ASP projects

Italia 150/Torino 2011 – testing the architectural, urban and territorial effects of a celebration event

The organization and planning of special events for ITALIA150 in 2011 represent an enormous opportunity for Torino and the whole country, particularly due to the great visibility of the town in the media. Due to the celebration of Italian Unification, a unique experience – passing
through past and present – will take place in Torino: this special event will, similarly to what happened with the Winter Olympic Games in 2006, serve as a powerful catalyst for future development.
The complexity of such an event requires a multidisciplinary, innovative and flexible approach, capable of generating a successful strategy with long term results. How should the great event be planned, and how should post-event uses and urban transformations be planned? The initial challenge involved focusing on the effect that will be produced by the celebration at the metropolitan scale, from the architectural, urban and territorial point of view. Through the analysis and comparisons with other Great Events (with a special attention to the “Water” Exhibition in Saragoza, visited by a part of the project group), the students had to identify a quality system for infrastructure, landscape and urban renewal in Torino; and they would define a catalogue of feasible solutions that would get on well with both the specific project site and the urban complexity. Soon a huge area (“Basse di Stura”), limited by its features of decay, where environmental issues would be experimented, became the core theme of the students’ project. The stakeholders (Comitato Italia
150, Urban Center metropolitano) wanted a big open-minded approach, capable of providing a durable strategy that would become an added value to these Celebrations and, hopefully, for the following ones.
As there was only one team working on the project, students had to deepen both the specific knowledge on the limited site and the research activities to find out an innovative solution. The hard work of confrontation between the students and the stakeholders was fundamental in creating a productive synergy, a base of common perspectives towards a cultural renewal. A signifcant effort led the team to widen its horizons, transforming the project into an ethical mission, which even goes beyond some Committee’s expectations. After the inputs of two still existing concepts in territorial planning – the Ecological Footprint and the Preventive Ecological Compensation method – the idea of a virtuous approach that considers the human impact on the environment grew stronger and stronger. Students think of the event as the first step in a wider revolution which can promote a sustainable model, even in a slow-moving country like Italy. Their idea acts on visitors and promoters of the “great events”, seen as human resources to a big improvement into the planning and identity fields. By means of the events, they aim to promote a new way in planning and visiting events, paying attention to the impact and to the real possibility to compensate nature for losses. This innovative method could be applied, in a same way, even for “small events” (sport events, film festival, all kind of ephemeral activities), searching for a “self-compensation” of the negative ecological effects. A shared responsibility could be a successful key to create a more optimistic scenario in the future, a glimpse of hope in the face of the worrying status of the planet.

Principal Academic Tutors
Pierre-Alain Croset
Architectural and Industrial Design, Politecnico di Torino

Academic Tutors
Michele Bonino
Architectural and Industrial Design, Politecnico di Torino
Alba Cappellieri
Industrial Design, Arts, Communication and fashion, Politecnico di Milano
Antonio De Rossi
Architectural and Industrial Design, Politecnico di Torino
Arturo Lanzani
Architecture and Planning, Politecnico di Milano
Gabriele Pasqui
Architecture and Planning, Politecnico di Milano
Paolo Pileri
Architecture and Planning, Politecnico di Milano

External institution
Urban Center Metropolitano –
Torino
Committee for the Celebration
of the 150th Anniversary of the
Unification of Italy – Torino

External Tutors
Paolo Verri
Urban Center Metropolitano

Team members
TEAM A
Giorgia Brusadin [Project Communication Coordinator, Team controller], Communication Design
Michela Bongiorno, Territorial, Urban and Environmental Planning
Mauro Fassino, Architecture
Tiziana Giannetto, Architecture
Rositsa Ilieva, Architecture

Download the poster of the Project