Political Analysis of spatial Planning Criteria

Planning a space means making decisions that influence the way in which it can be experienced, modifying the everyday life of the various actors that inhabit it. These decisions, despite their technical aspects, cannot but be political: imagining a space implies projecting and materialising certain values and perspectives into the real world. This is why it is essential that future architects and planners fully understand these political dimensions of their profession and know how to consider them both in a critical and self-critical manner. 
In the various sessions, we will develop theoretical topics, observe the changes that have taken place in spatial planning in Ticino over the last two decades, and also work directly to conduct analyses on a particularly innovative case of bottom-up planning: the Laveggio Park.

The course includes an excursion on Saturday 19 October (or another day, depending on weather conditions) to the Laveggio Park, followed by a series of ethnographic and cartographic works on this citizens' initiative.

The aim of the course is to provide an overview of concepts related to the production of space and the right to the city, enabling students to develop their own critical reflections on the political dimensions of spatial planning. The course aims at developing the ability to apply theoretical concepts to the analysis of an empirical case with an appropriate methodology, providing students with skills that they will be able to apply both in a possible doctoral path as well as in their professional life.

• Sustainable cities and communities
• Climate action
• Peace and justice strong institutions
• Partnerships for the goals

In presence

The course is highly dynamic, involving extensive interaction between students and lecturer during lectures and an excursion to the Laveggio Park near Mendrisio. The activities are divided into collective readings (sessions in which a text is read and commented on together), some frontal lectures and a series of ethnographic and urban research activities on the Laveggio Park. 
Students are called upon to develop a theoretical understanding of the topics of spatial justice and the right to the city and to apply them concretely to a contemporary territorial phenomenon. The focus of the course is not on the mere repetition of theoretical concepts, but on the ability to apply them to territorial analysis in an empirical manner.

The overall evaluation will depend on a number of factors:
40% Final delivery of the group work (January 2025): tables/material on the Laveggio Park for a public exhibition
20% Oral presentation of the collective work (November-December 2024)
40% Participation in shared readings and group activities (during the semester)

• Mendrisio-Stabio, 19.10.24 - 19.10.24 (Compulsory)