Living Today (and Tomorrow). Lifestyle, Issues, Politics.

Seminar class “Abitare oggi (e domani). Stili di vita, questioni, politiche”, in English “Living today (and tomorrow). Lifestyle, issues, politics.”, took place on November 15-16, 2017 in Venice, during the course “Urban policy and housing” (held by prof. Francesco Gastaldi) in the study course “Planning and urban design” of the Department of “Design and Planning in Complex Environment” (IUAV University of Venice). This seminar goal has been relating the history of Italian housing policies since the post war period until today and the instruments, the respective processes and the stakeholders involved.

Moderated by the local professors Giulio Ernesti and Francesco Gastaldi, seven experts took part in this event. On November 15, students were taught the social housing experience in Italy (prof. Micol Bronzini, sociologist at Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona), living practices between Milanese youngers (Dr. in Urban Planning Alice Selene Boni, actually working for Eupolis Lombardia) and Italian middle class living by presenting the book “Exploring the Middle-class City / Esplorazioni nella città dei ceti medi: Torino 1945-80”, published in 2015 by Carammelino Gaia De Pieri Filippo and Renzoni Cristina (prof. Gaia Caramellino, DASTU Politecnico Milano).

The day after, presentations were focused on sustainable neighborhood projects, among them, the Vauban former military base (Fiorella Angeli, urban planner, working at urban planning studio Smart srl), urban neighborhood and participative regeneration (Milena De Matteis, researcher at IUAV University of Venice), Living at Marghera Cita neighborhood (Alessia Mion, urban planner) and Federico Camerin’s presentation.

I participated as a co-coordinator of this event and as an invited lecturer in order to give a lesson about “Living in the former military installations”. Moreover, it has been a double opportunity. Firstly, in order to disseminate my current research, focusing on the military construction, emptying and re-use processes. Particularly, I explained the role of particular actors in the reuse procedures, as the Investment Management Companies ‘Cassa Depositi e Prestiti’ and ‘Invimit’. Those actors, through their real estate investment trusts, are acting as private stakeholders in an attempt to unlock the planning, design, economic and sometimes social inertia related to urban regeneration projects of former military assets in several Italian cities (such as Bologna, Florence, Milan, Rome and Turin). Secondly, I attended the event in order to learn something more about Italian housing lifestyle in the second part of the XX century and nowadays. All the intervention deals with urgent housing issues in our society. As far as I am concerned, I hope this kind of initiatives will be repeated.

For more information:

- profile prof. Francesco Gastaldi, http://www.iuav.it/Ateneo1/docenti/pianificaz/docenti-st/Gastaldi-F/index.htm

- seminar class, http://www.iuav.it/Ateneo1/strutture-/progettazi/attivit--c/2017/Abitare-og1/index.htm

Text and photo: Federico Camerin