Repair the city

LOC - Loreto Open Community: the new square

There is a lot of talk about this last hub periphery/centre. The LOC - Loreto Open Community project is the work of Nhood, a private partner of the Municipality of Milan and winner of the C40 Reinventing Cities tender.

From no man's land that marks the border between the city and the suburbs to a point of convergence in which the permeability between the different areas aims to repair and remedy the social fabric of the area.

Carlos Moreno spoke about it at length during a Lectio Magistralis at the Milan Triennale at the end of May. LOC will in fact be the first urban experiment in Milan inspired by the theories of the 15-minute city.

What will LOC look like?

Imagine a green island, a space where you can stop for a chat, take the children to play and at the same time access basic services and collective places, pedestrian and cycle paths.

A project that aims to bring beauty and human space to the city and all its inhabitants.

This is how Andrea Boschetti, head of design and founding partner of Metrogramma, describes it: “LOC is a regeneration project that focuses on the sense of community as glue between parts of the city, is the symbolic project of a new era of urban projects oriented towards cities that must be rethought to be brought closer to citizens.

In this sense, the new Piazza Loreto should also be read as a contribution of architecture to a new world".

Carlos Moreno: “A humane and sustainable alternative”

Carlos Moreno: “I theorized the concept of 'quarter hour city' in 2016 to propose a humane and sustainable alternative to the dominant technological smart city concepts.

The concept has since gone from theory to reality, with concrete applications around the world.

See also: The 15-minute city is the city of cures

Paris was the first city to transform itself following the guidelines and objectives of the 15-minute city. Under the leadership of Anna Hidalgo the project was implemented from 2019-2020 through several actions: pedestrianization of the center of Paris and the streets in front of the schools, opening of the recreation classes for weekend use, revegetation of streets and sidewalks, multiplication of cycle paths, creation of city kiosks…”

Put the community back at the centre

Moreno's proposals convince everyone, because they substantially put the urban community back at the centre, the people. According to the urban planner, who is scientific director of the 'Entrepreneurship, Territory, Innovation' chair at the Sorbonne, those who live in cities have endured the unbearable for a long time.

Cities designed to be experienced inside a car, lack of social spaces and proximity services, abandoned and unused public and private buildings, poor rationalization of existing resources.

The solution is quite clear and aims above all to ensure that citizens regain possession of the collective space thanks to interventions on territorial hardware.

Piazzale Loreto is a magnificent example of degeneration and abandonment. An enormous space used as a hub for traffic entering and leaving Milan, which marks the passage between the north-eastern suburbs and Milan for drinking, which begins right here with Corso Buenos Aires, one of the longest shopping streets in the world.