The area affected by PIC Urban 2 lies on the southern
outskirts of Turin, near the industrial complex of Fiat Mirafiori. This
district, extending over an area of ca 2,135,000 square metres, was
born and grew around the main plant of Italy's most important automotive
manufacturer, and this dictated the times and contents of its development,
in terms of types of building and land use, until the late '70s. Its
urban fabric is characterised by a number of housing projects designed
to unified criteria. A major share of the public housing facilities
of the city is concentrated in Mirafiori Nord. The Commune, the Territorial
Housing Agency (ATC) and the government own 1904 housing units, accounting
for ca 20% of the homes available in the area, compared to a city-wide
percentage of 6%. Needless to say, problematic factors of a social,
economic and cultural nature go hand in hand with this massive presence
of public housing projects. Mirafiori Nord is an urban area which, as
a sort of museum, combines the settlement forms associated with the
evolution of housing policies in Italy: from the homes for the workers
build by the employers, to private homes erected on the basis of land
use plans, to high quality complexes earmarked for medium-high level
executives of the Fiat Group. As a result, it can be seen as a testing
ground for integration and urban requalification initiatives, as well
as activities for the rehabilitation of public housing facilities: a
large proportion of the latter require extraordinary maintenance works,
while a number of assets of historical and documentary interest, call
for restoration and strengthening works. Thus, the district needs intensive
actions in terms of urban requalification, and this applies not solely
to the public housing complexes, but also to the low-quality public
and green areas as well as to the need to identify new centralities,
in some spheres to be redefined from the standpoint of urban planning.
Unable to make progress and to achieve an organised representation of
itself, Mirafiori Nord is at an impasse: the proposed requalification
and development model has been designed to offer an exit from this deadlock.
An analysis of current conditions, conducted through a continuous process
of consultation with the local stakeholders participating in the Social
Table and the Forum for Local Development, has led to the definition
of a strategy centring on the general goal or reactivating and revitalising
this portion of the city. The idea is to create a model of urban requalification
over an area deemed emblematic as a peripheral district associated with
a manufacturing site experiencing a process of slow but inexorable social
and physical decline. PIC Urban 2 intends to activate qualifying, innovative
and structural interventions enabling the inhabitants to identify their
own needs and become aware of current and new opportunities. The slogans
that have inspired the planning process were: Find a new centre
(from the standpoint of the environment and town planning), Get things
going again (in entrepreneurial and cultural terms), Find a new
focus (from the social standpoint, through exemplary activities,
places and services).
