As often happens in individual and collective affairs, we speak of a ‘period of transition’ when we lack the words to describe a change or when there are not enough elements to understand the complexity of the phenomenon we are experiencing. At first glance such a situation would also seem to apply to the current systemic crisis, but we cannot ignore the existence of a coincident counter process. In virtue of this counter process, modern society tends to be characterised more and more as a society of information. Its development can be associated with the original role played by language, which, due to its unprecedented performance power, manages to transform into reality what it describes in words. On closer inspection, the evolution in meaning of “urban form” and “housing type” is particularly affected by this transition (and this paradox). This is true to such an extent that after having believed that, once elaborated, neither described a hypothesis liable to revision but rather an authoritative reference for action, today we tend to propose a different scenario in which forms and types no longer seem destined to describe the existing situation or evaluate the possibility of a controlled transition but rather to explore the prospect of overcoming current territorial formations. As a result of this different acceptance, the identification of new settlement models and the search for typological proposals to apply on the large and small scales can participate in a new updated reflection on new strategic planning instruments. In an attempt to overcome limits in the utopian temptations of those planning changes while overlooking the beginning of reality, such tools instead aim to instil territorial government with a constructive vision where the forecasts (or models) are self-determining via clear devices for collective learning and integrated management of the urban transformations. Overcoming the deep-rooted conviction that tends to contrast models with utopian projects, the observation of new spatial forms induces us to create a plan that underlines the propensity to carefully define the idea of the city to be proposed; at the same time we can probe the capacity of urban-planning discourse to envision a future where the community can learn again to imagine and hope. Even more interesting is the reflection that has developed in recent years around typology research thanks to the success of key directions that “force” the study of building types well beyond their traditional tasks of aiding architectural design; as well, these directions identify invariants that connect back to the urban project. Due to these new meanings, the debate on the city’s futures can consider the extreme richness of morphological solutions and the spatial layout available to the designer and, at the same time, the need to make use of classification schemes that allow different points of view to be rigorously compared.

Nuove mappe cognitive per interpretare il cambiamento

TALIA, Michele
2015-01-01

Abstract

As often happens in individual and collective affairs, we speak of a ‘period of transition’ when we lack the words to describe a change or when there are not enough elements to understand the complexity of the phenomenon we are experiencing. At first glance such a situation would also seem to apply to the current systemic crisis, but we cannot ignore the existence of a coincident counter process. In virtue of this counter process, modern society tends to be characterised more and more as a society of information. Its development can be associated with the original role played by language, which, due to its unprecedented performance power, manages to transform into reality what it describes in words. On closer inspection, the evolution in meaning of “urban form” and “housing type” is particularly affected by this transition (and this paradox). This is true to such an extent that after having believed that, once elaborated, neither described a hypothesis liable to revision but rather an authoritative reference for action, today we tend to propose a different scenario in which forms and types no longer seem destined to describe the existing situation or evaluate the possibility of a controlled transition but rather to explore the prospect of overcoming current territorial formations. As a result of this different acceptance, the identification of new settlement models and the search for typological proposals to apply on the large and small scales can participate in a new updated reflection on new strategic planning instruments. In an attempt to overcome limits in the utopian temptations of those planning changes while overlooking the beginning of reality, such tools instead aim to instil territorial government with a constructive vision where the forecasts (or models) are self-determining via clear devices for collective learning and integrated management of the urban transformations. Overcoming the deep-rooted conviction that tends to contrast models with utopian projects, the observation of new spatial forms induces us to create a plan that underlines the propensity to carefully define the idea of the city to be proposed; at the same time we can probe the capacity of urban-planning discourse to envision a future where the community can learn again to imagine and hope. Even more interesting is the reflection that has developed in recent years around typology research thanks to the success of key directions that “force” the study of building types well beyond their traditional tasks of aiding architectural design; as well, these directions identify invariants that connect back to the urban project. Due to these new meanings, the debate on the city’s futures can consider the extreme richness of morphological solutions and the spatial layout available to the designer and, at the same time, the need to make use of classification schemes that allow different points of view to be rigorously compared.
2015
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11581/400446
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