"Kvartovski laboratorij u Trstu: aparati za stvaranje 'mjesta javnosti'" ("Neighbourhood Laboratories in Trieste: interaction devices to construct 'places of the public' in the 'public city'")

From 2007 to 2009 I organized some in field experiences of social interaction in different social housing districts in Trieste, with students from the Faculty of Architecture of Trieste, artists, inhabitants, local schools and associations, social cooperatives and public institutions working inside the territory. These workshops were called “Neighbourhood Laboratories” and developed as part of the national research “The ‘public city’ as a design laboratory. The construction of Guidelines for the sustainable renewal of urban outskirts” promoted by the University of Trieste, with the Polytechnics of Milan and Bari, the Universities of Sapienza Rome, Naples Federico II and Palermo. The research recognized the “public city” (social housing districts still largely under the management of public institutions) as a context where to try out innovative processes of spatial regeneration, local communities' empowerment, new forms of public and collective action. Through the development of public art events and acts of micro transformation of open spaces, the aim of Neighbourhood Laboratories (NLs) was to better understand the meanings that terms so manifold and complex as “places of the public” and “quality of space” can acquire in these huge parts of our cities. But why such terms become even more relevant in the public city? And why reflecting on them, together with inhabitants and institutions, here seems a necessary step to open the possibility for future more structured and structuring processes of spatial transformation?