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Idea by

Salome Katamadze, Duccio Fantoni

Noia practice

https://noiapractice.com

Prato, Italy
Both practitioners and researchers, we do have two offices in two different countries, but we cannot be at both places at the same time. To the often asked question, what do we do, we could never find a one-word answer because of the contrasting scale we work on: from landscape interventions to a tiny house. It is not about what we design, nor the program or function but the meaning we give to each project we touch.

Call for ideas 2021

Common Steps


An new attitude for neglected urban traces

Common Steps


An new attitude for neglected urban traces
Generating a new use of public space from social re-appropriation of the ignored urban traces
File under
Type of project
  • Site-specific cases

Common Steps starts as a site-specific project for Tbilisi. The on-going proposal, developed in the frame of Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, is focusing on neglected urban areas, formed during uncontrolled privatization.
As an experiment for social re-appropriation, multiple urban stairs were selected, built in the Soviet period and currently ignored by the neo-liberal car-paradigm lifestyle.
The project’s approach consisted of punctual pavilions, that directly inhabit the existing urban stairs, meanwhile generating a new use of public space.
The proposal is conceived as a prototype of possible interventions within a shared methodological attitude towards re-using abandoned urban fragments for neighbourhood activities, cultural events and common means.
Starting from the initial study case, Common Steps aims to animate the debate on the importance and urgency of social re-appropriation of neglected fragments of our cities throughout collective debates and experimental contributions.


Proposal image from the street. In the case study, the pavilion stands also marker to indicate the presence of the stairs, other ways invisible from the cars point of view.

Few photos of the sites of the study case. Those scenarios run through the city in hidden pathway parallel from the cars-ways. The urban stairs of Tbilisi are at the same time a very specific case and nevertheless represent a very typical condition of neglected areas in different contexts.

In order to re-activate neglected areas of the cities, many activities are possible simultaneously. The possibility to combine the passage with exhibitions could encourage the neighbourhood to re-use a common space.

The projects represents a prototype of simple structures dedicated to common activities. The possibility of integrating different kind of users, as locals and cultural events participants, should be the core of any idea of public space.

Common Steps


An new attitude for neglected urban traces

Common Steps


An new attitude for neglected urban traces
Generating a new use of public space from social re-appropriation of the ignored urban traces
File under
Type of project
  • Site-specific cases

Common Steps starts as a site-specific project for Tbilisi. The on-going proposal, developed in the frame of Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, is focusing on neglected urban areas, formed during uncontrolled privatization.
As an experiment for social re-appropriation, multiple urban stairs were selected, built in the Soviet period and currently ignored by the neo-liberal car-paradigm lifestyle.
The project’s approach consisted of punctual pavilions, that directly inhabit the existing urban stairs, meanwhile generating a new use of public space.
The proposal is conceived as a prototype of possible interventions within a shared methodological attitude towards re-using abandoned urban fragments for neighbourhood activities, cultural events and common means.
Starting from the initial study case, Common Steps aims to animate the debate on the importance and urgency of social re-appropriation of neglected fragments of our cities throughout collective debates and experimental contributions.


Proposal image from the street. In the case study, the pavilion stands also marker to indicate the presence of the stairs, other ways invisible from the cars point of view.

Few photos of the sites of the study case. Those scenarios run through the city in hidden pathway parallel from the cars-ways. The urban stairs of Tbilisi are at the same time a very specific case and nevertheless represent a very typical condition of neglected areas in different contexts.

In order to re-activate neglected areas of the cities, many activities are possible simultaneously. The possibility to combine the passage with exhibitions could encourage the neighbourhood to re-use a common space.

The projects represents a prototype of simple structures dedicated to common activities. The possibility of integrating different kind of users, as locals and cultural events participants, should be the core of any idea of public space.


Idea by

Salome Katamadze, Duccio Fantoni
Noia practice
Prato
Italy
Both practitioners and researchers, we do have two offices in two different countries, but we cannot be at both places at the same time. To the often asked question, what do we do, we could never find a one-word answer because of the contrasting scale we work on: from landscape interventions to a tiny house. It is not about what we design, nor the program or function but the meaning we give to each project we touch.