Uploaded on 2017-03-29 by Pierluigi Dentoni

1. Think and comment on an existing Citizen Design Science project in urban design and planning from your area or country. In 2006, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (RAS from now on) approved the first Regional Landscape Plan (PPR 2006 from now on). The PPR 2006 institutionally introduced different concepts like regional identity, landscape protection and valorisation and sustainable development, in the regional legislation (cfr. PPR 2006, NTA, art. 1, comma 3). PPR 2006 was a first milestone in the new millenium regional legislation, although it had strong flaws, like the “preventive control” on any coastal intervention, no clear rules and instruction for transformation processes, no coordination between the PPR and the other regional plans (transportation, infrastructure, waste, tourism) and, thus, very little operative framework for the sustainable development (cfr. Pira 2012). Besides, the most important flaw for this Exercise was the absence of local sharing and participation for the development policy (cfr. Pira 2012), following the typical “rational” top-down design. To merge this situation, in 2009 RAS started a revision process of PPR 2006, guided by different improvement principles, for instance a major participation among them. For this very purpose, the “Sardinia New Ideas” (SNI from now on) was founded as a “participatory process “ with “the objective to build shared scenarios and related intervention strategic policy, tangible and intangible, through an agreed and participated landscape planning” (http://www.sardegnaterritorio.it/paesaggio/sardegnanuoveidee.html). RAS had the scientific and research support from the Architecture Department (Alghero) of the University of Sassari, and explained the different fases of SNI (http://www.sardegnaterritorio.it/j/v/1123?&s=6&v=9&c=7756&na=1&n=10): Fase 1: Public presentation (Cagliari, 16/06/2010); Fase 2: Landscape Laboratories (16/06/2010-28/02/2011); Fase 3: Revision of the PPR 2006 (03/2016). Fase 1 was launched the 16th June 2010 with an introduction and presentation conference in Cagliari (capital city of Sardinia), with the motto “nobody is the teacher and nobody is the pupil” (http://www.sardegnaterritorio.it/j/v/1293?s=142299&v=2&c=7755&t=1). RAS promoted Fase 2 with 14 Landscape Laboratories in “the territories of the 27 coastal areas, gathering the different areas according to their peculiarities”, and later it was extended to the internal areas of the territory. Each laboratory was organised with 3 worktables: worktable 1, about design areas and themes, for the territory knowledge and the creation of guidelines (participants: local administrators and local technicians, representing the social and economic instances of their areas and people); worktable 2, new ideas and scenarios for the landscape (participants: local administrators and local technicians, representing the social and economic instances of their areas and people); worktable 3, landscape design with the support of synthesis files for each area, scenarios, strategies and guidelines (participants: 5 spokesmen for each laboratory). Along with the worktables of Fase 2, RAS instituted the Permanent Table through the institutional website and the SardegnaGeoBlog (SGB from now on), where anybody can access the website maps and use it to share its opinion, data and media (http://webgis.regione.sardegna.it/sardegnageoblog/?p=325). In terms of Citizen Design Science project, SNI has showed multiple positive and negative aspects in my opinion. The positive aspects lie in the virtual bottom-up process where the citizens and local associations express their opinions to their local administrators, who would bring their instances to the worktables they form part of. Other positive aspect is the full recording of the entire process on the regional website (http://www.sardegnaterritorio.it/), where anyone can read and download any file produced during the different phases. Another positive aspect is the regional-wide sharing spirit of SGB, where anyone can write or upload any material to give its contribution. The most negative aspect lies in the fact that I did not know anything about this process until the research I have made for this Exercise. There has been a clear lack of communication and the website is not easy to use (low-intuitive website). Furthermore, the bottom-up process (citizen>administrator) was not controlled and tested: we do not know if the mayors have asked their population about the themes they were going to discuss. Besides, there is no recording about any technique taken from Architectural/Environmental Psychology (i.e. Perceived Environmental Quality tests) or any tests proposed to the population, apart from the usual public town session where very few participate and very very few speak. References: PPR 2006: Regional Landscape Plan of Sardinia, 2006 [http://www.sardegnaterritorio.it/paesaggio/pianopaesaggistico2006.html] PPR 2006, NTA: technical standards for implementation of the PPR [https://www.regione.sardegna.it/documenti/1_73_20060908134455.pdf] Pira 2012: Cheti Pira, “Lanscape Planning in Sardinia”, Lecture at University of Cagliari, 06/04/2012 [http://people.unica.it/chetipira/files/2012/04/6-Lezione_-La-pianificazione-paesaggistica-in-Sardegna.pdf]