SELF MADE CITY

Research project

SELF MADE CITY observes the territories of contemporary cities with a methodology that takes in account the complexity theory of on going transformations processes. The project looks at the inhabited fabric as a social infrastructure, a fabric of relations that produces the prior conditions for the habitability of urban spaces. In this framework SELF MADE CITY aims to investigate those processes of self-organization of the territory that produce urban spaces also in circumstances of particular difficulty and poverty in order to examine and spotlight its dynamics.

SELF MADE CITY considers the virtuous processes of self-organization of the territory as the main subject for the planning of the future city towards to environmental and economic social sustainability as challenges of contemporaneity.

The aim of SELF MADE CITY is to give an overview of on going informal processes in Europe to provide the understanding and investigate the quest for democratization in urban planning, culture and social spaces.

Project Themes

The SELF MADE CITY research project focuses on analyzing, interpreting and visualizing the vast range of urban transformations, both temporary and permanent that, in recent times, have affected large urban agglomerations, mostly ungoverned by any form of legislative or urban planning.

SELF MADE CITY pursues the thesis that informal settlements are no longer understandable within traditional definitions produced by urbanists, but through transdisciplinary approaches and methodology. After the fall of the “iron curtain”, this phenomenon has adopted a different, more complex and mutated character. The phenomenon investigated by the research project is highly articulated and involves a range of subjects: from individuals and families, to spontaneously organized groups, informal networks and also different branches of informal economy. The research is rooted in the belief that the static image of European cities makes little room for an investigation about informal settlements, more commonly attributed to cities of the “Third World” and best defined by the term “informal city”. Examples of this type of development include temporary and permanent informal settlements, informal markets and subsistence economies. In European cities, until recently a model of elevated social status, many inhabitants historically as well in the present, have taken it upon themselves to organize the spaces in which they live and survive. These phenomena – due to several reasons – are even increasing: large urban transformations, internal and external migratory flows into different countries, social and economical marginalization and the exclusion of many subjects from political choices and cultural debate. In order to outline such an articulated and elusive phenomenon, SELF MADE CITY intends to adopt an experimental method of investigation that overlaps different instruments in order to define the general framework of the European territory, together with the first hand accounts of those who have built or transformed their own living and social space, as individuals, family units or communities acting based on common interests or needs. By focusing on the protagonists of self-construction and their systems of selforganization it is possible to gather direct information and to analyze, investigate and understand this phenomenon.

The 1st International SELF MADE CITY Workshop

The first international meeting and workshop of the SELF MADE CITY project takes place in Rome in collaboration with Spacexperience which follows a perceptive-experiential methodology. The aim of the workshop is to establish an European network in transdisciplinary research.

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Rome: informal city and territories as social infrastructure SELF MADE CITY looks at the phenomena of self-organization of the territory as the main subject for the production of urban space. The workshop aims to look at those specific areas of the city of Rome which have developed outside the official planning processes. The development of these areas can be seen as the result of self-organization processes. The workshop aims to investigate how in circumstances of particular difficulty the social infrastructure has developed in the Roman territory, so we are going to explore this urban fabric through the fabric of relations that produces the prior conditions for the habitability of urban spaces. workshop with Spacexperience factory on field The perceptive-experiential methodology used in the workshop will provide a total immersion without mediations and introductions as direct experience of the territory. Moments of individual conceptualization of the collective experience of the “exploring group” will follow to the “drift”. Experiences will be reflected and

exchanged at the round table.

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Jochen Becker (D), curator, author , Berlin

Sabine Bitter, Helmut Weber (A), artists

Carlo Brizioli (I), architect, eco-technologist, Rome

Michele Citoni (I), independent filmmaker, Rome

Roberto De Angelis (I), anthropologist, Rome

Alessandro Lanzetta (I), architect, photographer, Rome

Annalisa Lombardi (I), architect, Rome

Romolo Ottaviani (I), architect, artist, Rome

Antonella Sonia Perin (CH), architect, Rome

Susanna Perin (CH), artist, curator, Aarau

Katalin Timar (Hu), curator, Budapest

Alexander Valentino (lan) (I), architect, artist, Napoli