Urban interiors

In the present-day city, the quality of the places is not just the result of its architecture but is increasingly linked to a diffused urban landscape; a sort of Buzz design, the definition Andrea Branzi uses for the shower of small and medium-size projects that contribute to creating a new level of expression and culture of the urban setting. The new nature of urban areas leads to some reflections about the competencies that are necessary for their organic planning, not strictly imposed from above, but acting more through an integrated system of micro-interventions that are better apt to deal with the characteristics of volatility, temporariness, and velocity of adjustment, typical of the postmodern era. Planning expertise, capable of connecting different disciplines in a context marked by complexity, generating a global transformation through local and specific interventions, from interiors to urban landscape, applying the concept of “see small to see more.” The essay aims to investigate the design approach to urban transformations through the interpretation of several theories including Ugo La Pietra's interior through exterior, the urban leftovers theorized by Luciano Crespi, and the in-between spaces identified in Giovanna Piccinno's publications. Through a critical reading, the text identifies how the design of interiors and spaces becomes, therefore, a tool for urban space’s re-development through different approaches linked by a single crucial theme: the centrality of space’s user, according to the Global Public Space Toolkit (2016), which defines a public place, “a portion of an area or location designated or available for or being used by someone. Place comes to existence when people give meaning to a part of a larger space. Places that have a strong sense of place have an identity and character felt by local inhabitants “. The importance of urban space, meant as a connective space, a space of sociality, a space of connection between public and private, emerges even more strongly in these years in which the health emergency has led, on the one hand, to an increase in the use of the outdoor space as an appendix and an alternative to confined space, and, on the other hand, to regain the meaning of place dedicated to the community, a platform of personal and physical relationships and a medium for the recognition and sense of belonging of the inhabitant. “In contemporary societies, public space has become a medium, a tool, an enabler, a place where everybody should feel included and have the possibility of personalizing, reclaiming and conquering it. At the same time, public space is the best platform for designers to think about the future of cities. It is the ideal framework for testing and prototyping new ideas and possibilities, and creating future scenarios that can then be shared, discussed, and debated. Public space should be the place where individual and societal freedom is most represented and by rethinking and re-shaping it, designers are affecting people’s present and future lives. In this framework, design is a powerful and meaningful instrument to transform public space from a mirror in which society is merely reflected into a tool that can change society in a collaborative way. However, design should not be approached only as a physical and material intervention. The way in which urban transformation processes are conceptualized and ignited can also be designed and curated to foster an augmented citizenship more active and conscious.” (Tato et alii 2020).