Intensity. Revealing the Potential of Spaces

The aim of this paper is to analyze, through the oblique perspective of intensity, the new issue raised from new practices of reactivation of preexisting spaces in the city, often involving the reconfiguration of activities and uses over time. In recent years, thanks to different processes and practices, urban unoccupied spaces have become catalyst that can act to create supplementary spaces for unspoken needs and desires. From this oblique point of view, it is possible to read such a process and understand that it is triggered by material and immaterial features of spaces, which we can define as the potential, the hidden capability to hold and host new unpredictable uses. To develop, analyze and encourage these processes new rules, indicators, and tools are necessary to trigger, show and enact this hidden potential. Thanks to its capacity to read together - space, time, uses - we propose intensity as a dynamic indicator capable of analyzing, describing, catching and activating the potential of spaces and projects to catalyze these kinetic processes. In this frame, projects act as a platform, an open system that includes flexible, adaptable devices. Within this different point of view all spaces – from micro to macro, from private to public - can be rethought as infinite spaces for something new, for unpredictable uses and opportunities over time.