1. Reality of the park [CONTEXT], a tourist’s point of view
we worked in an area called Parco stura, or toxic park, or oxygen park, or actually we don’t know what park or is it a park
the place is a Tarkovsky-like zone area
characteristicpost-indutrial periphery [transitory residence, unused land, waste and pollution]
Europe’s heroin’s capital with enormous financial turnover 1,000,000 euro per month

Engage with its
-history [Olympic impact]
-geography [between turin and milan, affordable housing attracting both an immigrant community but also house-buyers, demarcated lay-out of urban gardeners,drug users and trafficers, prostitution, industry, leisure activity for older people],
-politics [public private intitiative for golf course and new transport infrastructure],

2. Client’s BRIEF
The client did work for the city helping the city in communication and planing lay out urbanist graphic designers their competence is on architecture
there are more urban centres in rome and milano, often established to communicate larger projects make people understand and deal with change
about 3 years old
since their are others in other cities in Italy this gives us the opportunity to consider the project as a prototype that can be replicated in other areas.
-stakeholders [gardeners, drug users and dealers, residents in the periphery, users of oxygen park, local government, business partners from local shopkeepers to Ivecco],
-future opportunities

a. The client wants
-representation of the perception of the place by the people who live there, because they are currently under-represented, from which their needs can be derived.
-participative tool that will facilitate talking about planning to those who live in areas subject to transformation
b. The client notices that
-it is necessary to avoid technical language
-the perception of the place by people who live their might have to be translated
-representing (in terms of making images) about the issues in the area might help to communicate the issues better
c.client’s role of intermediate
d.how we think the client can use this:
i. identify opportunities for change
ii. understand the dynamics and include actors they may have not been aware of before -
iii. understand the present siuation by continuing the current dynamics that can be projected into the future you can assess the
impact of certain planned interventions in relation to existing dynamics
iv. suggest an new method for the engage for what is in a particular place and modify their language about a particular place; go beyond the voting based (explore alternative models of decision making -this can have an impact on local governance (=political decision-makers + business elites + cultural elites)

3. time spent on different activities [METHOD]
a. 2,5 days interviewing people, talked to local government, newsaper, tv station, environmental agency, government planning people, architect, local shopkeepers, local residents, gardeners and other out of town users;
b. students processed data (narratives, scientific, policy, history, media reports);
c. from a descriptive to an analytic understanding of the forces that shape the local context [uncovering an urban reality, discovering of a political reality of an urban space for the first time]
d. make fysical maps that exist in the world

3b. STEP BACK
if you make these steps you develop another engagement from a traditional designer [intensity by which students defend their arguments, fierce veracity that confronted students with a reality where every day we were there a person died of an overdose, different from the ikea] = the classic designer model is a division of labour -the designer does not do the beginning r the end stage- [which following marx' argument always leads to alienation, in this case of the place]; issue of ownership; our model suggest a vision the embedded designer = is allowed to have an holistic vision of the place that does not produce scenario’s, but maps out possibilities for identifying new actors and bringing them with existing actors to the table. Our role is to intervene in the informational dynamics of the place, and create a democratic instance. We want to make a qualitative difference between our maps and the maps that exist

Link to final video presentation (slides only)

History future
-social systems kept the connections between actors alive (allotments, overgrowth)
-the place is disconnected through design actions in the past,
-bottom-up design is countering this action by recognising the current users, on the other hand there are desing actions vying for the same place

- 7 maps of the language has not been desided yet

environment
-lack of communication between different kinds of actors (people, media, administration) leads to a different perception of things and sometimes even don’t want to talk; this influences mutually and leads to fear which overshadows the environmental and pollution problem
-map divided in 3 areas: a relational map between actors, a geographical map of the perceived  problem

mobility
-the behaviour of people in the area (come and go, staying in the place, passing by) is influenced by important (both current and historic) flows in the area and have shaped how the park is used now (industry, former leisure activity)
-timeline

in/security
-perception of safety in the area changed between 2003 and 2008 (government policy lead to the area becoming a drug area post 2006 olympics)
-map compares safety perception in 2003 and 2008; personal stories and interview will show why the government chose this area; what could be activities that could make the area safer

insecurity:
talked to people in local shops
feelings of indifferenc ebecause the problem see;s to remain contained n the park, people have the perception of a safe area
police keeps an eye on the site
next steps:
-analyse further south
-analyse behaviours perceptions, psychology of shoppers and retailers
-ask if the use of drugs is really the issue

environment group:
bought tools to analse the water, looked for local groups who deal with environment
next steps:
-measure pollution
-contact local environment group
-check data with perception

history:
before 2006 there was an equilibruim of users in the park, for the 2006 Olympics the city centre was cleansed from drug dealers, who moved to this area, which led to violent conflicts with local people
next steps:
-make a map of different areas of the park in term sof how they are changing (allotment, grain fields, …)
-make & mas and describe a cyclic change process

Options:
-visit the municipality
-visit the newspaper archive
-market to interview people
-local tv station to get their perception of the place and get airtime to talk about event
-ask Oxygen park people if we can organise an event tomorrow and interview them
-study on the area in pdf available
-tomorrow we can talk to Architetto de Magistris who are responsible for the golf course

Observations
-drugs and alcohol
-trees, plants and nice areas
-river
-fences, also concrete
-recreation ground ["oxygen park"] in close proximity to other areas
-allotments [council managed list of users who can stay for 5 years; use only from spring till late summer; come from outside turin and don't know each other; bad tomato harvest]
-derelict buildings [formoer factories?]
-artisans working n the area
-hills [covering rubbish?]
-no sign of previously mentioned railway
-commemoration stone for a jogger who ran his last lap in the park
-senegalese residents in the corner block
-church
-social centre with football ground

Hypothesis 1
-emerging problems can be solved starting from the local
i.e. empowering local resources
[there is no global solution if you don't start from the local; globalisation ignores the specificity of place, empowering local resources could help face emerging problems; it is not a sloution but a precondition to the solution]
hypothesis 2
-empowering local resources asks for connecting places
i.e. connected people, places and knowledge
[the old village can not come back because it has been killed by connectivity; empowering physical and social spaces is what is important]
hypothesis 3
-connected places emerges from design
i.e. from particular co-design initiatives based on the creative collaboration of people, institutions and enterprises
[design platforms or physical and immaterial infrastructure favourable to empowering the local resources]

ecology = diversity; homogenising is against nature, so it will never work in creating an artificial ecology

physical and social commons: creates well-being because it creates a perception of of healthy, safe, good and comfortable; it is not something you buy, but something you build

The client notices that
-it is necessary to avoid technical language
-the perception of the place by people who live their might have to be translated
-representing (in terms of making images) about the issues in the area might help to communicate the issues better

2011
is a key data n which Turin ants to deliver a number of projects:
celebration of 150years of Italian independence, Turin as the first capital of the Kingdom
4 years befre the World exhibition in Milan

Our study area:
-is the earliest industrialised area of Turin (still Ivecco)
-the structure was not touched in the last 50 years
-was a backbone where the railway ran
-is part of a green belt linking to the Northern parks, and legally has to remain green
-had a working class population which is slowly being replaced by a younger foreign population attracted by the low housing price
-there are currenty no offical plans for the area
-the idea of a golf course has been launched because it is afordable and does not require sanitation of the ground [it would be managed both private and public, and would have a community function]
-the wider area is the place where tha Royal Palace was based, which in the 18 century became a Tobacco factory with the cemmetary around it, the southbank has known no industry in the last 40 years
-the electricity substation provides electricity for the Northern part of the metropolitan area
-pollution of the site is unclear

[data are available from IRES-Piemonte, ask Helena at the Urban centre]

This art project by Alex Clausen is a good example of how one can make issues visible in a specific place. Imagine if all the local places had flag poles in front of them which indicated their ownership or even people’s opinions about the place. How would we relate differently to places? What is it about this improvised flag that is different from a government sign? Are there other performative interventions we can create that make people look again at their local areas?