Excavations, Topographies, and Diagrams of Open Space

This essay aims to compare some approaches about the design of open space / public space in some places of Europe, namely Milan, Barcelona and Berlin. It investigates some researches of such discipline conducted by architects and artists, trying to identify useful elements that feed the different schools of thought that we find in these cities. The title, "Excavations, Topographies, Open Space Diagrams" refers to the contemporary open space approach and to the design of the ground, a sometimes purely two-dimensional sometimes three-dimensional; which involves the topography and builds, through earth movements, places more artificial or more related to nature: some of them give shape to a morphological matrix for the urban fabric, others are ancillary spaces of the buildings, others identify a backbone for urban design interventions, embodying actual "open space diagrams".