Weave the Web of Milan with Water extends the fabric of the center of Milan by weaving a system of "waterscapes".
Three squares and three street crossings are converted into experiential spaces for pedestrians where water subverts the conventio a specific time related to the context.
Light and materials contribute to the future romantic atmosphere and blend the wet new design in the city.
Local
Italy
Lombardia/ Milano
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: YU HSUAN Last name: LIN Gender: Female Age: 28 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Taiwan Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Giacomo Quarenghi, 32 Town: Milano Postal code: 20151 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 331 745 7989 E-mail:yuhsuan1.lin@mail.polimi.it
Bringing history into the future.
The choice to work with water is linked to the history of Milan, when water canals were more integrated into the center of the city, hugging the walls.
Meanwhile, the local historical landmark participates in the project by being reborn as the water of Milan.
This project offers a new way to interact with the city through water, while also providing a new time-based design to people.
Seeing time, feeling time in each moment, realizing that each moment is as unique as the swaying water.
Flowing traffic is combined with water design.
The traffic light is a kind of door for water: it opens, it closes, it flows, it stops.
In each place, city events suggest a specific time that guides the design of the space. Water is the tool to show the change and passage of time. It changes the perception of space and creates a new urban landscape, called waterscape.
In the end, water, landmark, history, mobility, these ingredients weave a fabric with a strong connection.
Waterscapes
Landmarks
Weave
Mobility
Time
Nowadays, sustainable urban design does not only include green areas in the city, but it also concerned the quality of urban runoff to weave new potential relationships between citizens and public spaces. Water-sensitive urban design -WSUD- follows the concept of symbiosis between water and lived space, in a sustainable recirculation of rainwater harvesting and air purification.
In this project, water plays a leading role in transforming the urban fabric into new scapes. It's evident how Milan's history is rich in water-collaboration: canals -Navigli- were essential for transportation and for mobility,. Today, most of the hydrogeological network disappeared, so the idea is to bring it back to life starting from the real center of the city, Piazza Duomo, to offer a new point of view about the often "wet, foggy, and gray" Milan. The planned system aims to expand and it not only reconsiders the city's rainwater by conserving it, it also regenerates water and makes it visible on the ground surface. New waterscapes always generate social interactions and strong links with th city's landmarks. Beyond that, the choice of materials for a project that is long-term, and that improves the quality of urban life. Indeed, wet surfaces affect the local microclimate: water captures the city's particulate pollutants in winter, and reduces the urban heat island effect in summer.
Our goal is to give a new way of visiting the wet city based on sustainability.
The landmarks we choose belongs to different historical periods and in each of them there is a strong aesthetic. It’s hard to define which is the best way to design in the city, but the relation to the context is the first worthy guideline to discuss.
Giving different perspective of the landmarks is the initial proposal, in order to let people meet the buildings again and rediscover them with enthusiasm.
In the future, people could explore the space by walking, by sitting, even by laying down. Different casual postures, different scenarios, different activities are provided for a better experience of the urban space.
Water and installations are tools to link the landmarks: the materials chosen are similar to those used to built the surrounding and help the design to blend in the city and match with the landmarks.
The new environment and atmosphere are harmonic in each spot, and in the meanwhile they maintain their own custom characteristics.
Aesthetics is originally located here.
We can call the project "inclusive" for all intents and purposes as any space that can be used seamlessly by all possible user groups in those particular settings.
This happens because these are new experience opportunities, spaces that come back to life in a simple and sometimes fun way. In the project it is very clear how environments vary as time changes: it allows people to adjust in movements and behaviors precisely by taking these aspects into consideration.
Regarding accessibility, the choice to place these interventions in strategic areas of the city of Milan clearly shows an openness to all kinds of people and activities, from the tourist to the resident. Moreover, the most relevant aspect is the drastic decrease in car circulation that the project brings. Safety in moving around and experiencing the city is thus significantly increased.
These urban spaces are redesigned with usable, comfortable, safe, pleasant and fun equipments. More or less invasive to change the circulation, they never generates situations of contrast or danger.
Not to be forgotten is an idea of sustainability related to the reuse of water put into systems. Ideally, one can think of collecting, conveying, and treating the city's wastewater to improve the water quality of receiving water bodies, reducing pollution and making water resources available for these new uses, saving money and energy.
The concept project is located in a central area of the city of Milan, more precisely on the main axis characterized by Porta Romana and Castello Sforzesco, passing by the Duomo of Milan. Our intervention aims to transform the mobility and use of the area, between Piazza Diaz and the University Statale of Milan, thus changing the behavior of citizens and tourists in their relationship with these urban landscapes. The first objective is to emphasize more the landmarks that characterize these squares, second point is to make these polluting and impractical road junctions more usable by pedestrians in a Milan that looks to the future.
A Milan that aims to optimize services and projects itself on the idea of the 15-minute city, our concept contributes to a green and romantic vision of the metropolis. Citizens will therefore be the protagonists of these waterscapes, involved in experiencing and discovering a Milan historically linked to the theme of water.
The development of the project involved five female students from the master's degree in Interior and Spatial Design at the Politecnico di Milano. The different nationalities allowed for multiple visions in terms of urban design. The cultural complexities of the different home nations facilitated a more accurate analysis of the history of the area and developments in the contemporary urban planning.
The project we propose, is envisioned from the perspective of urban development of the city in which the use of the car vanishes in favor of public transports and walking.
The issues we address are linked by time-based design and urban waterscape. In addition, coming from a more interior design field, the project is inspired by the concept of "inhabiting the city" and thinks in terms of inclusion and citizen involvement. Going into specifics, it involves several focuses that go into more detail: lighting design, material development, and technical details.
The innovative driver for the concepts behind the different waterscapes is time. Each spot is characterised by specific happenings belonging to the urban behaviours: pedestrians stop and cross the streets, multiple lines of trams follow the rails on the asphalt, each few minutes the underground metro approaches the station, the students run to go to school, the tower bell of the church sings.
Following “time activators” the water change the space. New scheduled events, more or less controlled, more or less predictable, are opportunity to experience a city that never is the same.
Water moves up and down changing the level of a urban lake, based on the moon month and the real sea level in Genoa (important commercial parthner for Milan).
Around the atoll, the water is activated by the traffic light and for few minutes becomes a wall.
Waves and spontaneous splashes are affected by the transports presence and passage. In a park, gentle curtains of water divide the space and create an ephemeral tunnel under the overflowing aqueduct. The system of episodic events keeps the city alive, and connected, renovating its look each month, day, hour and minute.
The idea of weaving a system in Milan is open to the expansion of it in many potential nodes of the city. The problem of the squares occupied by cars and vehicles is wide spread in Milan but also in other cities: it’s easy to identify new spots where to apply and expand the pattern of the system. Thus, the main aim is to give back to citizens those spaces dominated by cars and convert them in public experiencial spaces, providing high quality standards of living.
The weaving process creates always a new grid to design, according to the analysis of the context. The method concerns understanding the main flow directions that pedestrians actually take and defining future axes that envision the scenario without cars or the one that reduces them.
In this way, the first step is set.
The project also aims to deeply relate the historical buildings with the surrounding space, making people aware of the city landmarks.
This design passage follows the time strategy. Time will sign scheduled events according to the existing/hidden “activators” of the city. They could be related to the mobility but also to natural happenings (sun, moon,..).
To identify an common metaphor to the project, WWMW refers to water and its natural or artificial landscapes. Playing to design them, each future possible location is different but still connected to the city and still part of the weaving system.
The sustainable development of the urban space is possible and not only in Milan. The suggested methodology follows many guidelines: weave, time, water. They respond to each specific context in a different way. As result, each design solution is related to the place but also to the system.
This project is developed by holding a sustainable aim of enhancing the connection between citizens and the urban reality of mobility and squares, to encourage people to care of public transportation and urban landscapes.
On one hand, the imbalance between city and increasing car use has not only led to a series of environmental problems, also more seriously it has led to a misleading reality that urban development is traffic-oriented rather than human-oriented. In this project, we used public transport such as tram, metro, traffic lights as activators to trigger a series of interactive experiences with waterscape, in this way it allows citizen to realize the possibility that public transport serves as an artery, could be integrated into urban life.
On the other hand, another imbalance in urban development is seen in Milan, where a single-city centre leads to centralization in terms of population and traffic while the rising reality is realized is that modern cities need to evolve towards a polycentric model. Therefore, we focus on the possibility of enhancing urban square experience, by linking to public transportation, interaction and sites, thus forming a web with water system and urban experience throughout whole city, in order to achieve a city decentralisation, meanwhile enhancing the experience of each community.
