Community reclaiming of the city through the lens of participation and circularity
Co.R.Pu.S. aims to conduct research on alternative processes of retrofitting public space at neighbourhood level, grounded on Circular Urban Economies (CUE) through involvement of local stakeholders and citizens. Having as its main challenge the revival of degraded public space in the periphery of the city, the project will investigate alternative ways of cooperation through the concept of Urban Living Lab (ULL) as a diffusing entity of CUE. Two case studies of ULLs (park of Public Housing Complex in Egaleo/Greece and micro-circular economies in Turin/Italy) will be set up, in order to design semi-permanent urban equipment through participatory processes, up-cycling techniques and the development of digitally enabled systems (civic blockchain) to promote circularity of materials, services and goods. The interaction between two ULLs will generate tangible insights on how to form a phygital model of cross sectoral cooperation to tackle degradation of urban space and promote socio-economic development. The entire process will document methodologies and prototypes (platforms, urban equipment, policies) to engage citizens, SMEs and Municipalities, leading to the formation of a model to transform ULL into permanent community labs, oriented to CUE and public space reclamation.
Main aspects of the project:
Civic Blockchain: Building on the potential of digital platforms to support participatory and circular socio-economic models, while avoiding technological monopolies and exclusion of people with low tech-literacy.
Public Space + Participatory Design: The successive crises of the last decade and the collapse of state policies in the maintenance of public infrastructure led to turn the public space in the periphery of the city into hostile places.
Circularity + Upcycling: Big amounts of unused materials in abandoned warehouses and construction waste from renovations could have a second life through community fab labs devoted to the retrofitting of public space.
Co.R.Pu.S. will investigate how Urban Living Labs (ULL) could become demonstrators of behavioural and systemic change, with respect to the above mentioned components, starting from the use of materials with impact on the public space of the neighbourhood. The research will expand knowledge on the activation of public space through the circularity of materials, the active involvement of the community in the design of the small scale interventions, and the support of civic technologies. It will test the capacities of such an orientation to create a sense of belonging to citizens and ensure a long-term sustainability of the place, and the effectiveness of civic blockchains in supporting the creation of decentralised value exchange systems.
From the kick-off meeting in Turin, 01.03.2024
The project is coordinated by the University of Turin with the participation in the consortium of Open Lab Athens, Urban Design department of Delft University of Technology, Municipality of Egaleo, FBW Urbanists + Architects and Circoscrizione IV. Citta di Torino – Cooperation Partner. It is co-funded project by the European Union through DUT partneship.
