Tecnica di densificazione attraverso la strategia delle centralità urbane di tipo metropolitano.

This thesis adopts and experiments with the technique of densification through a centrality strategy in medium-sized urban contexts. The applied analysis case selected consists of the ten provincial capitals of the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy. The predominant characteristic of the contemporary city, also found in the cities of Emilia-Romagna, is the dispersion of form. The sprawling development of the contemporary city has been nurtured over the last two decades by structural plans and urban policies whose visions, married to strong economic pressures, have resulted in the current situation. The explosion in the form of the constructed body has encouraged the formation of extreme fringes, unrelated and devoid of any relationship with the remaining urban areas, or at the most warranted by infrastructure alone, a dominant element and sign of the suburban landscape. Lack of continuity with the consolidated urban parts, along with the concept of the unfinished, of extension and diffusion, are some of the key characteristics of the contemporary city, of which the suburbs, both in the sense of a constructed mass and a social phenomenon, and frequently lacking spatial and morpho-typological quality, represent the most substantial part. Moving from the centre to the outermost suburbs, empty space prevails over the full/built-up to form urban bands in which there is an almost total loss of fabric. These suburban fringes result in a lack of form in the contemporary city, a triggering factor for many social and identity phenomena. The goal of this thesis is the construction of a methodological model for the development of cities with the aim of stopping ceaseless expansion by applying the densification technique through an urban centrality strategy. Thus, the research has set itself the objective of responding to a recognized demand for greater quality of urban life, through regeneration of the body of the city, trying to introduce a method that can convert the urban sprawl model into a contemporary compact city. The presence of the space resource is the first fact to be found inside the urban body under analysis. Within the consolidated city emerge constructed voids, artificial, substantial, and often of low quality, which coincide with standard public facilities such as car parks, courtyards, gardens and residual green areas. Densification through the urban centrality strategy insists mainly on areas classified as “standard public”, compensating for the reduction in quantity with the integrated quality of the new urban project. With respect to legally determined municipal boundaries, the research identifies a perimeter in which persists a condition of continuity with the urban body. The area underlying it, defined as the consolidated city, is the subject of this thesis. Starting from an analysis of the city by its parts, and from identification of the fields of centrality through the design of relational clusters among existing functional and formal factors, the method provides a process to identify the most suitable space to accommodate an urban centrality project. The importance of the factors within an analyzed field determines which strategy to apply from the three types of urban centrality investigated. - An urban centrality strategy focusing on a system of polycentric relationships, the Role A type, was studied through the example of the railway station, applying the project model that emerged in the case of the railway hub at Modena. - An urban centrality strategy of a metropolitan type, the Role B type, was studied through the example of the architecture of directionality, applying the project model that emerged in the context of the northern suburbs of Bologna. - An urban centrality strategy of parts of the city, the Role C type, was studied through the example of the civic centre, applying the project model that emerged from the Urban Park of the city of Forli. The Role B type, examined in-depth in this thesis, is definable, thanks to its ability to trigger interscalar relationships, as a connecting link between the city and its suburbs, both entities constituting the metropolitan landscape. It presents itself as an urban architecture presidium over the vast area governed by it. The new urban centrality of the metropolitan type becomes a place of directivity whose compositional forms must be able to represent their own dominant role, projecting it into the vast area. In the city, it takes on the role of a founding fragment a widespread regeneration strategy that organizes pre-existing directional and contextual functions within the context where the urban project is working; The thesis work has demonstrated how the technique of densification through an urban centrality strategy of a metropolitan type may be used in common practice as a tool to implement a comprehensive programme of urban regeneration complementary to the two types of urban centrality tested and verified by integral research. The latter is located in a historical moment when the urban debate is concentrating on the theme of urban regeneration based on the rational use of economic and spatial resources and a search for a sustainable urban development model. Thanks to team work, it was possible to produce a wide-ranging analysis of the state of the places (Annex, ch. 1-2), to check on the method of identifying space for centrality in different study cases (Annex, ch. 3), and to study in parallel, three different types of centrality capable of establishing special relationships within the urban body, thereby allowing for a broader view of the issues that emerged (Annex, ch. 4-5). A potential continuation of the thesis would focus on the viability of this strategy through amendment of the regional regulatory framework, starting from a reformulation of compliance with urban planning standards in terms of quality. From a critical reading of the relevant national and regional legislation in force, interesting points emerged that resulted in an elaborate rewriting of Law 20/2000 RER. This text, not yet published since it is still in its infancy, allowed us to take note of the limits of current legislation in terms of compliance with the land, and the economic and bureaucratic difficulties in implementing collective projects such as urban centrality (Annex, ch. 6).