Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, September 29 2019 – Boxes for vegetable gardens, tables, ping pong tables, benches, book crossing stations, colored flooring. Milan Green Week ends today with the inauguration of Piazzale della Cooperazione, renovated with a tactical urban planning intervention that has restored vitality and color to an area that has until now been devoid of identity. The restyling, which did not involve changes to the road system, was carried out thanks to a collaboration agreement signed between the Municipality of Milan and the Workers' Cooperative Consortium, which worked together with the Noicoop association and Ivas spa as technical sponsor for the paints used on the flooring.

“We thank the Workers' Cooperative Consortium for having proposed and implemented an intervention that involves the territory and redevelops the public space, transforming an area of ​​passage into a new place of aggregation and sociality - declare the councilors Lorenzo Lipparini (Participation) and Pierfrancesco Maran ( Green)-. The contribution of citizens, companies and private individuals is essential to make the change shared, not only in the implementation phase, but above all in the subsequent phase in which the area must be kept alive and monitored. Collaboration agreements - the tool made available by the Administration for the shared care of common goods - constitute an innovative and flexible tool for collaborating with active citizens in the implementation and management of these interventions".

The project was chosen as part of a national competition promoted by the Workers Cooperative Consortium open to designers, illustrators, graphic designers and artists. The winning idea of ​​the Re-thinking Piazzale della Cooperazione competition was selected by a jury which included, in addition to representatives of the municipal administration, Agostino Iacurci, an internationally renowned artist, Francesco Librizzi, a well-known designer and Elisa Pasqual, founder of the studio Folder.

"Among all the entries presented, the jury chose as the winner the project that best lends itself to connoting the place in a joyful way. Its design, in addition to positively characterizing the square according to a geometric model, also suggests new types of interaction through circles that identify small squares where you can gather", commented the jurors when choosing the project proposed by SDARCH Trivelli&Associati, an architectural firm that operates in the field of architectural and landscape design with great attention to public space and the themes of sustainable architecture and landscape.

The project has regenerated the square which now hosts a market once a week also with the aim of enhancing the already existing social housing project created in 2014 by the Solidarnosc cooperative (CCL) and the Ferruccio Degradi cooperative and promoting liveability and social inclusion in an already very active neighborhood. In the square there are in fact the Officine Creative, spaces animated by artisans, associations, solidarity purchasing groups and artists who activate projects dedicated to the inhabitants of the area. For the next 36 months the Consortium, through associations and local entities, will make the renovated public space an attractive place of citizen aggregation and urban liveability through activities that involve the neighborhood.

This afternoon, after two days of coloring the square thanks to the help of volunteer citizens, the inauguration party will be held. Many initiatives are planned, including the cycling championships organized by the Balenga cycle workshop, yoga in the Piazzale, the Glamourga, the Compagnie Malviste theatre, the aperitif with the Desr, the workshops for children with the associations Il Giro del Giro and TamTam. The evening will end with a performance by Corona Events, a theater company that uses stilts and lights to generate a magical environment populated by butterflies and jellyfish.
And speaking of tactical urban planning, there is time until November 20th for citizens, associations and traders to respond to the public notice to propose and collaborate in the design, construction and maintenance of new open squares.