Porous + Bioclimatic. Envisioning futures for Milan's Forlanini-Taliedo.

In Italy, the “periferia” refers to the outer city, the suburbs, the urban fringe, and the peri-urban: it sits between what is known as the countryside and the historic and well-defined urban core. (This is not an exclusively Italian phenomenon— most Europeans live in such territories, and sev- eral new large-scale urban developments occur in these areas.) However, simply labeling this complex region as “fringes” masks the myriad political, environmental, and social debates they contain and represent (Foot, J. 2010, p. 8). The notions of “fragile” and “anti-fragile” as initially proposed by Taleb (2012) and Aven (2015) and then applied to the planning, design, and policymaking of cities and territories (Chiffi and Curci, 2024), Chiffi and Moroni (2021) and Shearer et al. (2021) help characterize the Italian peripheries, especially in Milan. The term “fragile” underscores the areas’ vulnerability, due to their socio-spatial inequalities (Commissione Periferie, 2017). “Anti-fragile,” in contrast, suggests their potential to adapt and thrive in the face of uncertainties, whether economic or environmental, and whether in the short or long term. Milan’s East Fringe is a vast zone with unique characteristics. It stretches from Via Palmanova in the north to Via Rogoredo and San Donato Milanese in the south, and is almost entirely trapped between significant transportation infrastructures. To the west, the railway ring cuts the area off from the city core. To the east, the highway Tangenziale Est (A51), the Lambro River, and Linate Airport separate the fringe from its rural neighbors. Despite its isolation and apparent abandonment, however, this urban strip holds immense potential for trans- formation (Cozza, 2023). This design research aims to outline a possible future for this post-industrial periphery. With an abundance of vacant spaces without a defined use, the East Fringe exemplifies various contemporary issues around delineating, interpreting, intervening in borders, and urban porosity. In this context, “porosity” denotes the extent to which borders permit the movement of people, goods, and ideas. The idea of porosity is not just a theoretical construct but an urgent practical strategy for transforming borders, which are more than merely physical and represent a range of limits and discontinuities. Borders can play dual roles: as zones of contact or conflict, gateways or barriers, facilitators or inhibitors of exchanges (Hauser et al., 2021; Jovchelovitch et al., 2020) We posit that inter- ventions at various scales, from city planning to architecture, can convert these vulnerabilities into opportunities for change.