Abstract
The regeneration of the commons occurs through direct involvement of groups of people who interact closely with spaces, and who aim to improve the overall quality of life and experiences connected with those spaces. This process starts from an increased consciousness towards places that do not belong to the private realm but are public or can potentially be used by the society Revealing the commons means being aware of the potentialities of these “hidden places” to not only connect people with them, but for people to also create a previously unknown sense of community and ownership among themselves. By showing best practices developed by the Polimi DESIS Lab in the city of Milan and its surroundings, this paper reveals: how design relates to this process; the relationship between the time of involvement and the effectiveness of the results the short- and long-term impacts of these interventions; and the legacy of the regeneration, including both failures and successes.
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Notes
- 1.
Common pool resources (CPRs) are characterized as resources for which the exclusion of users is difficult (referred to as excludability), and the use of such a resource by one user decreases resource benefits for other users (referred to as subtractability). Common CPR examples include fisheries, forests, irrigation systems, and pastures. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199363445/obo-9780199363445-0011.xml#obo-9780199363445-0011-bibItem-0002.
- 2.
More details about the case studies quoted in this text can be seen at www.desis.polimi.it.
- 3.
Nolo is the acronym for “North of Loreto”, where Loreto is a big square at the threshold between the city centre of Milan and the first belt of suburbs.
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Fassi, D., Vergani, F. (2020). Designing Solutions for the Commons. In: Issa, T., Issa, T., Issa, T.B., Isaias, P. (eds) Sustainability Awareness and Green Information Technologies. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47975-6_19
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