edimburgo the urban bioregion draft

Edinburgh lecturesOctober 1st, 2010

Alberto Magnaghi

The urban bioregion

societyas participatory

Rebuilding a new European Idea of the urbanity (URBANITE’, Choay) against oximora of contemporary urbanization like “sprawl city”, “ville èparpillée”, “edge city”, “conurbation”, “metropolitan area”, “città diffusa”, “città infinita”

The contemporary urbanization is a post-urban one

The issue

Post –urban era: the conurbation of central Tuscany from Florence to Pisa

New powerties in China

Post –urban era

Post-urban era

Los Angeles:serial urbanisation

Sprawl in north-eastern Italy: the urbanization of countryside

The Triennale exibition, Milan

The “città infinita”(Bonomi e Abruzzese 2004)

Historical relations between river and its territory: Arno river, Villa Ambrogiana, Tuscany

Post-urban era: relations between river and its territory

Factory sheds along the river Arno(Tuscany)

Post urban era

The megacity of the southern world

Slums, super-slums and skiscrapers

Does the post-urban era evidenciate a neotechnic order ? Are we moving from kacotopia to eutopia (Geddes) ?

• Is this a “neotechnic order”?• Is this “Public conservation of resources”?• Is this “Beauty of the city”?• Is this “Constructive conservation of nature’s order

and beauty towards the healt of cities”? • Is this evolution “from war to peace” order?

how can we rethink the city towards “eutopia”?

Starting again from Geddes “Valley Section” suggestions

The “Valley Section” suggestions

• Place, work, people: co-evolution• Peculiarity and uniqueness of each region and

city• Reliefs and contours to discover the

evolutionary relations (nature and culture) at work in every region

• Coevolution along time, from the “Regional Origins”, as a guide for rediscovering the “bioregion” concept

Rediscovering the bioregion concept is the base for “Rethinking the city” in relation to the contemporary urbanization context

The “territorialist school” has reframed and developed the concept of bioregion within “local self-sustainable development” theory

‘

Local self-sustainable development promotes• new relationship of co-evolution between local

inhabitants/producers and the regional territory;• the local community “sustains itself”; it ensures that

natural environment can sustain it in its action;• Closing local cycles : water, food, energy, wastes to

reduce the ecological footprint• Founding local economic systems on valorization of

territorial and landscape heritage• Food sovereignty• Promoting new peasantries to produce common goods

(town-country pact)• rethinking the urbanity (city of villages, city of cities,

bioregions)

LONG-LASTING TERRITORIAL MARKS

Envi-ronmental know-ledge

Socio-cultural Model

Making and producing knowledge

COGNITIVE PHYSICAL

long-lastingphysicalstructures

environmental neo-ecosy-stems

INNOVATIVE AND

INSURGENT ENERGIES

Appr-opriateTechno-logies

Widerepresenttaion of social actorsofsocial actors

Territorial type”

LANDSCAPE“MILIEU”

TERRITORIAL HERITAGE

STATUTE OF PLACES

STRATEGIC SCENARIO Territorial design

Evaluation models Sectorial plans, projects and policies

Participation and negociation arenas

Integrated policies and projects

SELF-SUSTAINABLE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT(GIVING NEW BIRTH TO THE PLACE)

SELF SUSTAINABLE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT (GIVING NEW BIRTH OF THE PLACE)

First stepdescription,interpretation, representation

of long lasting territorial heritage Territorial ‘heritage’: environment, landscape, urban features, local

knowledge, culture and crafts in its unique character as a living entity.

Common knowledge• Place consciousness• Cognitives and Community mapsExpert knowledge• Territorial heritage atlas:• Territorialisation process

Place consciousnessPost-Fordism: the contradiction between uniformity, destruction of cultures,

polarization and social fragmentation on one hand, and the affirmation of differences, diversities, cultural uniqueness and social re-composition on the other.

Place consciousness isconsciousness, aquired by inhabitants through a cultural growth

process, of the heritage value of common goods (material and relationals), as basic elements needed for reproducing individual and collective life, both biological and cultural.

Place cosciousness isthe condition for producing various development models based on

appropriation and use of resources by producers-inhabitants, different social production relations referring to new statutes of self-employed labor, different forms of direct democracy pacts, and different strategic sectors of the economy.

.

cognitive and community maps• Risk maps (Latin America)• Cognitive maps (K. Lynch)• Urban participatory design experiences• community mapping• the “Common ground” network• parish maps• parish plan (Countryside agency)• In Italy: the “Mappe di comunità” : ecomusei, piani paesaggistici, organizzazione

partecipata degli statuti del territorio, quadri conoscitivi dei “mondi di vita” (Convenzione Europea del Paesaggio (2000).

• http://www.england-in-particular.info/maplist.html• Clifford, S. and King A. (1996). From Place to Place: Maps and Parish Maps. London:

Common Ground• Leslie K.(2001) (eds), Mapping the millennium. The west Sussex millennium parish maps

project, Selsey press ltd., Selsey• www.mondi locali .it• www.paesaggio.regione.puglia.it.it• www.comune.montespertoli.fi.it

http://www.england-in-particular.info/maplist.html

http://www.mondi/

http://www.paesaggio.regione.puglia.it.it/

http://www.comune.montespertoli.fi.it/

Representacion de la identidad patrimonial

A sense of placeWest Sussex Parish Maps

Kim Leslie (2006)

Piano Paesaggistico Territoriale della regione Puglia (Magnaghi2010)

Ecomuseum and community Maps

The representation of territorial heritage

Expert knowledge• The territorialization process (cognitive and

material signes)• Territorial morpho-types and figures

(landscape, heritage atlas)

Il Paesaggio come esito dei processi TDR

Territorializing processLong term material sediments

TerritorializationDe-territorialisationRe-territorialization

(Cycle DTR, Magnaghi 1995))

Representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany (Poli, Tofanelli 2005)

representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany (Poli, Tofanelli 2005)

representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany (Poli, Tofanelli 2005

representation of territorialising process : the Montalbano Tuscany

(Poli, Tofanelli 2005

representation of territorialisisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany Territorial morpho-types and figures (lanscape) (Poli, Tofanelli 2005)

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Heritage’s Atlas/Gargano Puglia: three phasesTDRPiano Paesaggistico Regione Puglia (Magnaghi 2010)

Heritage’s Atlas/Gargano Puglia: Roman civilization

Territorial heritage: landscape characters (Piano paesaggistico della Regione Puglia, Magnaghi 2010)

Second stepthe statute of places

The statute of places fix the rules of territorial and urban design to increase the territorial heritage value

Its components are:• Place specific landscape characters (territorial

Figures)• Structural invariants• Preservation degree of invariants• Rules for riproducing structural invariants

zini


Chianti, Tuscany: historical lanscape structure

Chianti, Tuscany: the representation of structural invariants (statutarian rules)

(Zini 2006)


• Val di Cornia (Tuscany)

• Territorial figure: morpho-typological structures and statutarian rules

(Magnaghi, Fantini, 1995)


• Val di Cornia, Tuscany: territorial figure (details)

l

TerritorialPlan of Prato’s Province(Magnaghi 2003)

Territorial heritage: morpho-typological structures and statutarian rules

Figura territoriale dell’Altopiano di Manfredonia

Territorial morpho-types (statutarian rules)Piano paesaggistico della Regione Puglia (Magnaghi, Carta 2010)


Territorial figures: Master Plan for the Arno river park (Magnaghi, Carta 2009)


river-territory structural relations Master Plan of Arno’s park (Magnaghi 2009)

Third stepStrategic scenarios (Visions for the design of future

bioregion)• Putting into value territorial, environmental and

landscape heritage• Conditioning territorial design to follow each place’s

statutarian rules• Organising social and economic actors and

inhabitants for the plan’s social production

Vision From conurbation to City of villages ; From metropolitan area to City of cities: from hierarchical region to Urban bioregion “Ideally he sees a society as made up of villages, and cities

composed of villages-like borougs- grouped into effective bioregions, each with its own local identity and traditions- cooperating as much as possible with each other. The villages would form cohesive communities, which means above all that their members would be bound to each other by a set of reciprocal obligations, as was always the case in traditional societies. They cannot be made up of people who seek only their personal interests, as is the case in the atomized society in which most of us live today”.

Edward Goldsmith (preface of “the urban village”)

City of villages• Destructuring contemporary urbanization• Rescue historical urban and neighborhood

identities• Toponymes, local cultures• Landscapes• Languages• Morphotypes• Arts and crafts, as well as industrial knowledge

Ciudad de Villajes

city of communities The greater London plan (Abercrombee 1942); the city of villages (Livingstone 2002)

Ciudad de villajes

From the monocentric conurbation (anti-city) to the city of communities (POLIFUNCTIONAL CENTERS AND URBAN FUNCTIONS INTEGRATES)

Leon Krier (2000)

Ciudad de Villajes

from the monocentric industrial cityto the polycentric integrateCity of villages

(BRESCIA (italy)Magnaghi, Tisi, 1985)

Ciudad de VillajesMonocentric zoning Polycentric integrated zoning

Ciudad de Villajes

Territorial heritage: urban, social, environmental, cultural identities

Ciudad de VillajesBrescia:The city of recomposed villages

Città di villaggi

Visalia: the city of villages (Crawford 2005)

Città di villaggiVisalia: the city of villages (Crawford 2005)

Ciudad de VillajesUrban identities for a city of villages

( La Spezia, Virgilio 2005)

City of cities• Non hierarchical urban networks• Subsidiarity and complementarity• Territorial citizenship• Environmental steady state• Landscape quality• Quality of life

Ciudad de ciudades

a city of small towns’ design Bormida Valley, Piedmont (Magnaghi, Vitone 2000)

Ciudad de ciudades

Polycentric city of Vallo di Diano (Cilento)

(Portoghesi 1992)

Polycentric network

The rule of University in the local development

Patrick Geddes: Perth as Metropolitan University(The city of Perth as hub of five town network )

Origins of university-region relationship in P. Geddes, Report of Indore

• The time of reconstruction, both educational and general, is now seen to be opening in cities and universities alike. These can no longer be considered separately, as has been customary during the decline of both, ad as has become habitual to minds formed amid this decline…. But the call is now no longer either merely to action or to thought; but to both together, in their alternation and interaction.For the city cannot be renewed without re-awakening the life of thought: in creative ideals and images no less thajn ideas, syntheses and philosophies. For thought must recall the vital elements of all regions, arts and literatures, no less than of the sciences, comprehending man and nature. This is the life of the true university. Hence to revive it needs more than mere 'university reform'. To be reformed, it must be born of the city and of her travail. [...] Thought and action at their highest are thus the complemental energies of humanity in evolving its varied communities. University-City and City-University will thus be increasingly identified. Our City of Thought has become the City of Deed.“

•

Ciudad de ciudades

Regional university Hierarchic model reticular model

Ciudad de ciudades

Design for a regional University network system (Fanfano 2001)

The urban bioregion• Bioregion (Latin bios-regere) • Ecologist meaning Berg [1978,1990] , Sale [1985], Todd [1989]; • socio-ecological and municipalist meaning, Bookchin [1974], • Bio-economics of de-growth , Latouche [2008].

• Our “territorialist” meaning main references:• Ecological geography , Vidal De la Blache [2008]• Regional Planning Association of America [1923], • bio-anthropocentric definition of “Valley section”, Geddes [1915], • “human community region” ,Mumford [1963]; • Territorial ecosystem , Saragosa [2005] • bioregione urbana, Magnaghi, 2010

Urban BioregionThe new Urban Bioregion is made by an ensemble of self-

sustainable local systems, on their turn organized into little and medium city grapes, each one in ecological, economic and social equilibrium within their territory. These non-hierarchical networks are characterized by an effort towards the local closing of their water, food, wastes, and energy cycles; attributing to “new peasants” both hydro geological safeguard and environmental, landscape, urban regeneration functions.

The new Urban Bioregion requires a territorial organization able to reproduce its life cycles, rising urban and regional living quality, harmonising productive, social, environmental , cultural and aesthetic factors in the production of lasting wealth.

town-country-side pactGeddes: “make the field gain on the street, not

merely the street gain on the field”

Designing the bioregion open spaces. The multifunctional role of agricolture

• the agricultural producer: from producer of goods destined to go on the market to producer of goods destined for the common good (through hydro-geological safeguarding, the reclaiming of land and the realignment of environmental systems and urban suburbs, the valuing of landscape, the development of the economy on a local bases - transformation, tourism amid agricultural settings, craftsmanship, etc.)

• When the local inhabitant cum agricultural producer turns back to traditional agricultural know-how and in doing so creates a lasting increase in fertility (and is thus in tune with the production of common good) he comes out of his isolation as an individual with his eye on the market, and is in fact co-operating in the building of new sociality, of a new town-country relationship. This new relationship hands the centre stage back to the rural areas in the form of valuing the importance of the territory and the environment through the production of common public goods to be shared by all.

A design of Milan bio-region historical evolution of urbanization:1888-1990

The design of Milan bio-region (Magnaghi 1995-2000)

The design of Milan bio-region : Olona river’s contract (Magnaghi 2002)

The design of Milan bio-region Polycentric city of vimercatese (Ferraresi 2007)

PPTR Regione Puglia: town-country Pact

Il patrimonio territoriale

Urban bioregion of Central Tuscany (Magnaghi 2010): historical heritage and statute of places

CLC 1990 - 2000

Urban bioregion of Central tuscany: the urban sprawl

Urban bioregion of Central tuscany:urbanization forecasts at 2055 (MOSUS model of EU : www.mosus.net)

Zone urbanizzate

Seminativi

Zone agricole eterogenee

Colture permanenti

Aree boscate

Zone umide

Historical identity o the cities: valley connexions whit the planes

Historical identity o the cities: valley connexions whit the planesUrban bioregion of Central tuscany

Urban bioregion of Central tuscanyrebuilding environmental and functional relations plain-hill-

mountain

Urban bioregion of Central tuscany

Urban bioregion of Central tuscany:patto città campagna the green core of polycentric bioregion (Magnaghi 2010

La bioregion urbana

Le patrimoine environnemental: la connexion du green core avec le parc du fleuve Arno

La bioregion urbana

A new-old form of planning:

exploring the Arno river on horses, bikes and boats to define objectives for action

edimburgo the urban bioregion draft

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