Pontili Corviale. Dispositivi per l'accessibilità dei territori metropolitani

he Piers Project moves from the choice to acquire/promote/ strengthen the railroad line as a reference system for metropolitan accessibility, to characterize stations as docks and to identify a number of connection spaces (piers) between urban settlements and stations, but also able to establish local and daily connections between residences and services, without using the car. The Piers are not reducible to a linear path, but a constellation of spaces and equipments, which allow fast and secure transfers, but also many activities as parts of the public open spaces, veritable capacitors for activities and transits. Following these traces, the Piers Project becomes the tool to imagine a realistic form of rehabilitation of the connections between settlements and through a series of repeatable but flexible measurements that is adaptable to different contexts. The Piers so become the indispensable devices to realize: For an Accessible Metropolis The meanings of the term accessibility are varied and widespread, but all related to the idea of the actual enjoyment of a due right. Within this range of meanings the right to move within metropolitan areas becomes a decisive tool for inclusion, allowing the effective enjoyment of urban life benefits (wide availability of cultural exchanges, abundance of information, comparison with different identities, circuits of opportunities, etc.), reducing the perception of exclusion, marginalization, alienation, loneliness, therefore concretely supporting new paths for social inclusion, through the creation of new meanings of belonging to a metropolitan city. For a Green Metropolis The Piers Project pursues the objectives of reducing traffic pollution by strengthening direct access to the railroad network and stations from the periphery. In this context, the “simple” technical problem concerning lines and railway hubs provides the opportunity to interrogate and differently interpret the space of the contemporary metropolis. The urbanized areas of contemporary cities are very different from the past decades established peripheries. It is a space made of few, low quality materials that are repeated extensively, discontinuous and patchy, but also populated by large and small gaps of high environmental and landscape values that allow to imagine a social and ecological rehabilitation of these territories. These are the main points from which to move to imagine a Green Metropolis, able to cultivate resilience in an innovative way. For New Social Activations Urbanized contemporary territories are often characterized by large portions of open spaces - many publicly owned - unused or underutilized and made marginal due to extensive constructions, or agricultural areas completely “divorced” from the surrounding city. The piers, intended as activities capacitors, may contribute to the social activation of the green space serving as self-organization devices for collective activities booming nowadays: various kinds of agricultural practices, from urban gardens to multifunctional farms, from public enterprises to community gardens, in favor of self-production, energy saving and the direct sale of quality agricultural products, providing maximum organizational autonomy while supporting basic infrastructures. Food and environmental education workshops to support a new mental and physical balance, a new lifestyle, which is not always practicable in the traditional urban space. Different sports activities related to the culture of welfare, aimed at children but also for adults and elderly.

Il progetto pontili nasce all’interno di una ricerca sui territori urbanizzati della Roma oltre GRA all’interno del Dipartimento di Architettura e Progetto Sapienza Università di Roma. Il concetto classico di periferia si dimostra ormai inadeguato a interpretare i nuovi paesaggi metropolitani, che mostrano caratteri molto diversi rispetto al passato. La riflessione sul “diritto all’accessibilità” ha costituito un filo rosso capace di evidenziare percezioni sociali della città largamente diffuse: marginalità spaziale, intesa come distanza dai “centri riconosciuti”; marginalità sociale, intesa come mancanza di connessione e scambio con contesti urbani caratterizzati da maggiori opportunità; scarsa qualità urbana e ambientale, intesa come carenza di spazi organizzati e presidiati; mancanza di spazi pubblici adatti alle nuove esigenze di questo nuovo tipo di “abitanti”. Con il laboratorio Corviale il progetto pontili è entrato in una fase di sperimentazione concreta, con chiari orizzonti di fattibilità e l’obiettivo di costituirsi come prototipo di una nuova modalità di lavoro e di progetto aperta e dialogica,che si intende applicare in altri contesti romani ed europei.