Inside our fragmented and “generic” cities, infrastructures assume a strategic
role of connection and regeneration of otherwise isolated pieces of
territory.
The infrastructural nodes of the contemporary landscapes constitute “ganglia”
for transmission of flows of people and information, true socio-cultural
condensers, which define new models for enhancing the urban spaces.
Deploying the classical system of infrastructures, without solutions for
continuity between urban, border and sub-urban territories, defines a new
hierarchy for the interpretation of landscape, that goes from the concepts
of “static landscapes” to James Corner’s concepts of new “terra-fluxus”, i.e.
new state (both material and immaterial) in which the space-time relationships,
succeed and cross one another according to “discrete” sequences,
continuous and variable: “fluctuating relationships”.
This new state is not special-phisical, but/specially socio-cultural: Corner’s
“terra-fluxus” perfectly fits, as a metaphor of the concept of “liquid” that
Zygmunt Baumann use to describe a new condition of the “post-post-modern”
society.
From the point of view of building the contemporary city, the “fluxus/
flow” for the infrastructures is as important as it gives the possibility to
lead/free their transformation towards a sustainable direction.
The new centers, apart from the historical piazzas, are therefore infrastructural
nodes, spaces of architectural and cultural concentration: the
“Hub”. Terminology that expresses different concepts, all related with the
hub as an element that connects, focalizes and organizes flows.
The project exploit the concept of hub and the ethics according to which,
the infrastructures of a given territory, should assume the role of drivers
for urban regeneration and requalification through their fundamental
function of re-connection of pieces of cities and landscapes, otherwise doomed
to fall under the special (and conceptual) category that Gilles Clement
defines as “the third landscape”.
The role of infrastructures is critically, explored particularly with respect
to the Italian context, highlighting the difficulties and the weaknesses
concerning also the event of Expo 2015 in Milan.
As a conclusion of these theoretical/critical concepts, we can conclude
that, the sport infrastructures, today can assume a fundamental strategic
role inside the processes of requalification and redesign of the urban
tissue. The stadium in particular, becomes the paradigm – architectural,
social, cultural, symbolic and physical – from which build up new settlement
models. The final research outcome is a project for a new model
of a stadium-infrastructure, able to summarize in itself urban and social
instances, sublimating its role of multifunctional condenser and leader
virtuous operations of requalification at territorial scale.
The blending of the two terms, stadium and hub, (Sta-Hub-dium), highlights
the impossibility of one unique definition – both material and conceptual
– of the contemporary stadium, which value crosses the physical
boundaries of a “container” as such.
The project of the “Sta[Hub]dium, in the specific case is being applied to
the urban context of the city of Genoa, which is characterized by a series
of typically Italian characteristics such as: the relation with the consolidated
historical tissue, the sprawl of the most current expansions, the chaotic
and often, bad planned infrastructure, the relation with the delicate
landscape of the coastal seafront etc. The proposed intervention is measured
starting from the blending/collision of all this elements, that turn
from constrains to spur, stimulating a dynamic and innovative approach
for the design project. An experience that highlights, what could be the
role of a multifunctional infrastructure inside an intervention of mending
of the urban tissues, whereas the convergence of different negativities can
express one happy response to the complexity of the temporary city.