MInD is a proposal for the development of a new territorial and management model. Set in the regional territory around Cassano d’Adda, the project builds on the current state of industrial production and its traditional unevolved settlements, organised in rigid and separated clusters, by proposing a new model based on a network of hotspots enhancing innovation through both material and immaterial production.
The brief of the project is derived from a main acknowledgement regarding the way the territory has been developing along with the growth of the industrial settlements in recent years. We are witnessing the shift from an old, traditional way of conceiving the territory to a smarter new one – from seeing the territory as the ensemble of cities and of the reciprocal relations among them, to an innovative way of understanding it as a whole region.
This process is driven by the concept of innovation as an engine to facilitate the transformation of the territory. The circumstances in which innovation has a key-role in the spatial definition of a region are readable in different contexts (as further explained by a selection of case studies) and therefore give the present work the role of a model―something applicable, replicable and measurable in several, different contexts.
Along with this just mentioned contexts, this project builds on a specific site: the region of the Metropolitan City of Milan, especially its eastern part, and specifically the town of Cassano d’Adda.
Principal academic Tutor
Marco Facchinetti, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano
Academic Tutor
Patrizia Lombardi, Dipartimento Interateneo di Scienze, Progetto e Politiche del Territorio, Politecnico di Torino
External Institutions
IULM Milano
University at Albany, State University of New York
External Tutors
Alessandra Mazzei, Department of Business, Law, Economics and Consumer, IULM Milano
Ray Bromley, Department of Geography and Planning, University at Albany, State University of New York
Team members
Jaco R. Forrer, School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano
Dorsa Kafili, School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano
Emanuele Moro, Communication Coordinator, School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano
Laura Simonetti, School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano
Enrico V. Sciannameo, School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano
Diletta Trinari, Team Controller, School of Architectural Design, Politecnico di Milano