The Importance of Participation in Regeneration of Peripheral Urban Spaces: the Experience of “Serpentone Reload”

Abstract

Suburbs are often very contradictory places. Despite great part of urban population live there, these parts of cities are mostly considered as degradation places. The topic of suburbs regeneration is relevant today. Nevertheless, often expensive interventions implemented by local authorities fail to regenerate their public spaces, increasing the degradation condition. This paper presents the experience of “Serpentone reload”, a workshop based on participatory reactivation of abandoned or underused spaces and buildings in "Cocuzzo/Serpentone" neighbourhood in Potenza (Basilicata, Italy). The workshop particularly focused on the reuse of the "Ship", an underground building with a park coverage completed in 2010 and designed by the firm Archea. The "Ship" has been forgotten and not used for long time, not only by the neighbourhood, but by the whole citizenship, because it has been perceived as an extraneous element and the result of an imposition from the top, definitely not the outcome of shared choices. During the workshop, the "Ship" (“Nave” in Italian language) has become an art centre called N.Av.E. (New Expressive Adventures – Nuove Avventure Espressive in Italian), a place capable to host temporary events (expositions, lectures, theatre and dance performance, movies projection, etc.). Such a choice has allowed the neighbourhood and the city to take back that “object” so hated as ignored. The experience is particularly significant, because it shows how low cost interventions, realized with citizens involvement and participation, could contribute to the regeneration of peripheral urban areas more than expensive and complex imposed interventions, which often do not take into account dwellers real needs and expectations