between hope and utopia: definitions no more heterodirect towards the future but rather concentrated in the potentiality of the present, as practice projected in the history and able to modify it towards an ethically made humanity. E. Bloch shows how man’s anticipating conscience, its capacity to anticipate projects with the power to push forward the historical development, occurs in both small historical forms such as dreams and aspirations that characterize daily life, the fantasy world of fairy tales, the social utopias and in the great religious and philosophical conceptions. In all these forms of man's anticipatory consciousness, the fundamental element is hope, which is not something purely subjective, but a real aspect of human being’s concrete development. Being is not in fact ontologically definable in its immediate static and crystallization but the real, vital being is not-being-yet. Even when M. Foucault writes about heterotopia, he refers to a game of mirrors, which reflects between the real and a possible imaginary. Gianluca Finetti
 Teaching assistant and lecturer at Politecnico di Milano, he graduated in July 2015 in Sustainable Architecture of Multi-scale Project with a thesis titled “2200 A.D. Plug-in Space: technology, nature, mobility. Projecting past utopias into the architecture of tomorrow”. He participated in the “Open City International Summer School Workshop 2013” winning the first price. His research is focused on architectural composition as well as portable architecture enhancing the technological aspect of the future of living. Debora Vermi 
 Teaching assistant and lecturer at Politecnico di Milano, she graduated in July 2015 in Sustainable Architecture of Multi-scale Project, with the thesis “2200 A.D. Plug-in Space, technology, nature, mobility. Projecting past utopias into the architecture of tomorrow". She always focuses her attention on research which precedes the design phase. In her bachelor degree in Environmental Architecture she deeply studied new ways to relate with the existent. The maquette of her bachelor thesis has been exhibited at the 13th Architecture Biennale in Venice “Common Ground”, directed by David Chipperfield.

Da una decina d'anni a San Siro, quartiere milanese di edilizia pubblica, è in aumento il numero di serrande abbassate: i pochi spazi non residenziali presenti, come locali commerciali e spazi sociali, faticano a proseguire la propria attività, subendo in modo pressante il peso dei canoni di affitto elevati, la concorrenza della grande distribuzione commerciale, l'essere chiusi all'interno di un quartiere ancora considerato come "ghetto" e in cui le problematiche sociali sembrano annullare, agli occhi esterni, la varietà di risorse locali al suo interno. Molti di questi spazi non residenziali, oggi vuoti, rappresentano luoghi pubblici negati alla collettività. Alcuni di essi, più rilevanti per dimensione e per valore simbolico, sono testimoni di un territorio in continuo cambiamento e raccolgono desideri e istanze di chi li immagina come nuove possibilità per il quartiere. Questa ricerca inserisce il contesto specifico di San Siro all'interno di un processo generale di "shrinkage", o "contrazione", tipico delle città contemporanee e la cui eredità materiale è una serie di manufatti e spazi in abbandono per i quali è necessario sperimentare nuove forme di riattivazione. Il lavoro propone quindi di leggere gli spazi vuoti come risorse possibili per San Siro interrogandosi su come questi, grazie ad una riflessione partecipata con attori e realtà locali, possano diventare il punto di partenza di un percorso di rigenerazione più ampio.

Negli ultimi anni le costruzioni in legno in Italia hanno ampliato notevolmente la loro quota di mercato, seppur in controtendenza con lo scenario di contrazione degli investimenti in edilizia. Le costruzioni in legno sono infatti portatrici di novità importanti sia di natura architettonica, tecnologica e prestazionale, sia riguardo gli aspetti di risparmio energetico e di natura processuale per l'elevato grado di industrializzazione dei componenti, il loro montaggio a secco, la programmabilità della vita utile di servizio, l'elevata manutenibilità, la facilità di smontaggio e la riciclabilità a fine ciclo di vita. La loro progettazione e costruzione necessita tuttavia di specifici accorgimenti e attenzioni progettuali spesso non sufficientemente noti ed approfonditi. Il testo si propone di fornire una esauriente rassegna per conoscere le principali opzioni tecnologiche proposte dal mercato delle costruzioni in legno, con riferimento alle più recenti attività di ricerca nel settore. Il volume offre indicazioni pratiche e operative per la progettazione e l'utilizzo di prodotti e semilavorati in legno, con un significativo apparato di illustrazioni e immagini esemplificative, prendendo in esame le soluzioni utili per ottenere opere a regola d'arte sia per quanto concerne edifici residenziali monofamiliari che edifici pluripiano di altezza significativa.

Il presente studio analizza i luoghi del commercio e il loro ruolo nella strutturazione dello spazio urbano. La pianificazione delle attività commerciali non può limitarsi a misure di carattere puramente economico-gestionale, ma deve attribuire un ruolo centrale al discorso sulla città e sull'urbanistica che punta alla qualità urbana dei luoghi. In questo senso i luoghi per il commercio verranno letti principalmente in rapporto alla loro capacità di generare città. La ricerca qui pubblicata indaga le relazioni tra tessuto urbano e forme dei luoghi del commercio, tentando di mettere in luce i meccanismi del farsi a vicenda di città e sistema commerciale o della loro reciproca negazione. L'interpretazione della relazione tra i luoghi dell'abitare e i luoghi dello scambiare si basa sullo studio tassonomico dei modelli commerciali che caratterizzano Lisbona dal 1970 al 2010 e sulla successiva definizione di tre macro-categorie di sistemi commerciali, che illustrano altrettanti diversi tipi di relazione tra città e commercio: sistema commerciale simbiotico, commensale e parassita.

BACKGROUND Contemporary Urban Landscapes The role of small and mediu m siz e cities in the era of globalization Carlos García Vázquez SECTION 1 \

Briselda Calliku She graduated with a  degree in Architecture in  October 2015 at the Politecnico di  Milano, having developed a Master Thesis on Valparaíso (CHI), where she studied Architecture at the Universi-dad Técnica Federico Santa María within the  Erasmus Programme.  Her research mainly focuses on the urban transformations and problems connected to the land usage concerning developing countries. A greatly complex city, halfway between the European matrix of the ‘plan’ and the total spontaneity of the ‘cerros’, the first Pacific port before the opening of the Panama Canal, a place of fusion between the cultures of the new and the old continent, Valparaíso experiences the crisis of the port even today, and the adjacent Barrio Puerto represents the truest testimony: the historic district of nineteenth-century structure, mostly abandoned and used as a site of continuous urban demolition. Redefining and re-evaluating the role of these urban voids is the aim that generates the project. The project foresees the construction of cultural facilities, develo-ping into an urban scale path which moves from the ancient gateway to the city, the port, through its old axis of development. The port is considered as an urban part, in its connotation of empty space, called to clarify and redefine its relationships with the city that supports it, in a formal and functional sense, enhan-cing its strategic value of place of exchange.The project stands as a timely intervention which tries to mend relations that have gone missing, trying to give new life to the historic core which best represents Valparaíso’s identity.

Organizations all over the world gather people and institutions about  interior  architecture  but  most  of these serve to unite professionals more than educ tors and students. However the future of the profession lies in education and more attention needstobepaidtoeducationalissues. To understand diverse cultures and approaches more profoundly and to locate themselves more specifically in the field of interior architecture, educational institutions need to build up partnerships so that they can work together and come up with remarkable outcomes. This book can be regarded as an experimental study to experience and compare two different institutional approaches (ITU and POLIMI) and diverse understandings in interior design research and education by focusing on similar problems. The sharing of all these diverse points of view and the recognition of multiplicities feed the platforms of discussion, and the practice of the discipline gains a multi-dimensional and enriched character. Another aspect to be underlined about interior design research, education and practice is its potential as the “follower of life” and the necessity of its involvement in public problems such as social housing, changes in social life etc. In this sense both approaches discussed throughout the book consider contemporary social problems by focusing on human space relationship concerning different societies with diverse cultural backgrounds. Emilio Lonardo is a designer that works on different fields, from interior design to strategic design, but he do also graphic and product projects. From 2013 he works with Politecnico di Milano and Poli.Design as tutor in practical courses and as teacher and tutor in the master in Urban Interior Design [MUID]. He has several national and international publications about design but also poetry.   Nilüfer Saglar Onay is an associate professor at ITU Faculty of Architecture, where she received her B.Sc.(1999),  M.Sc.  (2001),  and  PhD(2010).  Shehas been a visiting scholar at SUPSI, Switzerland in 2008, at UNIFI, Florence in 2010-2011, at POLIMI, Milan and POLITO, Turin in 2015-2016. She has contributed to several architectural projects and restoration projects in Istanbul. She has numerous national and international publications including journal articles, book chapters and conference papers. Her main research areas are public interior spaces, spatial evaluation models, residential interiors and adaptive re-use. Speaks Turkish, English and Italian.