Workshop Internazionale Belgrade in Plural. Belgrado 31 agosto-10 settembre 2017. Sede Facoltà di Architettura di Belgrado.Organizzato da : Facoltà di Architettura di Belgrado,in collaborazione con : Univ. Sapienza di Roma, Univ. di Camerino. Prof. Unicam: Rosalba D'Onofrio, Elio Trusiani.

If we encapsulate the “Belgrade in Plural” workshop in just a few words, the most appropriate phrase would probably be “…ten intense days rich with information, discussion, proposals, and projects for a city open to Europe, bringing into play its history and contradictory modernity”. Getting inside the urban reality of Belgrade meant understanding and making our young architecture students understand how the processes of urban regeneration can be organized in different ways. Theorizing about non-traumatic recovery processes that echo the nature of the places and the will of the people means directing the attention of students as designers in a search for cultural and technical devices that expand and hybridize the different languages of architecture and urban planning. The result was extremely convincing and student participation was very constructive. The three areas chosen for the workshop have very different connotations that allowed participants to address themes regarding complex urban regeneration on different levels: from the strategic design of the whole to design and decision-making procedures, to an architectural solution as the formal result of the processes and strategies mentioned. The three target areas introduce the theme of water, open and in-between spaces, abandoned industrial areas, settlements in fragile urban fabrics and tiny spontaneous architecture as only community building can be, the city/river relationship, the perceptual relationship between the two riverbanks, and the strategic role of target areas in Belgrade’s future, all with respect to the process of Dubaization of the opposite bank. Community, temporariness, and reversibility of uses seem to be the interpretational keys to address the design challenge. Urban complexity was necessary; using their own interpretational and critical skills, students were called to address the diversity of the three areas, the differences within them, and the implicit and explicit relationships of sense. The students investigated the complex and fascinating intersection of contemporary planning within the city, as always the intersection between East and West. In doing so, the differing approaches from the various Schools of Architecture also emerged as the fruit of diverse backgrounds, but a place for discussion and exchange was found at the purposely mixed working tables, a place for mediation that often led unique, original solutions to be identified. At times the conflict was not resolved and the positions remained widely separated, but the result was anyway appreciable and the difficulties encountered can serve as an opportunity for further investigation and reflection. On behalf of UNICAM, there is full recognition of the validity of this experience and its means of development that anticipates by a year the experience that our students will have in the third year of their education within the thesis workshop. As well, it represented for students the first study-abroad experience, an extremely valid opportunity (as perceived by them) to anticipate the Erasmus experience that most of them choose to make starting in the third year.