Redrawing Valpolcevera. The Morandi Bridge and the Valley as a complex project of urban regeneration

After the collapse – August 14, 2018 – of the viaduct on the Polcevera, the Coastal Design Lab1 (hereafter CDL) worked with the aim to redesign the entire system of the Valley taking into account architectural, industrial, environmental and infrastructural emergencies. As a prerequisite, CDL chose to preserve the east side of the Morandi Bridge as evidence of one of the most significant interventions of Italian ingenious in the eld of structures during the Sixties. Following this purpose, the preserved segment – the one with stays – is returned to the city with a new public vocation. During its six-monthly research activity, CDL confronted the authorities, interrogated scholars and residents and proposed its reasoning and projects to the public debate. The goal of public exposure and dissemination has led to adopt a single graphic technique to communicate the different projects elaborated by the students as a harmonic product. To do that, a double representation register was set: for the initial survey – carried out collectively – color schemes and coordinated layouts were arranged, while for the in-depth analysis, groups were free to develop a personal code of representation. In the end, the 8 projects were illustrated together in two large tapestries which allowed a transversal and synchronic view of the interventions. In parallel with the investigation approach and with the development of new strategies, the design topics addressed by the CDL were decisive for establishing the advanced degree of representation. Once again, the exercise of representation was structured as a form of governance of the great complexity: different levels of information were set whose interlacing provides valuable tools to understand and verify the substance of what is represented.