Drift - ItaliaDesign 2009

JOEL RICHROSS PAPAMATT DOLNIKGEORGINA CHAPLINIAT392

ROMAN NEIGHBORHOODS:

THE SAN LORENZO DERIVÉ

GRUPPO CINQUE’S RESEARCHSAN LORENZO’S QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Last year, CINQUE identified the San Lorenzo neighbourhood’s physical patterns and illustrated the flow of people’s movements and their spatial usage. They developed a way of understanding the people’s lifestyles and how it is part of the identity of San Lorenzo.

From their research, we recognize San Lorenzo as “‘hotbed’ of Rome” where their “Graffiti art is world class.”

This year, we entered San Lorenzo and were able to relate to their findings. However, after engaging with the neighbourhood ourselves, we believe that it is an incomplete portrait of San Lorenzo’s identity.

ARGUMENTGRUPPO SEI’s REFLECTION

It is incomplete because it can potentially take away the human from the situation, which is one of the concerns of the situationists from the 1950s when they looked at architecture and urbanism they were afraid that cities were losing their humanity. So we used their tactics and developed their “drifts” in hoping to create a new method to see a social situa-tion, city, neighbourhood, country, more holistically .

ARTFULNESSSCIENTIFICARTFULNESSIDENTITYSCIENTIFIC

VIEW OF THE SITUATIONISTGuy Debord

“The Situationists set out to devise ‘situations’, or experimental practices aimed at raising awareness vis-à-vis the general conditions that prevail in a place or society.”

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHYPsychogeography is the study of overlapping and layered experiences and memories that make up a key part of understanding a neighborhood’s identity. It looks at how we understand the space between “person” and “place”.

PLASTIC According to the Situationists, People and their envi-ronments (built or not) are plastic; bendable but with clear boundaries and definitions. When put over heat, they melt, mix and become each other. The person and their environment take on aspects of each other or become a new entity altogether. Example: San Lorenzo took on the personality, revolutionary spirit and humor of its residences through the graffiti. But, in doing so it also became something of an art gallery.

- Physical geography- Architecture (patterns)- Urban planning- Industries- People’s needs

Thus, what is it to be CONTEXTUAL?

- Physical geography- Architecture (patterns)- Urban planning- Industries- People’s needs

- Personalities- Narratives- Identities

Thus, what is it to be CONTEXTUAL?

THESISCan drift/physcogeography be a viable research method that can lead to a more human-centric, experience driven, socially sustainable approach to urban design?

DERIVE/DRIFTDrift is way of moving through a space propelled

by moments of interest thus creating a natural flow through an urban environment.

COGNITIVE MAPSOur experiences with the different ambiences of the city.Our drifts in a SITUATIONISTS’ MINDSET/LENS?Compile findings compare with perceptions

RAPIDETHNOGRAPHY

Being in a space for as long as possible to understand the demographic more clearly.

INTERVIEWS

GRAZIA MASCIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoScuola Romana di Fotografia

FLAVIO RISCIATELLIFondazione Pastifici Cerere, San Lorenzo

NICOLAS PENNESTRIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoPhotographer + Film-maker

INTERVIEWS

GRAZIA MASCIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoScuola Romana di Fotografia

FLAVIO RISCIATELLIFondazione Pastifici Cerere, San Lorenzo

NICOLAS PENNESTRIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoPhotographer + Film-maker

“The old artists live here now because they can afford it...they are stars now”

INTERVIEWS

GRAZIA MASCIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoScuola Romana di Fotografia

FLAVIO RISCIATELLIFondazione Pastifici Cerere, San Lorenzo

NICOLAS PENNESTRIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoPhotographer + Film-maker

“The old artists live here now because they can afford it...they are stars now”

“It’s too expensive now...San Lorenzo goes to a new area now”

INTERVIEWS

GRAZIA MASCIPastifici Cerere, San LorenzoScuola Romana di Fotografia

FLAVIO RISCIATELLIFondazione Pastifici Cerere, San Lorenzo

NICOLAS PENNESTRI

“It’s good to live here...you can go tothe bar and just talk about your projects and collaborate...”

Pastifici Cerere, San LorenzoPhotographer + Film-maker

GRAZIA MASCIINTERVIEWPastifici, San LorenzoScuola Romana di Fotografia

> born + raised, works + lives in San Lorenzo

GRAZIA MASCI

For me now, it [S.Lorenzo] does not feel good anymore. It hasn’t gotten better. There’s graffiti but it’s degrading—messy, and dirty. I don’t see the beautiful things.

The Trastevere neighborhood is better because it is Old Rome. There are people and administration who take care of the place but in S.Lorenzo it is just left abandoned, nobody cares, everything falls apart.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD TODAY

GRAZIA MASCI

Slowly, some people like me will want to go away. The people that remain stay here are not necessarily the best people.

University: many students are keeping the area alive, however, some students are not so good because they don’t think –they want everything now with their freedom. They are not knowledged and not thinking about the future.

Most of the students that come here in S.Lorenzo aren’t coming from Rome. They are coming outside because they have the money. These kinds of students are not helping. They just do what they want and leave things there—they don’t care.

THE PEOPLE TODAY

GRAZIA MASCI

It’s [San Lorenzo] just fashion now. I don’t think that a place does anything for the artist. An artist is an artist wherever.

It was most creative here in Pasitifico and only here because S.Lorenzo 10 years ago, was a neighbourhood with simple people, no rich/intellectuals, just poor people. Pastificio was a place that was abandoned and then the artists came here because of the low-costs with the large spaces allowing artists to work. This is why they came. There was nothing but walls. No light

The place is just like a dress. I don’t think the place is the most stimulant. In the past 5 years, the Pasitfici has changed because that’s when real artists with not so much money came here with real fire (passion).

In the past. there were real artists where in the atmosphere/the area, you feel the people and creativity but now not anymore. It’s all business now. I don’t feel this sensation anymore within the factory and with the artists and creativity.

Slowly, the place became a fashionable place where “artists” with money coming in are not artists but rich people who want to be artists, that’s different.

They like to stay with the simple people and feel like an artist.

don’t need to work, they just play to be an artist. But an artist a real artist is a person looking something in life to say, to express. Something inside to put out. This is an artist the rest are just aesthetics, something nice—this is not an artist.

THE PEOPLE + ARTISTRY

GRAZIA MASCI

Where I stay now (within Pastifici), there are too many pubs, bars and young people with no heads; not nice. I would go near the cemetery because it is quiet and clean.

I will probably go away from S.Lorenzo I don’t like it especially for my child. It’s nice because it is the centre of Rome.

I would like to live here because I work here but I cannot because the price is too much for what is S. Lorenzo is giving me.

I don’t really go anywhere now. For my child, I’m not sure where to go—the park is dirty and there are many bad people that are violent. If I do want to go somewhere else, I’ll take the scooter and go elsewhere.

GRAZIA’S SAN LORENZO

Ethnographic research may not be considered into urban design but refining this is important in rediscovering another layer of contextuality adding a human narrative on top of the aesthetic coherence and scientific observations of a neighborhood.

REFLECTIONThere needs to be a give and take between people and their environment. If there isn’t, communities won’t be able to sustain them-selves. This can be a foundational concept for the idea as well as some first steps in de-signing with Social Sustainability in mind.

CONCLUSIONSan Lorenzo has become a party/art gallery. An artistic party but it is too ‘hip,’ too much about being cool ...It’s not about needing to give something but going to get something. You want it because it’s fashionable because it’s fun but is it really that ‘crunchy’?

REFERENCESNovakov, A. (2003). EDUCATIVE ACTIONS: The Application of Situationist International Urban Terminology and Practicesto the Teaching of Contemporary Art

Debord, G. (1958). Theory of the Derive

Pederson, C et al. (2006). Taming the Situationist Beast

McDouough, T. (1996). The Derive and Situationist Paris