MSLab - A paradigmatic model to shape the metropolitan growth by Antonella Contin

1. A paradigmatic model to shape the metropolitan growth.
Metropolitan Architecture and Metropolitan Urban Space
Research Group
MSLab _Measure and scale of contemporary city
DiAP _ Scuola di Architettura e Società_ Politecnico di Milano
antonella contin , politecnico di milano
DAStU
MSLab

2. the metropolis // post-metropolis projects, practices and institutions
the image // endless and transcalar physical boundaries (rurban space)
the meaning // symbolic mediator and intermediator
time - speed // mobile citizenship – utopia of global cosmopolitism

3. Content:
The content is a study on the management of the leap in scale of the contemporary city through the
definition of a structural paradigm. Dialogically proceeding from the History, we investigate the
cognitive function of the Image of the Architecture and urban space, as an instrument of the
construction and symbolic interpretation of the built environment.
Goal:
Definition of a structural urban paradigm toward which to define the syntactic and communicative
value of the architecture (cognitive value) and public metropolitan space
Definition of a statute of the metropolitan architectural subject that is recognized as a tool for the
construction and symbolic interpretation of the built environment: landmark as a new relays for the
interconnections between the scales. These landmarks images mark of metropolitan identity: they
define the new measure and the relationship between the natural landscape and its inner landscapes.
Definition of a metropolitan architectonical project as, regarding to the temporal dimension of the
project, the ‘hinge points’ that emerges from the existing and present interaction between various
urban layers

5. New scale configurations and existing strata.
the modes of designing and implementing metropolitan scale projects
The structural paradigm of the city: the syntactic (constructive) and communication value of the
Architectural Form manages the leap in scale
the city is a map of tropic-points that persist within the plans of real cities
the architecture must interpret the character (l’aime de la cité) of the city through the image and the
organization of its plan, according to its context

6. A Metropolitan model to address the growth issues

7. Grahame Shane

9. K. Lynch
THREE NORMATIVE
MODELS
City of faith
City of the machine
Ecological city

10. F. Choay
CITY SPACES FIGURES
Space of contact
Scenic space
Circulation space

11. EVERY ERA
PRODUCES ITS
SPACES FIGURES IN A
SPECIFIC SCALE
F. Choay
CITY SPACES FIGURES
logon space
coupling space

12. M. Foucault
D. Grahame Shane
HETEROTOPIA
Mirror function
MISURE,SCALE,TRACES
Multiple pockets
MACHINA A LAYERS
Miniaturization
INNER LANDSCAPE
TIPOLOGICAL
HIBRIDATION
Landmark
FOR A SEMANTIC OF THE
SHAPE...

13. Maps Paradigms
Three urban normative models:
City of faith, city of machine, ecologic city (Lynch)
Archi_città Cine_città Tele_città Net_city

14. Space of flows requires founded images as appointment landmarks (movie set)
New categories for studing inner spaces and Big Containers
Public Realm as Information System /Communication Space
Public Realm as Movie Set
Public Realm as a New Appearance Space/ Life Style
New Definitions for the Urban Form Type (Heterotopias) in the Net-City
Conteiner (contener a confort)
Megaform
Urban Morfotipo
Theme Park / Cluster

15. the focus
metropolitan scale
geography space
paradigmatic model
a vision
an idea of the structure
the form to the metropolitan growth

16. A Metropolitan model to address the growth issues
the paradigms
a) The Sum of large or small parts (mode of proximity)
b) The Integral (the entire unit mode)
c) The Growth as an integration of additions through networks of circulation interfering the city fabrics
d) The Connection (practice of atopic proximity)
paris _ hinge
barcelona _ linking
vienna _ Green Belt
london _ net city
madrid _ matrix, bypass and relais

17. The need of a Strategic Plan
planning methodology
to articulate the social partners
to generate a social intelligence
to formulate generalized consensus

18. The Sustainable City as a Narrative (Nathalie Roseau)
-The Ecosystem: think together the city and its exteriority
- Dialectics as a motive for the project
- Historical process and stratas
- Governance for powers and territories
- Scales: combination, hybridation
- Imagibility of the metropolis
- Expressing various senses for polycentrality
- Systems of objects
- Local on a grand scale
- The project`Retroactivity on representations
- The representation anticipation of the projects

19. Sustainable City
Self-sufficient City
Fair City
Democratic City
Contemporary Transformations of the Modern City
Concentration / Diffusion
Urban Elasticities
Space of Flows/Space of Places
Scales Combination – Confusion – Hybridation

20. Landscape as portrait of the inhabited land

21. Leveling, raising and
channeling the water is the
primitive urban footprint,
which is completed by the
creation of streets (and street
blocks) consistent with those
crossing the valley; with its
mineral resources, energy
reserves, crops and human
production, the valley has
shown the signs of its
relationship with the city

22. Leonardo’s secret

23. This regional dimension of the urban footprint reformulated by Geddes in his famous
paradigmatic section of the valley, marked with the urban footprint of the industrial
city with its regional implications and interrelations.
In his section, the city in the background shows the whole water basin bearing traces
of its existence and demands for materials, energy and products. So that, in a lateral
sense, the footprint of the city – i.e. the traces of what it draws from the whole valley and
what it discards in it – extends to the whole valley. Today, we need an impact assessment
on the sustainability of urban needs. The ecological footprint is the difference between
what the city draws from and discards in the valley.
Today we can speak about a valleys system … every
valley is interconnected with the others … in the region

24. The valley section
Baresi A., La Placa S., Dar Smart, Infrastruttura grey and green

25. Scarcity
Chiesa A., landscape urbanism

26. Chiesa A., landscape urbanism

27. Il pasaggio totale reso visibile (Lynch)
Set di paesaggi UNITA’ FIGURALI DI PAESAGGIO (U.F.P) =
morfologia geografia e la biografia urbana

28. A cultural jump to a new identity.
A methodological indication for the development of a growing city
not a ‘formal model’
a ‘development model’ for a discontinous reform of the metropolis shape // a method
series of patterns // a direction for the settlement growth
series of networks // configuration (Form)
characterization of specific qualifying locations with gradient of formality.
proposal for an integrated model that is based on scale integration down to a capillary action

29. the premise
urban transformations (maintenance and developing)
urban metabolism perspective
three basic forms of sustainability: the socio-economic, ecological and energy investment
typological and morphological reform of the paradigms of the city (structure and shape)
transformation of architectural scale of urban design
relationship between public / semi-public / private urban

30. Reticular Matrix
New infrastructure model is conceived as an interrelated system between grey and
green infrastructure
simple square geometry
to connects the geography of the region and the structure of the ancient towns through grey and green
infrastructure
to tame the existing infrastructures
to turn the city structure from circular to linear

33. me
planning
programing
issues
Involving future Governments:
Synchronic Consensus
Coordina ng Sectors: Synchronic Consensus
Sliding Horizon
Variable Geometry
Metro Planning Management
1)Indicative. ‘Autoritas’ rather than ‘Potestas’
•Synchronic Consensus. Actual shared powers
•Wide: Strategic coordination of sectors.
•Long: Plan of Plans. Flexible embrace
•Diachronic Consensus. Future shared powers
•Variable Geometry; Embodied adaptability
•Sliding Horizon: Periodic standing revisions

36. Eco Armature and Green Infrastructure // The climate change
The Rule
The Model

37. Dar Es Salaam - Tanzania
Motta M. DarSmart, Green Grey strategy

38. Conclusion: Fast Growing Metropolises Management basic principles
1) Accept the growth: Address and respond. To deny it is to be responsible of the consequences
2)New dimension, new methodology. Not a “larger city”. It is a new multiple-organism: Metropolis
3)Not a fixed image of the future. Set the rules and allow for dialogue for common decision-making.
•Avoid congestive radial-orbital structures. Instead be Polycentric: multiple moves and strategies
2)Linear Ecosystems produce Matrix-reticular: Freedom of decision-making within a stable framework.
3)Discover the DNA: Discover its structural “Form”: (The Morphos). Find and unfold the future.
•Public Administration role: Locate large metropolitan elements: Strategic Facilities + Infrastructures
•Private role: Open alternatives. Multiplicity of choices. Elasticity-Adaptability. Dialogue
3)Keep Scale in mind. Metropolitan (1:50.000) between Urban (1:5.000) and National (1:500.000)
10) Keep time in mind: Short-term decision making in a long-term flexible sustainable framework

39. infrastructure
The interpretation of the new region dimensions is done by
geometric linear lines of grey and green infrastructures
The interpretation of the new local dimensions is a topological net
that determines a new portion of body space (Shane, 2005)
not to save the old structure of the city as if it faced an expansion,
but to determine the birth of the interferences of new urban
highways and commuter train
not only an efficient system but a true infrastructure to present:
services, housing, industry ...
// a.rossi ... the city is done by monuments, urban settlement,
street and services

40. le forme del movimento // mobilità
•generatrice di luoghi metropolitani (Smithson, 1957)
•concetto di territorialità alla scala geografica basato sul principio organizzativo della terra
come luogo di incontro e di mobilità (Lynch, 1980), dimensione locale topologica del body
space (Shane, 2005)
•gli elementi urbani: infrastrutture e servizi, monumento, tessuto urbano (Rossi, 1966)
Accordo tra green and grey infrastructure (strutture continue / sezione della valle )
Progetto architettonico e urbano nodo di intescambio scambiatore di scala, nuove
funzioni urbane (valore cognitivo/mappa mentale)
Suolo (impronta) sequenza ritmica (tempo) set di paesaggi
toni dell’abitare
spazio originato dalle infrastrutture (lineare e/o topologico-ritmico-ondulato)
infrastrutture di paesaggi come forma della metropoli

41. syntactic transformation // a lack of paradigmatic urban structure
"foundation"
“history”
global scale // de-complexification
connection to the large network systems
local scale // de-differentiation (neurology thinking) of local culture (condition of a real spatial identity)
It is no longer just a problem of instruments, but of new meanings

42. built and natural environment at the scale of the Metropolis
maps to represent the physical dimension
spatial map and its representation
mental maps // imageability
residents and city-users identity, “feeling of adequacy” and participation
A change of the urban space in the current situation of urban sprawl, implies and requires the
transformation of the citizen mental map.

43. the citizen’s mental map is the theme of urban quality and identity
The architectural metropolitan project is about:
how to identify the places through the figure and the image
how to project essential places which could to be considered and recognized as strategic places by the new
metropolitan citizenship
the meaning of the image
In order to keep the physical issue in the center of the design approach we will produce design scenarios and
study its impact on the society and on legal and institutional forms rather than an inversed manner
the large intermodal facilities
stations, terminals, docks, large industrial systems, fairs ect. are architectural subjects capable to allow physical
regulations for the open spaces and in particular, new forms of public spaces. (Gregotti)

44. a change of the urban space in the current situation of urban sprawl, implies and
requires the transformation of the citizen mental map
the construction of the urban space is:
the foundation of "the mutation of the self" as a personal and social growth
it can be conceived in a common sense
it is determined by a participative decision

45. ... Between the awareness and the semiotic intermediation
Lewis Carroll,’The Hunting of the Snark’ La Carte du tendre , Clélie, une histoire romaine , Madeleine de Scudéry
l
Space is composed by points, but we will never have a deep knowledge of it if we
don't study the relationships that tie the points or the instants of a temporal interval.
The phenomenon is constituted by a series of feelings, but it’s known only if it’s
possible to investigate its structure ... NEW MAPPING (Peirce)

46. the Goal
A metropolitan project:
might be conceived as a transitional stage between previous capabilities, current demands and coming
possibilities
has to be able to embody the city’s changes
E. Nathan Rogers states: ‘realization of architecture is ‘making present’ the past and ‘manifesting the future’
in the present.’ It’s a question of vision and Imaginery

47. aim of the project of the Metropolitan City Form
•governo del salto di scala della città contemporanea, attraverso la definizione di un
paradigma strutturale (concetto strategico per la città)
•multiscalarità del progetto architettonico e urbano e del paesaggio (forma
metropolitana incommensurabile)
Samartino A.: Interpretazione del Piano di Madrid 2016 – Ortiz Reticular Matrix

48. Sammartino A., Ortiz P. Reticular Matrix Methodology. Ude

49. Sammartino A., Baresi La Placa, Ortiz P. Reticular Matrix Methodology. Ude

50. Baresi A., La Placa S., Dar Smart, Desakota block

51. Baresi A., La Placa S., Dar Smart, Stazione

52. Dar Es Salaam - Tanzania
Della Rosa M., Darsmart, studi tra Formale e Informale

53. Motta M. DarSmart, Reticular Matrix Baresi A., La Placa S. DarSmart,
Megablocco e nuova centralità

54. Motta M. DarSmart, Gradient of formality

55. I modi della crescita urbana
Della Rosa M., Dar Smart, Pattern di accrescimento spaziale

56. Baresi A., La Placa S., Dar Smart, Informal Settlement

57. Della Rosa M., Dar Smart, Pattern di accrescimento spaziale

58. Della Rosa M., Dar Smart, Pattern di accrescimento spaziale

59. Della Rosa M., Dar Smart, Pattern di accrescimento spaziale

60. Baresi A., La Placa S., Dar Smart, Informal Settlement