Reassuring Placemaking
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REASSURING PLACEMAKING Daniela Petrillo – PhD candidate in Design Politecnico di Milano, Doctoral School of Design @ - [email protected] Agnese Rebaglio – PhD, Assistant Professor Politecnico di Milano, Design Department @ - [email protected] Abstract: This paper aims to stimulate a new cultural vision about “social safety”: as the lack of beauty is one of the most immediate ways of recognizing the difficult living, and experience is the most popular method of accessing beauty, the goal of this work is to “nurture people imagery” (Lambertini; 2013) through awareness, because pride in the place motivates collective actions to protect beautiful assets. According to the framework of “Design of Hospitable Cities” (Fassi, Giunta; 2009), the notion of “hospitable” merge in all of those process able to transform the city in a open, accessible and sustainable device and, together with the notion of “beauty”, they redefine the concept of wellbeing in the experience of public spaces. The multidisciplinary design research meets here the practice of placemaking. Both of these are characterized by a continuous process of redefinition because of their capability to interpret and solve the variable communities’ needs, above all in the condition of “difficult living” (Lavarra; 2007). Due to several research-action activities, this hardship was identified in San Siro and Gratosoglio, two council neighbourhoods in Milan. There will be here described the three – years - long research process where Humanities, as ethnography and environmental psychology, met the design discipline in order to operate a paradigm shift. From a “Defensible City” (Newman; 1971) to the wider concept of “Reassuring Scenario” in which a set of guidelines for institutions and local stakeholders enriches the existing programs of urban regeneration. They drive the community to apply a series of mixable urban interventions through a socially responsive design process (Gamman, Thorpe; 2009). These interventions transform the places, maybe only for a limited time and in the form of temporary appereance, but they also permanently enliven the site and greatly affect the people’s lives. (R. Lüscher; 2015). Keywords: urban fear, difficult living, urban interior design, reassurance, scenario design, placemaking INTRODUCTION This study starts as a PhD research in Design aiming at actively contributing to the debate on “fear and safety in urban environment”. The interest starts from the concept of city and surveilled space (Foucault 1975). Foucault draws the relationships between the city, its inhabitants and the authority meant to protect and guarantee the fair development of daily activities within the complex urban system. In this new era we can recognize a “new surveillance” 1, different from the one described by Foucault (functional to the State in order to administrate the Country), more related to commercial brands or agencies. They 1 Surace, M.; Dalla sorveglianza moderna alla New Surveillance: il ruolo delle tecnologie informatiche nei nuovi metodi di controllo sociale in Analisi socio-giuridica del rapporto tra sorveglianza e diritto alla riservatezza nell'era di Internet, research available on L’altro diritto – Centro di documentazione su carcere, devianza e marginalità - www.altrodiritto.unifi.it/ricerche/control/surace/index.htm elaborate personal information to control and manipulate social interactions, preferences and opinions. Considering the knowledge as the main component of the paradigm of control (Revel 2003), it is possible to assume that data is the reason for which control mechanism works. There are two kinds of control: the institutional one, meaningful and believable, socially clear, with the specific task to verify that people do not trespass normal symbolic boundaries; instead the informal control passes through the social interaction between people and it represents the hidden part of control mechanism, then it resides in the daily activities. Personal safety is a crucial factor of lifestyle options, and crime is considered one of the main problems threatening the quality of urban life (Blobaum 2005). Further, the fear of crime is now recognized as a more diffused problem than crime itself (Hale, 1996). The first research question inquiry the nature of this fear: is it only a product of a criminogenic condition or is more broadly related to the concept of city-dwelling, as a metaphor for quality of urban life? (Bannister and Fyfe, 2001) This approach can be characterized as being concerned with 1. - Explaining fear as the product of victimization, 2. - As the consequence of a breakdown in social control; 3. - As being mediated by the urban environment. Building upon this classification, it is possible to discern that an understanding of the city, of its people and their interactions and of its public and private spaces, has much to offer the investigation of fear. The most interesting consideration for this research is the third one and it focuses on how fear is commonly known as the environmental thesis. Fear is embedded in the physical and social characteristics of place and the familiarity of that space to the individual. People effectively read the environment as a barometer of risk and protective factors. In the end, the environment provides an individual with visual evidence (when other knowledge is limited) of the likelihood of criminal risk and the likelihood that others will intervene on their behalf. Clearly, if this hypothesis carries worth, then fear is allied to urban form and the ways in which urban spaces are utilised and given meaning. As Hale (1996, p. 84) observes is more probable that we are not merely measuring the fear of crime, but rather some other attribute which might be better characterised as ‘insecurity with modern living’, ‘quality of life’, ‘perception of disorder’ or ‘urban unease’. A significant part of what we take to be the fear of crime actually represents a ‘displaced’ urban anxiety. (Bannister, Fyfe 2001). FEAR, WELLBEING AND PROXIMITY IN CONTEMPORARY URBAN INTERIORS One of the goals of this work is to inquiry the current tools for reading the phenomena related to perceived fear and safety in the urban context. Between these, the Safe City Index 20152 sponsored by NEC for The Economist. It ranks 50 cities worldwide across five continents and its aim is to introduce a new definition of “urban safety”. The SCI measures the relative level of safety of a diverse mix of the world’s leading cities using four main categories of safety: digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety. The five safest cities in the world are distributed in Europe (Amsterdam – 5th, Stockholm - 4th) and in Asia (Osaka – 3rd, Singapore - 2nd, Tokyo – 1st) and the final report highlights that cities are growing at a pace that’s greater than the ability of some governments to develop and mantain additional services. (D. Lewis, Urban Risk Reduction Program – UN Habitat). There are other valuable programs that deal with the exploration of “safety” considering it related not only to technological devices, but as a complex system. Between the ones developed by UN Habitat, the Safer Cities Program stands out. It was launched in 1996 at the request of African Mayors seeking to tackle urban crime and violence in their cities. To date UN-Habitat has supported initiatives in 77 cities in 24 2 http://safecities.economist.com/ countries worldwide. The Safer Cities Programme has evolved over time as knowledge on the drivers of urban insecurity has been gained and approaches to addressing it have been refined. Today the Programme embraces a holistic, integrated, multi-level government and multi-sectoral approach to improving the livability of cities and quality of life for all urban residents, predicated on the confidence that good urban governance, planning and management can improve the safety of neighborhoods.3 Within the same framwork the Concept Notes A Safe City as a Just and Equitable City realized during the World Urban Forum 7 (Medellín, April 2014) is considerable relevant. The final report highlights the innovative thoughts and experiences related to urban development which have positively impacted on the safety of the most excluded and vulnerable groups, which have engaged them as agents of change and made their cities and urban lives more equitable. It discuss original programming, skills and methodologies which focus specifically on the most vulnerable and excluded urban populations as key agents of change and encourage multi-level networks and partnerships interested in improving urban. Finally, it identifies roles of different levels of government and legislative mechanisms that promote safe and just cities for the most marginalized. More in detail, this document suggests to involve youth and women in educational processes on urban culture, to empower communities through accessible public spaces and economic opportunities. These are just two examples useful to explain the necessity of a new kind of integrated approach about the fear and safety issues in urban context. It is clear that the value of the experience, in our post-modern era, it has become predominant. Safety is no more necessarily at the base of the system’s needs, but it is a goal to achive. Then it is possible to observe an overturning of Maslow’s Hierarchy [img 1]: safety is a results of a series of actions that start from the single person (self–actualization and esteem), extending its power to the wider context (creating a sense of belonging) and then allowing people to express their personal sense of safety and physiological needs. Img 1. – The scheme represent the overturning of Maslow’s Hierarchy Despite the current crisis has compomised the self-actualization process, it has triggering a progressive approachment between people, redefining the rules of “proximity”. Talking about proximity means to focus the attention on the middle of the Maslow’s Hierarchy: it is useful to analyze in depht the “sense of belonging” as a consequence of a complex experiential system, as a result of a singular path (because of it is lived by singles) and that find its complete expression when it is shared.