A new square for Milano “Pratocentenaro”

Tactical Urbanism Intervention
Largo San Dionigi, Milano
September 27th –  October 4th 2022

FRAME is a public space project that consists in the development of a portion of asphalt removed from vehicular traffic and repurposed as a meeting and exchange place: a new square for the neighborhood of Pratocentenaro.

Pratocentenaro is an old neighborhood that has radically changed since the Second World War: few existing buildings dating back from the early 1900s contrast with the area developed and generated by the economic boom that erased the image of the small rural village.

Pratocentenaro is missing a square, a meeting and aggregation place for residents; in fact, the center of the district is represented by Largo San Dionigi, a crossroads used in a chaotic way for unregulated parking.

The public surface was designed to create numerous perspectives modeled around the building which forms the perimeter of the square. The project draws inspiration from the twentieth-century vocabulary of fabrics, floor inlays and geometric decorations, familiar to the citizens of Milan.

The design consists of a series of concentric squares around the areas of greatest interest: the urban lounges, the ping pong area and the accesses to the pedestrian crossings. Starting from these fixed points, with the dual desire to identify these areas and cover the entire surface of the square, an intricate design is generated made up of thick and continuously moving lines.

Generally the transformation of the city and the creation of public space pass through a stage of closure and subtraction. During this intervention, the gap between citizens and project is bridged by applying the practice of the open construction site: the construction was conducted through a workshop organized in collaboration with the Terraviva association which involved 15 students and young architects. The volunteers constantly occupied the public space during the week of construction, becoming not only active agents of the space’s physical change, but also a point of reference for the citizens by listening, involving and bringing people closer to the project.