MAPS project. An “intangible” challenge for the regeneration of the former military assets (heritages)

The first time that I have discussed with Mr. Taziano Giannessi (architect, responsible for the urban planning for the Municipality of Piacenza, and responsible for MAPS URBACT project) he told me about the idea of the re-use of the former military assets like a great opportunity for the cities in terms of requalification of the spaces and for the non-use (non-consume) of new land for the new urban expansions of the city.

These themes (requalification, re-use, not consume of the land) represent a priority for the "urban agenda" of all cities, in fact apparently, form part or are included in a “normal” or “consolidated” urban development process: the areas are abandoned; the areas become the property of the Municipality; the Municipality design an urban project; the city develops within these areas the functions and the activities that have been identified by the current urban planning tool.

During the Kick-off meeting of the URBACT projects, Mr. Taziano Giannessi and me tackled this approach aimed only to the urban project development for the requalification of these urban patterns (former military assets) and we moved the debate to a different level: “we are in front of a particular part of the city and probably we need to identify an innovative approach for the re-generation of this area, we need to start from the re-appropriation of these heritages by the inhabitants (local urban actors), as the first action to setting out their cultural values”.

The re-appropriation of these heritages (former military assets), by the local urban actors, must be supported by the recognition of cultural values that constitute these assets. This intangible activity, in our visions, represents the first step of the Local Action Plan, and if we will be able to read and interpret these cultural values, we will be also able to design an integrated management system, aimed to the enhancements of the tangible and intangible aspects of this heritages (former military assets).

For this reason, we have to transmit the cultural values that make attractive the heritages to the local audience,: the values connected to the historical periods (built components); the values related to the potential re-use (built components); the values connected to the possibility to host contemporary activities or functions (built components and open spaces); the values connected to the temporary use (built components and open spaces).

After the “second half” of the discussion with Mr. Taziano Giannessi (started in Italy, ended in Paris) we have discussed the possibility to develop a Local Action Plan with two gears (speed): the first gear, dedicated to the “measured” involvement of the local stakeholders, will be carry out not considering the co-design of the solutions, but starting from the point of view of the tangible and intangible re-appropriation of the military heritages; the second gear, dedicated specifically to co-design of integrated solutions, will start from the visions (suggestion, ideas, etc.) developed during the first gear (measured approach).

Apparently, this approach with a double gears (speed) might seem a normal strategy in the field of urban re-generation, but in urban areas (former military assets) that for many years have not been part of the urban fabric of the city, we face a typical relevant factor: the loss of the memory of these places by the inhabitants. Thus, we guess that in this case we will need to set up a clear process aimed to the support of the main phases of the project (double gears), composed by the following milestones:

First gear / Trigger: Identification of the heritage to enhance and development of a communication strategy aimed to the construction of the target audience group (local urban actors, citizens, stakeholders, etc.) in order to support the re-appropriation of the building, open space, or other urban components.

First gear / Development of the interests: identification of the different interest (map of the actors) and possible functions to install in the heritage that can be useful for the re-generation.

First gear / Test of temporary re-use: this is the realization in scale 1:1 (real scale) of the possible re-use of the heritage in terms of re-use of the space (layout) and in terms of the functions to use. This is a temporary re-use of the heritage, normally its length (time) can range from one to several days.

Second gear / Development of the governance: after the first three phases, addressed to the consolidation of the idea of the re-generation of the heritage, this phase is dedicated to the development of the governance of the process. This phase aims at the identification of the concrete actors to be involved (public or private or both), the functions to be use for the sustainability, the architectural layout (in relation to the functions) and the timing for the development of the project.

Second gear / Assessment of the project sustainability: development of a business plan, dedicated to the sustainable management of functions and useful also to attract future investors. In this phase we must also consider the social and economic impacts of the functions and activities that the re-generation of the heritage want to insert inside to the buildings or spaces.

Second gear / Start of the re-generation: this phase is dedicated to the kickoff of the re-generation of the heritage. Normally we expect the start of a “construction site” that involve the entire building or public space to be re-generated, but in these cases the project will affect only specific parts of the building or public space, always ensuring the use of the heritage.

Second gear / Identification of the project impacts (positive or negative): this phase is dedicated to the identification of the project impacts, in relation to the re-generation project, in terms of economical impact (sustainability and jobs creation), social impact (social inclusion of the inhabitant in the re-generation process), cultural impact (development of cultural productions and cultural activities).

At the end of this informal interview with Taziano I realized that the theme of the re-generation of the former military assets (heritages) represents for the Municipality of Piacenza a real challenge for the future of the city in terms of experimentation of an innovative method of work and in terms of realization of the projects, developed by the Local Action Plan.

I think that the decision of the Municipality of Piacenza to candidate the theme of re-use of military heritage to the URBACT program, has been appropriate, because in this framework (URBACT) and thought of the project network, we will be able to experiment and develop new tools for the urban integrated development and for those areas of the city forget by the “normal tools” of urban planning.