Continuing to Write in Small Historic Cores. A Design- Led Strategy for Meda’s Urban Blight

The phenomenon of abandonment and decay of historic settlements affects not only secluded villages but also the core of small towns where inhabitants prefer to quit former rural nuclei to live in terraced houses. Over time, this has provoked the decline of economic activities, vitality and finally urban blight. The historic core of Meda, a town north of Milan known for its dynamic economy and design furniture brands, has lost its urban role, vitality and character although is a morphologically defined settlement of ancient formation and is part of the monumental area on the top of the hill. While urban regeneration is usually studied in terms of economics and policies, this research funded by the Municipal Government has tested the regenerative role of the architectural project, exploring its operational nodes at different scales within the culture of the “urban project”. Based on the reading of urban structures and tissues, it defined a contextual design-led strategy to re-imagine and enhance the town based on rewriting strategies. The strategy defined the heads of the urban system by rewriting dilapidated buildings and urban ground, extending to configure a sequence of space-places of encounters while penetrating into semi-private courtyards and gardens to prolong public space as a dynamic and fluid element. By interpreting the urban form potential, the multi-scale design-led strategy was conceived as a driver to enhance historic buildings and courtyards by cultural industries and private-public partnerships, to attract and support new neighbourhood commercial activities, to create pedestrian areas and places of encounter and social interaction.