Progettare per/con la comunità: la riabilitazione degli spazi sottoutilizzati in una città media

In the postmodern cities heterogeneous places – residential, industrial, commercial areas and so on – occupy adjoining spaces within a complex urban organism. Therefore, the processes of adaptive reuse often produce interstices with variable duration. The problem of abandoned buildings doesn’t interest big constructions, such as factories, barracks and public services and facilities, but, on the contrary, it involves also the “dust” of building heritage, represented by small abandoned spaces. The polyhedral configuration of small retail spaces originates in the time slice from the end of a function and the beginning of a new one. The purpose of this paper is to present the taxonomy of the abandonment of small retail spaces, according to different perspectives (i.e. functional and morpho-typological urban analysis). Consequently, an application of this framework within an urban environment study will be illustrated, where innovative urban regeneration is being carried out. The case study explores the allocation of the empty shops in “Quartiere Roma”, a historical district of Piacenza, in which the immigrant population has registered a huge increase over the last few decades. The study analyzes the phases of the participatory project planning, “Porta Galera 3.0”, which aims, among other things, at implementing the regeneration of the small abandoned retail spaces in this district.