ABITARE MIGRANTE. PROGETTO OLTRE L’EMERGENZA

MIGRANT HOUSING. DESIGNING BEYOND THE EMERGENCY. The connotations that migratory phenomena take nowadays highlight a shortage of specific and organic responses from the disciplines that have traditionally supported (favoring or anticipating processes) the application of transformation policies and homing-oriented programs. Themes and issues such as welcoming, rooting, and inclusion of migrants are intertwined with marginalization, exploitation, exclusion, and invisibilization. These dynamics tend to be translated into the manner in which spaces are used, in the forms of governance adopted, and in the physical form of the city. Within this framework, this article attempts to investigate and reflect on the lack (?) of discipline-specific proposals and on the role that design practice (at architectural and urban scale) can play in proposing concrete and specific housing responses, articulating material and immaterial components. The scarce contributions from the project disciplines are mainly related to solutions referred to emergency problems and work on the notion of housing as shelter but very rarely on housing as home, as a symbolic device for the construction of citizenship, inclusion, and personal/family fulfillment. Carried out by a multidisciplinary team composed of architects, participatory facilitators, institutions, and inhabitants, the La Salette collective housing – a former squat in the city of Turin that has undergone a gradual process of legalization and renovation and now permanently hosts about 90 people – represents an interesting case study intended to contribute to a necessary plural work of surveying, typifying and characterizing the methodologies and possibilities for formulating concrete, localized and operational proposals for migrant housing solutions.