New commons. Common fields in contemporary cities
in the context of “Naturale inclinazione” 2017
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Serena Savelli, phD in landscape architecture, scholar at Fondazione Benetton in 2016-2017, will present her research and will discuss it with Stefano Benvenuti, researcher at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Agro-Environmental Sciences, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa; Luigi Latini, lecturer in Landscape Architecture, Università Iuav in Venice, president of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Benetton; Elisa Tomat, garden designer, Udine. Coordinated by Simonetta Zanon, scholarship tutor.
The “new commons” of the contemporary city are to be understood not only as simple grassy surfaces but also in their broader and historical meaning of common field, that is public spaces of aggregation, places open to different practices, for free exercise, daily or extraordinary, of a variety of civic customs and practices, organised or spontaneous. To investigate this particular “species” of urban nature, which may be the result of the more or less unaltered existence of historical grasslands or the result of the disinvestment of industrial areas or large infrastructures, a method inspired by systematic botany has been adopted, based on the identification and description of some common characteristics by comparing national and European case studies.
All this is aimed at understanding what tools and means are to be used for the design, cultivation and care of contemporary commons, with special reference to the case study of Prato della Fiera in Treviso.