Inquiring Homeless Architecture

INQUIRING HOMELESS ARCHITECTUREIn Milan’s central railway station area

Politecnico di Milano Amit Even 764433Facoltà di Architettura e Società prof.Paolo MestrinerCorso di Scienze dell’Architettura Anno Accademico 2013/2014

studente: relatore:

Inquiring Homeless Architecture

3

Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Who and what is the Milanese homeless | Facts, numbers and figures

�� What is Homelessness?�� Homelessness in Italy �� Who is the homeless in Milan

Chapter 2: Milan’s central railway station

�� Milano Centrale | General History and meaning�� Why Homeless people are attracted to Milan’s central railway station?

Chapter 3: Inquiring homeless architecture in Milan’s central railway station area

�� Case study 1 At the feet of the Municipal Technical Services Tower�� Case study 2 Under the portico of the Generali building�� Case study 3 Inside Banca Intesa San Paolo’s ATM hall in Piazza Duca d’Aosta�� Case study 4 “Il Mezzanino” of the green metro line M2

Conclusions

Bibliography

Amit Even

5

9

29

57

84

86

88

NeedContext

Client

Arch


5

Preface

Architecture is composed (or should be) by the combination of three elements: The context

and its Genius loci, the requested need and the client.

The context – Harbours the history, the cultural evolution, the climate, the geography and the economical and social reality of a PLACE.

The requested need – The FUNCTION gives birth to forms and design solutions that respond to the human need, in a simple or complex manner. The function of architecture usually has specific codes and typologies, these codes usually represents the context but not necessarily “Plan me a Japanese Temple in London town please”.

The client – The special and personal needs of the client take an essential part in the design and creation phases of architecture, he can be more or less actively involved. His financial ability is crucial for the result. Later on, as the USER, the client becomes the primary compo-nent that influence architecture in its living faze of use.

Inquiring Homeless Architecture follows the same principles. The subject in this case is an extreme pole of the human leaving and its architecture. The client is, of course, the home-less itself. The requested needs are lowered to the basic level of what is called “human basic needs” and varies with the change of seasons. The context is the city, and it gets a higher-then-ever importance. It is manifested in any possible way; from climate and the physical conditions of the city to the social behaviour and perception of homelessness, from the urban landscape to the political policy towards homelessness.


6

As an architecture student, I have learned that in order to understand something simple and so-called basic, sometimes it’s better to try and understand first its EXTREME forms. Studying the extreme makes the ordinary clear, exploring the different reveals the familiar. This thesis does not try to indicate the problem of homelessness or to offer a solution; this is a job for sociologists and politicians, which should perform it much better. I’m an architect that wares the researcher’s hat at the moment. My goal is to understand the phenomenon and the special role architecture has in it, as well as to understand and analyse the implica-tions of a layered history of urban reality of a specific site, associated with the phenomenon – Milan’s central station area.

As someone who intends to engage himself in the practical side of our beloved profession, I see this thesis as an opportunity to learn in a way that I might never have again in my career. The pure THEORETICAL research work is a moment in which the architect is making a self-observation and examination and may exit this voyage different, sharper and wiser.


7


9

Chapter 1:

Pah�Zg]�paZm�bl�ma^�FbeZg^l^�ahfê^ll�u�?Z\ml%�gnf[^kl�Zg]�Û`nk^l


11

What is Homelessness?

When we hear the word HOMELESS we think of the stereotype of an bearded old man wear-ing ragged clothes, sleeping on a bench or thrown on the side walk, begging for money or just minding his own business as he’s already found him self out of society years ago.In many minds the homeless is not considered as a participant of society or as a citizen of the city but more as a shadow. We feel repulsed when we come across him and sometimes our hearts are filled with pity and embarrassed witnessing his rough state.

Defining homelessness has different interpretations in various countries, the definitions con-tinue on changing and evolving given to studies and researches and of course, because of the constant social changes in means of demographic growth, migration movements and economic states.

“FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organizations working with the Homeless, is the major corpus in Europe that deals with homelessness. It is supported by the European commission and works closely with its various insti-tutions. A significant part of the activities of FEANTSA lies in the research, and therefore, in 1991 the “European Observatory on Homelessness” was estab-lished. The observatory was established to promote better understanding of the complexity and the changing nature of homelessness, this way better policies can go into action to combat the phenomenon”

In his article “Defining and measuring homelessness”, Volker Busch-Geertsema (head of the Observatory) gives a clear picture of some of the point of views of conceptualizing home-lessness in different parts of the world and in Europe in particular. The question of who is included in the definition of homeless varies from country to country.

“Some countries (e.g. Austria, Germany and Luxembourg) make a distinction between those who is homeless at a point in time, those imminently threatened

SocialDomain

LegalDomain

PhisicalDomain


12

with homelessness and those housed under unacceptable conditions. In this con-text there might be different opinions as to whether people imminently threatened with homelessness should be classified as ‘homeless’. Should people due to be released from institutions with no home to go to be defined as actually homeless or should they be classified as such only from the date of their release? The same question can be asked for people under threat of eviction or violence.”

To approach the definition of Homelessness one needs to define what is HOME What is to have a home? Answering this seem-to-be banal question leads to the understanding of the

condition of not having a home - homelessness.

In describing the FEANTSA research efforts on reaching of a definition, Busch-Geertsema stops on a very important point of the 2004 “Third Review of Statistics on Homelessness in Europe, Developing an Operational Definition of Homelessness”. This progress brought an

interesting insight:

“Having a home can be understood as: Having an adequate dwelling (or space) over which a person and his/her family can exercise exclusive possession (physical domain); being able to maintain privacy and enjoy relations (social domain) and having a legal title to occupation (legal do-main).”

Combining these three domains, the full meaning of a home is reviled in a clear way. Having an adequate home gives birth to a quantity of opportunities and possibilities that are in the hands of the inhabitant, different rights and privileges come to action.

The following list is made of simple, taken for granted, values that a HOME (not a house) gives to its dwellers and their families, the various behaviours it permits and encourages and

elements that it has in it.

Physical

shelter

Mental

Shelter Responsibility

Quiet

Heating

Drinking

water

Hospitality

Privecy

Wellbeing

Comfort Airconditioning

Cucking

Cucking

Health

Family

Stability

Barefoot

walking

ProtectionHabits

TruthHouse

Furniture

Appliances

Investment

Freedom

Sleep

Toilet

Sanitation

Possession


13

FEANTSA’s research tries to reach the deep and full understanding of the problem. The ever-going goal of preventing homelessness and the re-housing of homeless people has brought FEANTSA to develop a broad definition of the word Homelessness. ETHOS, European Ty-pology of Homelessness and housing exclusion is their current definition of homelessness. It

was launched in 2005 and is now accepted in many European countries. ETHOS is formed

from four base categories:

�� KhhÜ^llg^ll - without a shelter of any kind, sleeping rough.�� Houselessness - with a temporary place to sleep in - institutions or shelters.�� Ebobg`�bg�bgl^\nk^�ahnlbg` - threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenden-

cies, eviction, domestic violence, ecc.�� Ebobg`�bg�bgZ]^jnZm^�ahnlbg` - in caravans on illegal campsites, in unfit housing, in

extreme overcrowding.

These categories include a variety of living states and give a wide view of the problem. From a severe case of a man sleeping alone on the door step of a closed store to a case in which new arriving immigrants are being hosted for a short period of time with their relatives in their over crowded apartment.

Operational Category Living Situation

Conc

eptu

al C

ateg

ory

ROO

FLES

S 1 People Living Rough 1.1 Public space or external space Living in the streets or public spaces, without a shelter that

2 People in emergency accommodation

2.1 Night shelter People with no usual place of residence who make use of overnight shelter, low threshold shelter

HO

USE

LESS 3 People in accommodation

for the homeless3.1 Homeless hostel

3.2 Temporary Accommodation Where the period of stay is intended to be short term

3.3 Transitional supported accommodation

4 People in Women’s Shelter 4.1 Women’s shelter accommodation Women accommodated due to experience of domestic violence and where the period of stay is intended to be short term

5 People in accommodation for immigrants

5.1 Temporary accommodation / reception centres

Immigrants in reception or short term accommodation due to their immigrant status

5.2 Migrant workers accommodation

6 People due to be released from institutions

6.1 Penal institutions No housing available prior to release

6.2 Medical institutions (*) Stay longer than needed due to lack of housing

6.3 Children’s institutions / homes

7 People receiving longer-term support (due to homelessness)

7.1 Residential care for older homeless people Long stay accommodation with care for formerly homeless people (normally more than one year)

7.2 Supported accommodation for formerly homeless people

INSE

CURE 8 People living in insecure accom-

modation8.1 Temporarily with family/friends Living in conventional housing but not the usual

or place of residence due to lack of housing

8.2 No legal (sub)tenancy Occupation of dwelling with no legal tenancyillegal occupation of a dwelling

8.3 Illegal occupation of land Occupation of land with no legal rights

9 People living under threat of eviction

9.1 Legal orders enforced (rented) Where orders for eviction are operative

9.2 Re-possession orders (owned) Where mortagee has legal order to re-possess

10 People living under threat of violence

10.1 Police recorded incidents Where police action is taken to ensure place of safety for victims of domestic violence

INAD

EQU

ATE 11 People living in temporary /

non-conventional structures11.1 Mobile homes Not intended as place of usual residence

11.2 Non-conventional building Makeshift shelter, shack or shanty

11.3 Temporary structure Semi-permanent structure hut or cabin

12 12.1

for habitation or building regulations

13 People living in extreme over-crowding

13.1 Highest national norm of overcrowding

ETHOS - European Typology of Homelessness and housing exclusion


14

The ETHOS list was translated in many languages of different countries in literal means and in the means of re-measuring the whole definition according to the reality of the country.


15

Being accepted in many European countries, the ETHOS definition made measuring and comparing homelessness data more easily conducted and in some cases even possible for the first time. Tracking all these phenomenons in parallel reveals movements of population from one category to the other; a rough street sleeper that finds an inadequate permanent-temporary solution (Roofless > Inadequate) or, during the summer, homeless hostel guests that stop attending the institution for the bad conditions it offers and prefer instead to stay in the streets (Houseless > Roofless). Users of services can also find themselves out in the streets for the simple reason that there is no bed for them in the hostel given to limited budg-ets designated for it (Houseless > Roofless).

Homelessness in Italy

In Italy the definition of homelessness follows the European ETHOS but not in a complete manner. The Italian definition (Senza dimora) excludes the whole category of Inadequate housing and some of the third subcategory - “People living in insecure accommodation, Temporary with friends/family”. The rest of the ETHOS categories are considered as valid as Senza dimora; Roofless, houseless and some of the Insecure.

There is a tendency for those responsible for policies and the funding of services to underestimate the extent in order to minimise public responsibilities and to keep the problem they are expected to deal with manageable. On the other hand, pressure groups tend to overestimate the number of homeless people in order to increase their political relevance and the resources made available to them.

The Italian members of FEANTSA are:

�� <G<:�!Be�<hhk]bgZf^gmh�GZsbhgZe^�<hfngbm¨�]b�:\\hèb^gsZ" - an association of social promotion organized in seventeen of the twenty regions of Italy. It joins in it more than 250 organizations active in almost all of Italy’s regions

�� Ûh'IL=�!?^]^kZsbhg^�BmZebZgZ�Hk`Zgblfb�i^k�e^�I^klhg^�L^gsZ�=bfhkZ" - a na-tional association that joins in it public and private Italian organizations that deal with service provision to the homeless (Senza dimora) and research work.

Gender

13.1% female

Orb`bg

40.6% Italian59.4% Foreign

:è

32.8% 18 - 3425.1% 35 - 4422.0% 45 - 5414.8% 55 - 64 5.3% 65 and more

86.9% Male


16

In 2011 a survey of homelessness and its population in Italy and the services that support its population was conducted. It was made by ISTAT (The Italian National Statistical Institute), along with fio.PSD and the Italian Caritas (the charitable arm of the Italian Bishops Confer-ence). The survey shows that 0.2% of the population in Italy is Homeless - 47,648 people.

Chronic

death

Transit Episodic


17

It is important to underline the fact that this data was collected only through the service facili-ties all trough out the country and in a sampling mode. Therefore the numbers are estimated and have a probability of 95%. The methodology of survey was made in a form of interviews with the detected population, from whom 10% was not able to attend the interview; therefore 10% of the forms were filled in a synthetic manner. The reasons of incapacity of responding and collaborating in the interview were mainly caused from: physical and mental disabilities, from addiction problems related to drugs and alcohol and from a limited knowledge of the Italian language (25%).

Comparing the results with older inspections of past decades, it can be seen that the identity of the homeless has changed in Italy. The presence of women, young people and of course immigrants has exceed from the negligible minority and became a strong part of the home-less population.

Another important change is in the duration of homelessness. The duration of homelessness can be divided in three categories:

�� Chronic - A homeless person that stays in the same situation for more than a year. He may have changes in his conditions but there will be inside the definition of homelessness.

�� Transit - A homeless person of a single experience that ends after a few days/weeks. The transit homeless person turns to a new or to his past “stable” situation

Most of the homeless population is composed by transit homeless people.

�� Episodic - A person that goes in and out of homelessness state.

Less then a month 15.3

Bitween 1 - 3 months 15.0

Bitween 3 - 6 months 12.3

Bitween 6 months and 1 yaer 16.4

Bitween 1 - 2 years 14.8

Bitween 2 - 4 years 11.0Over 4 years 15.3

=nkZmbhg�h_�Ahfê^llg^ll�bg�BmZey


18

In the past years the number of chronic homeless people has grown in Italy and also the duration of the chronic had got longer. From the table bellow it seems that more then 30% of the homeless people are chronic homeless, the average duration is of two and a half years. An interest-ing data is the difference between Ital-ians and foreigners in means of home-less duration time; while foreigners has an average of 1.6 years, Italians hold an average of 3.9 years. Another inter-esting data concerns the state prior to homelessness of the survey participants. 63.9% said they use to have a proper home before they became homeless. And indeed, the loss of a job (that might lead to loss of property) seems to be one of the main motives that lead to homelessness but not only. Looking at the statistics, different life-changing events repeat themselves when looking at the answers to the interviews taken in the survey:

61.9%Employment loss

16.2%Onset of illness

59.5% Breakdown of the

family unit

28.3% of the homeless population is working; in most cases the work is not legal and regu-lar. It can be connected to the black market and to organized crime, or other situations of exploitation of workers who are not legal citizens (foreigners). Of those, which are, working the average of days of work per month is 13 while the average income is 347 Euros a month (a quarter of the working homeless earns less than 100 Euros a month). Work is not the only income source, homeless people receive finance from: pension funds, public subsidies, as-sistance from family and friends and also from charity; 57.6% has one income source, 24.5 has two or more and 17.9 has no income at all.


19

In Italy like in other countries, having an official residence is a foundation for other important and basic rights. As far as goes for legal status and rights of the homeless people in Italy, the situation is pretty tricky, as they are not easily considered regular citizens given their difficulty of enrolment registry. Romano Minardi from ANUSCA, national association of officers of the civil status and population, describes this reality:

“In Italy, the legislation registry is based on the fundamental principle of “usual residence”. This principle, obviously, is not applicable on people that don’t have a “usual residence”; for this reason, in order to register homeless people, the legislator has to underline the principle of residence. In practice, this particular category of people choose a municipality of legislation registry and the munici-pality will register them in a non existing address, specially invented for him... A situation particularly difficult, characterised in many cases by the denial of rights of the homeless people to be registered.”

This difficulty is more present amongst immigrants and illegal immigrants. Not having a legal status deprives them from basic rights and some times is held as the reason for their homelessness in the first place.

The social secretary services takes 24.4% of the services offered in Italy for the homeless. It includes in it information and orientation services, assistance with bureaucratic procedures, fictional residence registration and more.

Other service categories are:

�� 21.2%� Lniihkmbo^�l^kob\^l�k^`Zk]bg`�&�employment inserting, psychological sup port, educational support, medical support, personalised programs and more

�� 4.1%� =Zr�laêm^kl�&�day care centers, residential communities, recreational social clubs and more

�� 16.6%� Gbàm�laêm^k�&�protected residence, dormitories, emergency dormitories (on heavy weather periods), self-managed housing and more

�� 34.0% Support in response of basic needs - distribution of food, pharmaceuti- cals, clothing, personal hygiene facilities, cafeterias, street units and more

Most of these services are located in cities, where most of the homeless population is. In fact not less than 44% of the homeless are in Italy’s two biggest cities; Milan with 27.5% and Rome with 16.5%.


20

Homelessness in Milan

Another method of measuring and understanding homelessness is the example of “racCO-NTAMI”: A point-in-time survey made in Milan in mid January of 2008 and than again in mid March 2013. The survey was organised by the Bocconi University of Milan, Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti, the city of Milan and other associations. The survey was coordinated by Michela Braga, a lecturer from the department of economics at the Bocconi University and was done with the collaboration of 600 students and volunteers. The purpose was to carry out a complete survey of homeless people in the entire metropolitan area of Milan, a collection of data that would not only quantify the phenomenon but will also clarify it and make it understandable for future interventions in a policy-maker level.

0+',+� /'21� 21'-0�

531 2106 263720.14% 79.86

408 1152 156026.15% 73.85%

2013 March

2008 January

shelterNight Totalstreet rough

sleepers


21

The last survey (March 2013) was held in a period of three concentrated days in the even-ing hours. The average temperature was of 8°, - 4° Celsius. The method of detection was of the S - night approach; the subjects of the survey were the night shelters and street dwellers.

Excluded from the survey were dwellers of: Brownfield sites, inadequate housing states, oc-cupied and abandoned structures and poor but not homeless people. The volunteers con-centrated on to types of scenes:

�� In the various night shelters of Milan that collaborated in the operation. �� In the streets; where the volunteers patrolled following a spatial location mapping of the

city, where homeless peo-ple are known to sleep at.

The meeting with the home-less and the night shelters operators led to a complete quantitative count and a qualitative inquiry of different parameters trough question-naires and interviews. Having already done the same op-eration, the results were com-pared with those of the 2008 racCONTAMI and different trends were revealed. The number of homeless people has increased in 70%. The impact of the phenomenon to the total resident population of Milan rose from 0.12% to 0.21%. The percentage of street sleepers has decreased though. That is given to an investment of the municipality of Milan in sleep-ing beds for the various night shelters and dormitories. There is still a big number of street sleepers, some of them have a temporary solution in a form of a car or a caravan but most of them are literally street sleepers, to be exact 385 people according to the racCONTAMI survey are in the search of a place to sleep in the streets of Milan. Every day.

:èGenderStreet

Male 91.3%Female 8.7%

GenderN'�laêm^kl

Male 85.8%Female14.2% +35 38.7%

– 35 61.3%

'�laêm^klN

+35 25.2%– 35 74.8%

etreSte:`


22

Tito Boeri, Italian Economist and the Scientific Director of the Fondazione Rodolfo Debene-dett, writes in “La Republica” and comment on the survey’s results, explaining the reasons that created the dimensions of the phenomenon and which are supporting it:

“Even Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady, didn’t cut welfare benefits oriented to the ones on the bottom of the list. We on the other hand have succeeded to reach a double and infinite decrease, already starting from a low level of allowances comparing to other countries in Europe. In 2010 we spent circa 17 Euros a resident for social inclusion, in France the numbers were of 210 Euros a resident and more then 50 Euros in Germany. In 2011 we reduced the amount to 16 Euros for resident. All of this in spite of the effects of the crisis...It is clear that the problem is not due to the local initiatives and the volunteers. The municipalities are out of money and a lot of banking foundations that on paper should interfere in social matters have instead burned their possessions on offshore banks.”

In terms of gender and age the results of racCONTAMI are not dramatically different then those of the ISTAT survey of 2011. The origin of the homeless in Milan seem to tend more towards a majority of foreigners: While, according to the 2011 ISTAT survey, the homeless population of Italy is composed by more then 40% of Italians. The data, reported by racCO-NTAMI, gives a different image, 77.5% of the homeless are foreigners, legal or illegal. The two surveys are different in their methodology and in the time they were made, but it turns out that there is a different reality in the Italian economic capital.

Origin - Street

Europe

Africa

Italy

Asia

South America

Other

35.5%

28.9%

17.1%

6.5%

4.4%

7.6%

Origin - N. shelters

Italy

Romenia

Burkina Faso/Ivory Coast/Ghana/Mali

other Africa

Egypt/Tunisia

Marocco

Somalia/Ethiopia/Eritrea

other Europe

Ukraine/Bulgaria

India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka Bangladesh

other Asia

South Amerika

23.9%

14.9%

9.7%

9.6%

8.6%

8.4%

6.1%

5.2%

4.5%

4.1%

3.3%

1.7%


23

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Never went to school

No educational qualification

Elementary school

Junior High school

High school (3 years)

High school (5 years)

Undergraduate degree

Master’s degree/PhD

other

3.7%

4.4%

13.3%

34.2%

12.1%

20.3%

9.4%

0.8%

1.8%

NO residence address 33.3%

Residence Address possession

R. Address of old residence 42.4%

R. Address of a dormitory/n. shelter 20.1%

R. Address of an associatio .2%4n


24

More interesting information is about the education level of the homeless in Milan, which isn’t very different from the of the normal population:

Most of the homeless people in Mi-lan are registered with a residence address; A third of them are not. Not having a residence deprives them from a series of rights such as the access for social services, or health care services above emergency first aid.

The people interviewed in the night shelters had an average of 2.7 years of homeless state, while the people in the streets had an average of 5.1 years. Circa 10% are working from which 70% holds illegal jobs and is paid with black money. Of the not working, 76% have reported that in the last month they had done efforts of job searching, 7% never worked in their lives. The average of income of the month prior to the survey, in all of the homeless population in Milan, is of 146 Euros. 39% report no income at all in the month prior to the survey. 21% has made an official request for public housing; the applications were present-ed in 2008 in average. 29% of the individuals had contracted fiscal debits on the past three years in an average sum of 2553 Euros each. 80% of the homeless report of not paid sub-

62.7% 93.6% 88.1%

85.0% 96.6% 94.7%69.2% 41.6% 46.4%

67.1% 55.5% 57.1%

24.7% 39.7% 37.6%

57.3% 27.5% 32.5%

37.9% 51.4% 49.3%

shelterNight TotalEmergincy service street rough

sleepers

Cafeteria

ShowersFood supply

Clothes

Medicines

Sleeping bag/Blanket

Personal hygiene items

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%


25

66% Have confirmed they contacted services of the municipality of Milan (social assistance, employment intercession centers, anti crisis counters, ecc.), from those who did not contact, two thirds claim they didn’t knew about the existence of services of that kind. The Italians and those who were interviewed in the night shelters seemed to have bigger use of the services of that kind.

There is a big ac-cess to the emer-gency services. Also in this case, the night shelters individuals seem to take more use of the services of-fered.

11.4% of the homeless in Milan suffer from a form of disability or deficiency (motor, audi-tory, mental). 59% have been ill in the past month (end of the winter), of which a third did not seek for medical help.

The division of reasons of becoming a homeless are presented in the following chart:

Employment lossBreakdown of the family unitImmigrationOtherFree choiceEviction/Problems with the mortgageDrugsLack of moneyRelease from prisonPhysical disability/Health problemsRelease from immigration detentionGambling problemsAlcohol

42.2%11.8%11.411.1%6.1%5.7%3.0%3.0%2.7%1.5%0.9%0.3%0.3%


26

In this thesis I will be concentrating only on the category of roofless, living in the streets and public spaces, homeless people, as I’m interested in the Architectural situations created in this moment. A moment in which the human finds himself in his “nudity” and is confronted with his basic needs and the wild nature, like in prehistoric times. The so-called wild nature in this case is the modern city created by mankind, the basic needs are extended according to the same human development of the updated wild nature. And the nudity is the homeless it self and his low abilities.

As in Herbert Spencer’s “Social Evolution” theory, in society, the one who is able to adapt him self better will survive.

The site of research is the area of Milan’s central rail way station: Milan’s most populated area with the phenomenon. In the next Chapter I’ll try to understand the reasons and mean-ings of the fact that the chosen site is the most concentrated one with the phenomenon.


27


29

Chapter 2:

FbeZg�l�\^gmkZe�kZbepZr�lmZmbhg


31

Milano Centrale

Milan’s central railway station was initially located, a little bit southwest to its present site, on today’s Piazza della Repubblica. It was conceived by the Austrians, during their impe-rial regime period in the city, and inaugurated in may 10th of 1864 by Italy’s king, Vittorio Emanuele II di Savoia, after the historic Italian unification. In the end of the 19th century, a circular railway is built around the city to connect other smaller railway stations of passenger or cargo transport and the train traffic in Milan is significantly increased.

An old postcard of Milan’s first central station


32

On may 1931, after a few competitions, several winners with different projects and of course, the first world war in the mid-dle and the economic crisis led by it as a consequence, begins the transfer of the various services and equipment from the old central station to the new one. The winning final project is that of Ulisse Stacchini, an Italian young architect that from 1912 held the role of the future to be built central station’s planner. The projects name is “In Motu vita”, Life in motion, and it is the winner out of 34 presented projects. The project is being changed many times, manly because of pressures from the Italian railway company who is worried that it wouldn’t be big enough to satisfy the train traffic. On the first of July of 1931, Milan’s new central station is inaugurated by Costanzo Ciano, the minister of communications of the Italian fascist regime of that time, and with the presence of the Italian king, Vittorio Emanuele III di Savoia. The opening event was a powerful one; a national celebration of excellence and pride with the large Milanese crowd attending the place in its indoors and outdoors with excitement, festivity and waving flags in their hands. The Milanese had never seen any thing like that. A monumental build-ing as big and impressive that it is, a public place that has no direct connection to religion, governance or wealth but a pure civil function.

Given to the over-growing industrial rush, the central station is not satisfying any-more and thoughts of a new and bigger station, that will suit Milan’s needs, start to take shape. More progress came in the early years of the 20th century, as the Ital-ian state railway company is founded and the 1906 international EXPO is held in Milan with the specific attention on trans-portation while celebrating the opening of the Simplon tunnel that year - a railway tunnel that connects Domodossola in Italy and Brig in Switzerland through the Alps. Milan becomes an important internation-al railroad junction and its industrial-eco-nomical horizon seems brighter then ever. In the end of the same year a cornerstone is laid and the Italian state railway com-pany and the city of Milan announce an open architecture competition.

Milan 1906 EXPO official poster


33

A heading line up of first-class politicians of the Italian fascist regime and the municipality of Milan in the inauguration of the new central railway station in Milan. Under the arched steel and glass canopies, in the first line, marches Costanzo Ciano with Araldo di Crollalanza, Francesco Giunta, Attilio Teruzzi and others. 01.07.1931

Milan’s central station facade on inauguration day


34

With it’s great Roman thermal spaces and the steel and glass arched canopies planned by engineer Alberto Fava, wide 72 meters and long 361, they symbolised power and modern progress as this engineering and construction technology was still considered somewhat in-novative of the kind that pushes the edges of human capabilities. The architectonic decora-tive language of the building is a mix of styles; liberty, art deco and Assiro-Milanese all come together with expressive monumental fascist symbolism that represent the powerful regime. The new great central station of 66000 square meters of covered space, of 360000 cubic meters of walls of different kinds and 16000 tons of iron. It had in it’s opening 24 platforms that ran 80 km of rail tracks, with the capacity of 600 trains a day to different national and international destinations. Milan’s central station was built with the intention of becoming one of Europe’s biggest and most important train stations, an investment to be paid back with greater economic possibilities and prestigious reputation to the city and the Italian Fas-cist regime.

The “Galleria di testa” in the 1930’s, the highly decorated Roman thermal space with the glass ceilings allowing day light to penetrate and give life to the details. The “Galleria di testa” is the last space that leads to the train platforms


35

“The sense of the grandiose, of the sumptuous, of the impressive is what attracts from the visitors the exciting cheers...In this immeasurable building one can go and turn on its wide and long dimensions until the barriers that lead to the plat-forms...In every step a seat, a bench, an architectonic marble ledge that offers rest and in this heat also functions as a refrigerator...Amongst all of this luxury, certain humble needs weren’t have been thought of, such as trash cans and spit-toon bowls... It is important to prevent a reality in which the station becomes an assembly of layabouts, outlaws, trouble makers, of homeless that might find their address under these roofs.”

(Corriere della sera 02.07.1931)

First class passengers waiting hall

The “Galleria di testa” today, bigger flow of people and a considerable presence of commercial functions


36

Today, Milan’s central station is the second largest train station in Italy (after Roma Termini) and one of the main in Europe. It is a Railway Terminus where the tracks end in the sta-tion and trains start or terminate their course (or leave the station in reverse), where the passengers have direct access to all of the platforms without need to cross any tunnels or bridges. The contrary would be a transit station where trains stop and then continue on the same direction. The old central station of Milan was of that kind. The station welcomes 600 trains a day, two metro lines has stops underneath it, several buses and trams passes it’s surroundings and shuttles part to three different airports. 320,000 people pass through the station every day, a total of 120 millions a year - two times Italy’s population. The station is served by conventional and high speed trains to almost all parts of Italy and to international destinations such as Zurich and Geneva in Switzerland, Paris in France, Vienna in Austria, Barcelona in Spain, Munich in Germany and more. It contains a commercial center with numerous shops, restaurants and cafés, and hosts fairs, markets and sometimes even big events in its out door spaces: the Galleria delle carrozze - the open covered space between the station and Piazza Duca d’Aosta that even hold’s concerts in special occasions.


37

The station is situated on the northeastern part of the city center. Its façade faces the wide-open Piazza Duca d’Aosta on its southwest. The buildings that surround the plaza are of ten stories of offices and productive service-sector characteristics an hotels. The Pirelli Tower, planned by Milanese architect Giò Ponti and Engineer Pier Luigi Nervi and built in the second half of the 1950’s, rise to the west of the Plaza – the “Pirellone” is another great symbol of Milan’s economic essence, in this case of the post second world war economical boom. To the north of the plaza stands the historic, recently renovated, Excelsior Gallia Hotel. From Piazza Duca d’Aosta departs Via Vittor Pisani, a broad street that goes towards the heart of the city. It passes in the location of the old central station in the intersection with Viale Tunisia that used to be the railway axes of the old Milanese system (no architectonic remains of the old central station past existence are to be found in place).

Milan’s central station roofs and Piazza Duca d’Aosta and it’s surroundings

Via Vittor Pisani from Piazza Duca d’Aosta


38

A bit forward, immediately after, leis the vast Piazza della Repubblica that touches the old cir-cular line of the Spanish walls that surrounded the city between 1546 under the Spanish rule and demolished under rule of the Napoleonic empire in the 19th century. Via Vittor Pisani is a long and wide road of four car lanes for each direction from whom two are reserved for taxis and holds, in addition, a bicycle lane in each side. The sidewalks are very wide all along the street and goes underneath the ten-meter high portico roofs on the ground level. The buildings are of 7-8 floors and are characterized by commercial and service-sector productive activities.

On the southeast side of the station, after a facade of half open services half closed doors and a stripe formed terminal of waiting and departing buses for the various airports, leis a small short term parking lot and the green Piazza Luigi di Savoia to the northeast of it. To the east of it on Via Soperga stand buildings of hotel and residence that already take part of what is considered to be the “Centrale” urban zone on a municipal level. Continuing in par-allel with the axis of the railway, towards the northeast, lays Via Giovanni Battista Pergolesi that crosses underneath the 1.8 km long railroad as the first of five tunnels that traverse it.

Via Sammartini in the 30’s - Active life under the railway


39

North to it stands the monumental postal office building while in front of it, beneath the rail-way tracks, the holocaust memorial museum. Walking to the southeast side along the railway on Via Ferrante Aporti, a particular urban landscape is revealed. To the left, the 10-meter high walls of the raised railway, with a series of closed gates and doors and a road tunnel every few hundred meters. To the right side; apartment buildings of the “Centrale” zone. On the northwest side of the station, surrounded also by office buildings and the Excelsior Gal-lia Hotel, Piazza IV Novembre is found under a constant chaos of crossing trams and public buses. Following the same parallel path towards northeast, to the left of the railway and after the first tunnel, on Via Giovanni Battista Sammartini, pretty much the same urban landscape is found. On the right, almost all along Sammartini street, the walls are composed by closed gates and doors part from some uploading cargo platforms on the street level that remained active and the later on a series of stores compose what is to be called as Milan’s fish market.


40

Par�Ahfê^ll�i^hie^�Zk^�ZmmkZ\m^]�mh�FbeZg�l�\^gmkZe�kZbepZr�lmZmbhg8

The life of a homeless is usually a life of survival. The big majority of homeless people didn’t choose their current state as homeless (as we saw earlier, only 6.1% of the homeless in Mi-lan did choose so) but fell in to it by various reasons. Their lives are difficult and they have to deal with hard physical and physiological conditions. Their acts of survival are expressed constantly and form their being. Therefore the homeless attend Milan’s central station area for the same reasons. For survival. They do so for various reasons that respond to their needs and current state:

�� Loneliness is one of the fundamental aspects of being homeless. The lacks of social rela-tions, of someone who cares and gives a hand, is a constant nibbling feeling that shapes homeless people’s personality and sometimes characterize them as hostile (it might be also the reason of arriving to this state and not getting out of it). Being an environmental setting with a lot of movement, with the proximity to other people, a fair amount of peo-ple in this case, might create a positive effect of “social warmth”, the exposure to other people might lead to support from them. Sometimes just the opportunity of having a few words with someone is a good enough reason to attend a crowded place such as a central station, to prove and exercise their humanity. The feeling of being with someone and not being alone can create the feeling of socialization, even if it is not profound and developed. Of course it can have the opposite affect as the individual homeless can get more negative feedback from the others that don’t take him or her in consideration and see a shadow instead. In this case the recognition of the never ending social exclusion and feeling of loneliness increases.

�� The same situation of a big gathering of people creates also a verity of Economical opportunities that leis in the high flow of new people that serve as potential clients and therefore it becomes a place of commerce (legal or illegal) for the homeless. It can also become a place of random jobs recruiting from others (legal or illegal). The high flow of new and ever changing passersby gives also place to begging or small time crime.

�� A big public place as a central station and the area around it offers the possible access to Facilities such as toilets, running water and drinkable water.

�� It also provides Shelter from the rain and from the cold or heat as it is public and has closed spaces such as waiting halls, which are designed to have climate control that gives better conditions compared to the streets.

�� Another reason for which homeless people are attracted to the central station lays in the simple fact that it is a strong Reference Point for them. As we saw before, a great deal of Milan’s homeless people are foreigners and a lot of them, while arriving to Milan for the first time, met the central station as the first place they ever knew and experienced in the city.


41

In many cases it is enough to return. Maurizio Rotaris, the responsible of “SOS Stazione Centrale” and one of the most experienced figures in the city, working for the past 25 years with the homeless in the central station area, describes the phenomenon:

“Traditionally, it is the arriving point and therefore the reference point in a big metropolis that you’re not familiar with. For example the thousands of east Euro-pean women that arrived here in the mid 90’s. With buses that had their terminal and refuelling point in Piazza Luigi di Savoia, where the women were dropped off and than continued to concentrate there with their support services and social network in the same point. Years later, maybe they had already found a job and got things together but they weren’t inserted in the social context, they continued on gathering in the same point where they arrived to in the first place. They use to meet there in Saturdays and Sundays between friends, as it was the only refer-ence point for them in the city that they felt comfortable using”

�� The central station area holds in its territory some of the important Services of-fered to the homeless by the city and the various associations

- The Help Center of the city of Milan, in Via Ferrante Aporti 3 crossing with Viale Brianza, is the main point of orientation and division of the applicants for the other services. - SOS Stazione Centrale day center of the Exodus onlus foundation, Via Tonale 2, in

the first tunnel, under the rail tracks. - Progetto Arca onlus in Via San Giovanni alla Paglia 7, that organizes many kind of

assistance to the homeless and asylum seekers and refugees. - The Caritas Ambrosiana night shelter in Via Sammartini 114. - The mensa at S. Maria Goretti in Via Melchiorre Gioia 193. - The Associazione Fides Casa degli amici night shelter in Via Timavo 68. - City Angels street assistance services outside the first tunnel. - Il Mezzanino of Linea Gialla onlus in the metro coridors under Piazza Duca d’Aosta.


42

Understanding why the homeless is attracted to Milan’s central station and what they are looking for in this place brings up the question of why central stations (railway or bus ter-minal) tend to be these places. All around the world, in major cities, these stations and the areas around them are the scene of not only homeless people but also crime, prostitution and drag abuse and in general they tend to be less secure for passersbys. Of course this phenomenon doesn’t concern all stations but it is widespread in big cities.

These are places with great importance to modern cities. Places of constant movement and change, which is one of the strong factors in major stations. The fact that a lot of people pass through them and their surroundings, the concept of a place of transition, of constant pure circulation, of a ground marched by hundreds of thousands of people every day. The never-ending movement comes instead of the inhabitation of a place, there are no residents only people who pass by and usually do it for a short time with out any long breaks. The con-nection of the regular users of the central station is very superficial and depended only on the need that it fulfils. There is no emotional connection and feel of ownership and therefore concern to the place, like one can have for the street where he lives in or the surroundings of his child kindergarten. The surroundings of Milan central railway station is composed by mainly office buildings of different kinds, or in other words it is a very lively context during the day but quite empty during the night. A vacuum is created and different phenomenons , of the stated above, fill it and borderline situations take their place.

Major stations are characterized with big public open interiors with monumental facades, usually connected to spacious plazas and broad wide streets. The internal spaces of the stations themselves and their surroundings are important elements in the urban fabric. They create the hierarchy of their area in which they are usually dominant. In many cases, neigh-bourhoods or commercial districts, close to central stations are strongly influenced by them and tend to be affected from their routine activity and to be frequented with marginal popu-lations.


43

An example of a negative impact in that sense is that of Tel Aviv’s central bus terminal, opened in 1993, who changed the hierarchy of an entire neighbourhood with its dispro-portionate volume inserted in the exiting urban fabric. The already week Neve Shaanan neighbourhood was torn to pieces after the opening of what is still called “The New Central Station of Tel Aviv” after the old one (on the north western limits of the neighbourhood) was closed down. The new station created a bigger separation between its parts and discon-nected it from the city. The whole area received a different meaning and was not ready for the heavy traffic flows that cut it and the presence of the massive brutal concrete building de-fined by critics as “The White Elephant”. The area around the station got affected by crime, prostitution and drug abuse as well and became also the scene for drifting homeless people as it isolated itself more and more as a degraded area. Today Neve Shaanan is in the same state with a recent concentration of refugees from war zones in Africa that found their place there. Plans of intense requalification from the part of the city of Tel Aviv had been declared to be executed in the near future.

Map of Tel Aviv’s Central bus terminal area


44

The location of the station usually determines the impact of the infrastructure on the city; this of course depends on the nature of the city in means of topography and urban morphology and organization. The big advantage of a central railway station located in the heart of a big city has the price of bringing the heavy infrastructure with it to the same heart of the city. Milan is an example of a city that suffers from infrastructure presence related to human and cargo rail transportation. The circular city of Milan is broken by intrusions of railway sta-tions and big cargo industrial rail yards that tag along with them long and linear railroads. A railway belt surrounding the city also connects these points of intrusion. The city though, doesn’t stop at the belt but continues also over it. Therefore many situations of separation and discontinuity of the urban fabric take place all along the railway belt.


45

The central station itself brings with it a 1.8 km long railroad that touches the railroad belt, it is 400 meters wide and is crossed by 5 different tunnels of which all are open to vehicular traffic. The element of elevated railroad has its price when it strongly affects the urban land-scape of the northern part of the city. It separates it and breaks the continuity of the city in several means. On street level, it use to have its functions of lower parallel tracks of loading/unload of cargo and other technical functionalities that maintain the station active. Today, in a post-industrial city, where the economy had changed and the use of infrastructure such as this has no use the way it had before, the street level of the elevated railway is composed mainly by closed gates of unused spaces.

All of these empty spaces have a lot of difficulties and special characteristics related to their original functions such as the constant noise coming from the passing trains above them and the lacks of light coming only from both ends of the 400 meters wide volume. Being abandoned for some years most of the spaces suffers from a heavy degraded state of the materials, and of course a big challenge of putting them in use is in the fact that they have


46

an old industrial architectural space typology which may not always be adaptable to other purposes that each has its rules in the strict and detailed Italian regulation. In a generation of transformation-architecture in Europe, it is hard to not notice the huge potential that it has. A good example of transformation of this kind is the Vienna “Gürtel” elevated railroad, that from a somewhat similar state to the Milanese one, it became one of the Austrian capital’s most lively public places. The architecture studio ARCHITEKTEN TILLNER & WILLINGER ZT

GmbH had in mind a strong vision composed by the complexity and the potential of the site.

“At the core of the Gürtel concept was above all, (the mission of) how to address the forced coexistence of public space and high traffic loads. The objective of the revitalisation concept lay in proposing new urbanistic uses and potentials as to trigger functional improvements... By opening the zone and endowing it with a transparent design and connective architecture, the Gürtel median strip re-emerged as a space that once again links the outer and inner Gürtel; an area that no longer functions as a barrier, but rather as a meeting-place. An “image transposition“ strategy was undertaken to counteract the negative psychological associations related to the Gürtel... in particular, populating the “Stadtbahn” arches with cultural and entertainment facilities, restaurants and pubs. The Gür-tel Study developed a comprehensive set of measures for a new, low-cost design of the median strip that would respect existing structures and could be imple-mented in consecutive phases.”


47

Reused spaces under the Stadtbahn arches, coming soon in Milan?


48

Milan’s central station area was and still is the most concentrated with homeless people and other marginal populations than the rest of the city. In the past, the situation was more sever, as the city was not prepared to handle the phenomenon that grew with the arriving of im-migrants from different parts of the world (north Africa, east Europe Asia, south America and more), that weren’t intaked into society, constituted a sheer part of the problem. Trough the years actions have been taken by the part of the city of Milan, private and public associa-tions and the Italian state railway company and than later, “Grandi Stazioni” the member company that was founded in 1998 with the mission of the rehabilitation and management of Italy’s 13 biggest and most important train stations.

The description of the past state of the station’s area sounds quite horrible in an interview with Maurizio Rotaris, head of the “SOS Stazione Centrale” day center of the “Exodus” foundation, located in the first tunnel under the tracks. When opening their first center in the south eastern facade of the station facing Piazza Luigi di Savoia in 1990 (today a closed door and an empty space), the rate of homeless people and drug abuse (mainly heroin) was widespread around the station’s district. In the first 6 months of activity the “Exodus” foundation workers and volunteers found themselves confronting with circa 750 homeless people amongst which 250 are heroine addicts. The purpose of the center was to intervene in emergency situations and to connect the help seekers with a network of services that in those days didn’t really exist.

“We started our relationship with the station since 1990 till 2010, when we were offered from “Grandi Stazioni” this place here which is bigger and allows us to develop our work better. We helped tens of thousands of drug addicts plus all different kinds of populations such as chronic homeless and foreigners that ar-rived in different cycles: In the early 90’s a high number of north Africans arrived. Than, as a result of the past Yugoslavian wars, a lot of refugees came from Croa-tia, Serbia, Bosnia, ecc. Than, we had the mass of female immigrants of east Europe, starting from 1995, buses of women from Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and more countries arrived in thousands and were situated in Piazza Luigi di Savoia where they were dropped off in the first place. The various populations were concentrated each in its own part of the station area: Piazza IV Novembre became the center for African immigrants, Luigi di Savoia east European women and north Africans pretty much throughout the whole area. Through the years, some of the populations disappeared from the station due to their inclusion in the job market and in society. An attempt to open a “shuk” (an open Arab market) was made in Piazza Luigi di Savoia but quite immediately stopped by politicians of that period. The architectural panorama of the station


49

was of deterioration in fact it was a disaster, with Piazza Duca d’Aosta, before the refurbishment, as a muddy swamp with over growing flowerbeds where drug abuse found its place in incredible numbers. In the biennium of 1994-5 we de-tected a number of 64 cases of death caused by overdose.”


50

In 1988 ATM, the Milanese metro company, and the city of Milan launched a public archi-tecture competition. The scope of the competition was the requalification and urban reor-ganization of a large part of the station’s urban zone, including: Piazza IV Novembre, Piazza Luigi di Savoia, Via Vittor Pisani, Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza Duca d’Aosta. The win-ners of the competition, the three architects Carlo Chambry, Antonio Zanuso and William Pascoe, had in vision the essential reorganization of Piazza Duca d’Aosta in front of the sta-tion’s facade with the paving and organization of the plaza in a clean grid accompanied by 16 cast iron lighting poles (from the original project of 1931), urban furniture, geometrical clear cut greenery beds and elements of moderate ascent. Piazza Duca d’Aosta was aimed to be capable of containing the transition and connection between the train station and the tow metro lines (of which one was open in parallel to the project’s development) interchang-ing beneath it. The car, taxi and tram transportation was directed to Piazza IV Novembre and via Vittor Pisani and Piazza della Repubblica got a landscape transformation along with lighting and urban furniture. The work of the whole project lasted into the late 90’s. The area had additional modifications and rounds of refurbishment in the past years.


51

Up: A plan and section of the winning project

On the left: A model of the winning project

On the right: A prospective view of the paving pedestrianisation and face stretch-ing of the Galleria delle carozze that also was part of the Chambry, Zenuso, Pascoe project


52

The architectonic and landscape requalification of the areas around the station was not the only action taken in the transformation of Milan’s central railway station in the past decades. Like many others around Europe, the station represents with its last transformations a move-ment spread out in the whole western world. A movement of the redefinition of the values of public spaces from what they use to be in the past. Tow main principles are conducting the new reality and identity of the new central stations:

�� The increase of the presence of commercial activity in the public spaces of the lmZmbhg' If once a station bared with it above the transportation function some supportive services related to the short waiting period of the passengers in transition, today it is im-possible to reach the train sit without passing through tens of shops, food counters and different service providers.

�� Ma^�ho^k&`khpbg`�lmk^g`ma^gbg`�h_�\hgmkhe�f^Zlnk^l' Milan takes part of the 21st century European internal immigrant control of the post schengen agreements and the panicked western world fight against terrorism of the post 9/11 of 2001. The station’s public spaces are video monitored and patrolled by security personal.


53

Both of these factors create a privatisation of the spaces and limit the access and activity in them for passengers but especially to marginal populations such as homeless people that use to find in the stations a place of shelter and access to different resources. Milan’s central station has been taking steps since the early 90’s to harden the situation of those seeking for refuge in the station, all in order to generate the change of perception and identity of a place that was historically considered as a possible resting point. These politics took action through the turning of the public toilets to paid ones, by closing the areas to only ticket hold-ing passengers using turnstiles (the turnstiles were removed after a period) and by the actual occupation of space by autonomous commerce spaces where access is intended only for costumers. Prof. Antonio Tosi of “Politecnico di Milano” and a member of FEANTSA obser-vatory define this new urban reality:

“The reasons to this trend are many and they take part of a process that changes our urban reality: the rising privatisation of the administration of the city, the demand of security, intensification of public space control in means of its con-version into a private space or a semi private space or a quasi public one. The transformation of the public spaces respond to the attempts of turning the city into more attractive for consumers and visitors with financial resources, as well as to respond to the demand of security and the disciplining of the wealthy higher classes, as proposed in the ideas of the ‘Revanchist City’“

Another aspect of the limitation of the homeless population from the station’s territory is devoted to the charity and social actions from the part of “Grandi Stazioni” itself. Trough the years “Grandi Stazioni” have been dedicating itself with assigned budgets and different initiatives aimed to fight the phenomenon in the humanitarian means of helping it to termi-nate itself and eventually vanish. An interesting motive of the “Grandi Stazioni” help is the fact that their actions usually “pushes” the homeless presence from the stations boundaries, it seems as if the strategy of handling the situation is by neutralizing it. From the investment and cofounding the of the “Caritas Ambrosiana” night hostel in Via Sammartini 114 - 1.5 km far along the railroad axis, to the moving of the “SOS Stazione Centrale” from the 60 square meters modest space (first given by the Italian railroad company in 1990) in the south eastern facade of the station to the much bigger and better equipped offered space in the first tunnel under the tracks - where it still finds its whereabouts today. One of the main pur-poses of this research was to analyze, from the architectonic point of view, the proper places where homeless of the roofless kind “choose” for their night stay. Conducting this research on it’s various phases I came to realize that most of these phenomenons take place outside the station’s boundaries and sometimes even a little bit distant but are always in the same district and proximity.


57

� <aZim^k�,3�

Bgjnbkbg`�ahfê^ll�Zk\abm^\mnk^�bg�FbeZg�l�\^gmkZe�kZbepZr�lmZmbhg�Zk^Z

On the right: Photos from a charity donation campaign “Text Them Home” to battle homelessness cycle in Los Angeles made by The Weingart Center, a human services center in the heart of LA, the creative agency David&Goliath and collaborating Homeless people in the LA’s Skid Rae area.


58

Milan’s central station area is the most populated one in the city when it comes to roofless, rough street sleeper homeless. In this chapter I will inquire the different forms of the phenom-enon to be found in this part of the city.

The following cases to be presented are ones in which a so-called normal and common urban public space becomes the scene of homelessness of the rough street sleeping kind. An urban architectonic manufacture, designed by architects, engineers and other profession-als, that takes a sharp turn from its original initial intention. The classification would be of architectonic typologies and use functions. I would try to indicate the repetitive elements and characteristics of these places that host the phenomenon. All of the following cases are of architecture manufactures designated for different purposes and uses than the ones they get in the examples. The examples are of temporary transformations of places that contain two different realities, the transition can be of night and day and it can be seasonal or depended on other factors.

I will not inquire in this chapter services such as: night shelters, day centers, cafeterias, ecc, as they don’t represent the phenomenons, which I mean to deal with in this chapter (an ex-ception would be case study n. 5 which is an organized and an authorized project but also represents other aspects which are absolutely relevant to this research). These services will be considered in their presence and proximity in location in case they influence the given case study. I will not inquire phenomenons such as the use of cars or mini vans/campers as solutions for the homeless. I will not inquire the whole area of the elevated railway, of slums at the side of the tracks or unutilized abandoned wagons. All of these phenomenons exist in Milan and in the area of the central station, they represent a fair part of the whole homeless situation and they are to be studied and understood. I consider them as a different phenomenon as they consist a kind of architectonic nature and meaning which is not the one treated within these pages.


59


60

� <Zl^�lmn]r�g'*

At the feet of the Municipal Technical Services Tower

The first case study is located in the crossroads of Via Melchiore Gioia and Via Giovanni Battista Pirelli. The first is a vast road that used to be one of the major canals in the historic Milanese navigli system, connecting the river Adda with the city. Today Via Melchiore Gioia is one of the important traffic axes of the city, going north south, and still bares beneath it the old canal that was covered in the 60’s. Via Giovanni Battista Pirelli on the other hand is one of the streets that part from Piazza Duca d’Aosta.

Via Melc

hiorre

Gioia

Via Melc

hiorre

Gioia

Via Giovanni Battista Pirelli

Air view towards north


61

In this crossroads was built in the mid 60’s the “Torre Servizi Tecnici Comunali” that took part of the whole plan of Milan’s business center district. The building is composed by two volumes: one is a 90 meters high tower of 24 floors, the other is a low volume in a form of a bridge over Via Melchiore Gioia. The building still holds the same function it had when it was first founded as an office building of the technical services of the city of Milan. The site is highly frequented during the day with employees that enter, exit and surround its externals during the day, along with those of the “Telecom-Italia” offices in front of it. There is a metro stop entrance (“Gioia” - M2 green line) right on the site and a somewhat lively movement of people passing by and above all of cars rushing in the roads of Via Gioia. The case study is a pedestrian sidewalk on the southeast of its externals with surfaces designated for the short term parking of light vehicles (motorcycles and bicycles) of the employees of the building and the ones around it, during the day it is densely occupied by all of them.

Full daytime - a light vehicle parking lot in use

1.oo m


62

Site plan


63

Sketch of the site section

During the night the site is completely empty and deserted, it has no active function what so ever and has a very low frequency of people, it is usually also vacant from all of the parking vehicles and even the metro stop next to it doesn’t generate any movement. The site than, is occupied by homeless, in small numbers of 2-4 people not necessarily related to each other, who comes to the site in evening hours around 20:00 o’clock when the site is already left alone from its daytime activities and settle there.

The site provides protection from the rain given to its cantilevered roof and therefore helps to keep up with heavy weather situations. It has, on the one hand, its separation from the city given to the fact that the whole area is deserted and in the other hand the relatively high sense of security for the fact that it is exposed to its surroundings and would unlikely hide situations of violence.

An interesting feature of this case study is the creative use of its inhabitants who utilize the existing bicycle corral as a structure for “cardboard walls” that create smaller and personal spaces for each unit. This also may contribute to the sense of security; the presence of the cardboard walls, that provide a private situation rarely experienced by homeless people, has the capability to isolate the individual from greater context and to allow psychological silence.


64


65

Via d

ella

Liber

azio

ne

Via Melchiore Gioia

Via Melchiore Gioia


66

� <Zl^�lmn]r�g'+

Ng]^k�ma^�ihkmb\h�h_�ma^�@^g^kZeb�[nbe]bg`

The second case study is located on the axis of what use to be the historic railroad of the first station of the 19th century. The same site became later, in 1931, the Porta Nuova railroad station or more known to the Milanese as “Stazione delle Varesine”. In the early 60’s the station was closed and the train traffic was moved to the new (still active today) railroad sta-tion of Porta Garibaldi, a little bit further on to the north west of the city. The area northern to the same old railroad axis was transformed in what was called and also mentioned in the

Air view towards est


67

Full daytime - workers comes back to the office after a brake

first case study as the new plan of Milan’s business center district that was developed in the 60’s. The main idea of the plan was to create a district of only business and tertiary func-tions along with administration offices of the city of Milan and the Lombardy region to relive the congestion on Milan’s historical center. Mainly office buildings and some of Milan’s sky scrappers such as The Pirelli tower and the Galfa Tower compose the district. The plan did not succeed completely as some of the buildings remained empty and not utilised for years. Critics base the somewhat failure to the fact that there was no actual regulation preventing tertiary activities to be established in the city historical center. One of the examples of the failure of the district is the development of a temporary amusement park (it was open for decades) in the vast area of where the “Varesine” station used to lay. Today the area is in advanced transformation again with a stripe of skyscrapers and some lower building desig-nated to tertiary activities, commerce and residence. All of which takes part of the new Porta Nuova plan showing actual form these days in Milan. The case study is located in one of the buildings that took part of the old plan; the Generali building that holds until today tertiary activity of mainly offices and administration functions. Between the Generaly building and the new skyscrapers stripe passes Via della Liberazione with 2 car lanes on each side and a considerable high speed traffic of vehicles.

1.oo m


68

Site plan


69

The site is the long southern portico of the building that becomes a random “dormitory” for the homeless. The nature of the district and the building created a reality in which during the daytime the place is full of people and awake activity of the known Milanese working ambient. People are arriving in the morning, going out for launch, having a cigarette brake under the portico, chatting with each other and filling the place with life. Later, in the early evening, at about 19:00 the place gets completely empty. Then the other identity of the place is revealed; it becomes a site for many homeless people that seek shelter in the streets and come to this long, isolated portico where sometimes; high numbers of 25-30 persons comes to spend the night, each with what he has as a bed.

The characteristics of the site are relatively convenient for the users as it is a covered space that protects from the rain and wind and therefore from the cold in a way. It has a consider-able high separation from the city, as it is a place not frequented at all during the night even though it is practically in the center and minutes walking from the central station.



70


71

The separation is also allowed by its southern frontiers while just after the portico’s pavement finishes, a row of high bushes “closes” it and hides whatever activity held under the portico from the street (Via della Liberazione). After the bush row, a wide lawn in a slight slope sepa-rates from the sidewalk of the high traffic street. Isolation from the city is made and a micro ambient is being created every night.

In the morning, when the workers comes back to work the whole scene changes again while an hour or so of transition is spotted. More workers comes and more lights from the offices are added to the sun, motorcycles are parking under the portico and the homeless popula-tion is slowly converted to regular working men and women.

Transition between night and day - the first to enter the office/the last to wake up


72

� <Zl^�lmn]r�g',

Bglb]^�;Zg\Z�Bgm^lZ�LZg�IZheh�l�:MF�aZee�bg�IbZssZ�=n\Z�]�:hlmZ

The third case study is situated on Piazza Duca d’Aosta at the angle of Via Pisani and Via Napo Torriani, on the Semi circular green part of the Plaza after the cutting tramway com-ing from Via Vitruvio and going towards northwest. Office buildings of tertiary activity and hotels surround the wide plaza that gives space to the high presence of, one of Milan’s most important modern symbols, The Pirelli tower (today the Lombardy region directory tower). The plaza is very much awake during the day, with busy traffic of trams on surface and tow

Vi

a To

rria

ni N

apo

Via

Vitto

r Pisa

ni

Via Vitruvio

Via Giovanni Basttista Pirelli

Air view towards south


73

Full daytime - one of Italy’s biggest banks branches on Piazza Duca d’Aosta

metro lines interchanging beneath it, with passengers arriving and leaving from the station. Piazza Duca d’Aosta is home to temporary markets of different kinds, to political and social demonstrations and rallies and holds concerts and special events. The plaza usually host a big flow of people that other than passengers and tourists are the workers of the hundreds and thousands offices in the area and the Milanese citizens, passing through the it.

The case study is in the Banca Intesa San Paolo building that has on its ground floor one of the bank’s branch. Outside the building’s high and open portico there’s a metro stop entrance for passengers and a large widening of the sidewalk towards the plaza.

Under the portico itself several homeless people find their night stay and sometimes settle there during the day. But this case study is actually about what happens inside the bank itself during the night.


74

1.oo m

Site plan


75


During the late hours of the night, when the public transportation stops, the train station closes its gates, the office buildings are empty from workers and all of the street facades are closed, the whole area gets empty and silent. The branch of Banca Intesa San Paolo of-fers, like in all of its branches, the partial access to the bank in order to allow costumers the withdrawal of money from the ATM machines. The space offered is an intermediate space between the street and the bank, it has tow doors of which one, that leads to the bank itself, stays closed and the other one is open to whom ever asks to enter by simply pushing a small button (some of the other banks obliged their customers to sweep in their credit cards in order to open the door).

The space is highly lighten and has speakers producing ordering sounds while entering and going out or executing actions on the ATM machines, this of course is devoted to the fact that the space contain various sensors of movement. The space is pretty small and its purpose is to serve as a security filter to defend the bank during daytime on one hand and to offer services to costumers when it’s closed on the other. In the case study the use of the space as homeless conduct it is of a shelter. The use is usually of one person and is in a high risk of eviction. The characteristics of the space are higher in quality of comfort while it has climate control system, again to offer better service to clients, who on their side do not enter to withdraw their money while homeless people occupy the place.


76


77


78

Via

Vitru

vio

Via Vittor Pisani

� <Zl^�lmn]r�g'-

Be�F^ssZgbgh��h_�ma^�`k^^g�f^mkh�ebg^�F+

The same Piazza Duca d’Aosta of the previous case study is also the place of the forth and last case study, “Il Mezzanino”. Under the plaza’s ground, lays the crossing of the tow lines of the Milanese metropolitan underground transport system, the green line MM2 and the yellow line MM3. Being a crossing point of tow metro lines in a strategic point of the city and the wide territory that it serves, the metro stop has a big road network of sprouting branches to considerably long distances with various entrances.

Air view towards south


79

Full daytime - a metro corridor

The entrance of Via Vitruvio is maybe the most silent one of them all as it doesn’t connect the passengers with a specific desired destination such as the central station spaces them selves or one of the tram stops around the plaza.

The fourth case study is different then the others by its nature. It is not the classic case of a homeless person that searches for a place to stay with what the city has to offer, it is an organized emergency solution of an every night temporary dormitory held in one of the cor-ridors of the viability system of the metro stop, under Piazza Duca d’Aosta. It has been active in the past years with the collaboration of the city of Milan and ATM, the Milanese company of public transportation in the city. The idea, management and operating of the project is made by “Linea Gialla onlus”, an association founded by past homeless people. The name “Yellow Line” was taken from the repeating calling on all of Italy’s train stations to not pass the yellow line for security reasons. The founders of the association, when being homeless, use to stay in the Greco-Pirelli station and constantly heard the calling. The yellow line was metaphorically interpreted as a limit of a human degrade state, a limit the association is try-ing to help other homeless people to not pass.


80

storage space entrance

sleeping space

The case study is very much similar to the others in the way that it transforms a public space that has a distinct function during the day to a completely different one during the night time. The underground corridor is just like the other ones when it serves as an access to the yellow and green lines in the “Stazione Centrale” metro stop, it behaves like a tube, for the pure movement of walking passengers. In the evening at 19:30, the corridor (colored in yellow) is isolated and neutralised from the others and is prepared by the “Linea Gialla” workers and volunteers for its night shift. From another corridor that serves as a permanent storage space (colored in pink) they take out folding beds and sleeping bags and organize a long linear dormitory of beds in each side and put electric heaters around. The homeless that comes are not allowed to smoke cigarettes, do drugs or drink alcohol, this is also one of the reasons why others do not utilize the service that in cold night hosts up to 150 people. The doors of the “Mezzanino” are closed in midnight and users are asked to arrive before. In order to enter one has to have a confirmed invitation from the help and orientation center. Latecomers are usually refused, but in general if accompanied by the police or holding the


81

right papers, they are allowed to enter. Outside a red cross van is always on duty as well as a police cars who are supposed to patrol the area and visit the “Mezzanino” every half an hour, where fights and riots takes place every night.

The workers has their ways of organizing the dormitory, they try to organize the beds in a way that they leave enough space between them in order to not have friction and violence. They divide it in areas to supervise better and prevent friction between the users; the women are asked to stay close to the operators in a group, then they group also the drunks, the ones who snores, the ones who are ill, ecc. The users are introduced in the entrance one by one when they receive a hot meal and a bottle of water, each is applied with a bed and is asked to stay in his place.


82

Users are not allowed to raise their voices or to sit more than one person on the same bed. When going to the toilets (a chemical one locked with keys in the holding of the operators) they are accompanied with on of the operators.In 06:30 in the morning after a waking call, the homeless are asked to leave the place, the operators fold the whole dormitory and the ATM operators open the doors and in minutes the corridor is filled with the rushing Milanese passengers that storm the metro on their way to work.


84

Conclusions

When starting to perform and write this research I had the concern that the result would come out too sociological in nature and content. The starting point, months before I began working, was in the curiosity leading to the question “Why here?” when witnessing the pres-ence of homeless around the streets of Milan and continued to a personal level when I would ask myself while designing architecture “Would it happen here?”. I didn’t have the answers to those questions and I didn’t perceive how complex they would be.

Developing the work, I found interesting ways and methods that helped me to answer these questions and others I continued on asking. The empirical experience of entering into this context was fascinating, and a lot of the food-for-the-road lies in the methods acquired and to be applied in the future. The sincere will of getting to know the client/user and the neces-sity of learning the context well were proven to me in there most meaningful manner and convincing way.

The main conclusions regarding the research’s argument are to be summed in:

1. Architecture is not the reason why homeless people exist. I actually never had any doubts about it, the roots of the phenomenon lays in society and the economic and politic dynam-ics, in which architecture does has its role of influence by creating certain environments but it is not the direct generator of the phenomenon.

2. The questions of “Why here?” and “Would it happen here?” do find their answers in ar-chitecture or in the upper scale of urban planning. The situation like in all of the case studies in which the function and use of architecture changes and goes far from the initial intentions of the designer are an interesting one. It questions the role and meaning of the designer in the whole life process of architecture and It questions the architects ability to design and imply to their limited capabilities of reading the context and the clients/users. It emphasises how sensitive a designer has to be in order to do his work, to be connected to the context and open to listen to the user.


85

3. The privatisation process composed by the rising value of security and strengthening of financial powers, happening these days at the public spaces of Milan’s central station and in general in the western world shows how architecture is influenced by the economical reality and affect our lives directly, as we are use to live public spaces the way we are taught to with out even noticing it.


86

;b[ebh`kZiar

Oliver, Paul, Built to Meet Needs - Cultural issues in Vernacular Architecture, Elsevier Archi- tectural Press, Amsterdam 2006

Volker Busch-Geertsema, Defining and Measuring Homelessness, from the volume of FEANTSA “Homelessness Research in Europe” edited by Festschrift for Bill Edgar and Joe Doherty, Brussels 2010

MIchela Braga and Lucio Corno, Being a Homeless: Evidence from Italy, Milan 2009

Michela Braga, “racCONTAMI” Seconda Indagine Sui Senza Tetto a Milano, Milano 2013

ISTAT, Le persone senza dimora, Italy 2011

ISTAT, I servizi alle persone senza dimora, Italy 2011

Comunità di Sant’Egidio, Milano DOVE Mangiare Dormire Lavarsi, Roma 2011

Romano Minardi, Residenza fittizia: un diritto per le persone senza fissa dimora e per i senza tetto, Italy 2011

Romano Minardi, Senza fissa dimora,senza tetto, senza diritti., Italy 2011

Kelvin Cuala De Chavez, “THE INVISIBLE SOCIETY” The ‘Street’ Homeless in Milan: An ObservaBon Approach, Milan 2012

Tito Boeri, Article at “La Repubblica” after the results of “racCONTAMI” 2013, Milan 2013


87


88

THANK YOU for the ideas observations, inspiration, guidance and sharing

�� Arch. Erica Rodolfi, Arch. Guglielmo Comini, Arch. Michele Corno of the thesis supervis-ing team led by Prof. Paolo Mestriner

�� Prof. Antonio Tosi

�� Maurizio Rotaris and the staff at “SOS Stazione Centrale”

�� Yna Velleca from the “Mezzanino” and the “Linea Gialla onlus” workers and volunteers

�� The staff at the dormitory of “Caritas Ambrosiana” in Via Sammartini.

�� Arch. Carlo Chambry


89


90

Amit Even

Born and raised in Jerusalem, the golden city, at 1985 and arrived in Milan, the posh city, at 2010 for architecture studies at the Politecnico di Milano.

I believe an architect should be attentive and sensitive to the environment with all of his senses as open as possible. An architect should have the ability to read the context to the fullest and to aspire to the understanding of the user and his needs thoroughly.

An architect should always be hungry to learn new things and experience different ways of living. Ways of being. An architect should never forget to nourish his curiosity.


91

Documents

Inquiring Homeless Architecture