From tramway-line to park – mapping the process of an urban transformation

Aim of the research is to analyse the different dynamics which put into effect the transformation process of an abandoned green linear space into an urban park in the city of Turin, Italy. The Precollinear Park has been developed by a non-profit organisation in a portion of a former tramway line area exactly positioned in the in-between belt dividing two different administrative districts. Therefore, a normative and physical vacancy opened the possibility for the organisation to tempo- rarily take the management of the area, making the project being rec- ognised through the institution of a public-private partnership. The project has been carried out by a private intervention, initiated by a non-profit actor, which has been using the operational and financial support of the local community, both public and private. On the review of this specific process, the paper examines the con- tinuous aggregations, variations and deviations which made the pro- ject happen by presenting the different human and non-human actors which took part in it, highlighting the combination among different elements and their effects. What this case study shows can be considered as twofold: from one hand, it depicts the diagrammatic course of the different actions which made the project possible, and investigates its peculiar process; from the other, it questions the role of non-institutionalised neither profes- sional actors, which without any official elective nor technical-admin- istrative mandate, manage to intervene in urban spaces and transform the city. Ethnographic methods applied to the study of architectural projects help fostering the conversation about the externalisation of public services to private actors in cities urban developments and the role a topic like city branding may have in this.