Research-Action-Research Towards a Circular Urban System for Multi-level Regeneration in Historical Cities: The Case of Bologna

Abstract

Urban regeneration is a key topic in Europe as cities are asked to propose efficient actions for the transition toward a more liveable system. The singularities and specificities of each city urges for a flexible and multi-scale approach able to face and combine a mix of cultural heritage, social and economic constraints, climatic and architectural specificities. In order to work toward the definition of site-specific and flexible methods, the ROCK project investigates how to move towards a Circular Urban System Model to be applied to historic centres. The paper presents the concept and the pilot actions undertaken in Bologna to build a site-specific approach enabling local stakeholders to collaborate toward the definition of action plans for the transition into sustainable systems of places. The project adopts a multilevel methodology to create links among key areas, resources, stakeholders and tools in order to re-circulate local values for their valorisation and enhancement. The paper describes the elaboration and the research-action-research initiatives as results of Bologna's University area experimentations, deepening the relation among public spaces, local stakeholders and social exchanges. In particular, it presents the first experimentations of the project into this area: The Living Lab approach and co-design experiences.

Urban Planning by Experiment at Precinct Scale: Embracing Complexity, Ambiguity, and Multiplicity

“…Fourth, we observe that community engagement is another important aspect of governing precinctscale experimentation and can support inclusion through diverse participation (Wiktorowicz et al, 2018). Maintaining a balance between top-down (Mai, 2018) and bottom-up (Gianfrate et al, 2020) participation remains difficult but important for enabling transparency, inclusiveness, and direct communication (den Hartog et al, 2018). Community engagement is often undertaken in instrumental ways in urban planning, but the creation of meaningful spaces for deliberation and learning about needs, desires, limitations, inequalities, etc.…”

“…in co-design experiments for urban management in the care of public spaces. These actors were also enrolled in co-planning activities by helping to define the action plan for the broader district agenda with a view to ensuring greater accessibility of cultural heritage and public spaces (Gianfrate, Djalali, Turillazzi, Boulanger, & Massari, 2020). Intermediaries can also play a significant role in urban experimentation and refer to NGOs, government or semi-government agencies that connect actors at different scales.…”

Cultural Heritage and Digital Tools: the Rock Interoperable Platform

“…To this extents, DW platforms have been used to exchange experiences and collaboratively seek for solutions [30]. These platforms have placed high emphasis in defining an interoperable system, based on a single platform, able to integrate, address and exchange [31] information among technicians, professionals, policy makers, scholars, but also end users, investors and city-makers. This is, for example, the case of the Florence Smart City Control Room, developed by the European project Snap4City 7 where a large amount of big data is collected and distributed in open source to everyone interested, citizens or technician.…”

“…Adopting a design-for-all approach in the deployment of collaborative platforms, might represent the innovation potential for CH-led regeneration, increasing the accessibility of contents, the openness, the user-friendliness of the interface, the enabling factors deriving from the adoption of immersive technologies at urban scale. In particular, the ROCK (Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural heritage in creative and Knowledge cities) H2020 project proposes an "enabling platform" [30,31] for the knowledge, management, monitoring, redevelopment and enhancement of CH. It addressed some of the current issues and ambiguities related to CH digitisation elements proposing a shared vocabulary for digital heritage through its interoperable platform ecosystem.…”

Heritage-Led Ontologies: Digital Platform for Supporting the Regeneration of Cultural and Historical Sites

“…In the attempt to respond to these gaps, the ROCK project proposes an "enabling platform" [31], [32] for the knowledge, management, monitoring, redevelopment and enhancement of CH.…”