Towards a tactic for the Darsena: co-designing urban development scenarios

By the time I reached the former shooting range, I felt a bit dizzy from the sun. Walking along the Candiano Canal in the afternoon heat with no trees and shadows in sight, it felt as if all the residents of the neighbourhood withdrew themselves in their bedrooms for a well-deserved siesta. Only a couple of bicycles passed by me on the way, like a mirage, hurrying on towards their destination, presumably to find a cool spot as quickly as possible.

I took the morning train to travel from Rome to Ravenna. Still sleepy from the early start, I had a quick lunch and returned to my hotel to hide from the sun for a few hours. When I gathered my strength after a short nap, it was time to get ready for the evening event.

I arrived to the shooting range a bit earlier to catch Emanuela Medeghini, the project coordinator of DARE for a video interview. As I entered the gates, I found myself in the midst of an immense garden, with organisers placing chairs in rows in front of a projection screen and preparing a buffet table under the bustling plants growing over the edge of the shooting range.

To break the vast continuity of the garden, the remnants of a building served as walls to divide the space into smaller open rooms, decorated for the occasion with black-and-white photos, depicting scenes of the Darsena’s history. By the time I finished the interview with Emanuela, the garden began to fill up with participants gathering for the event. Guardare dentro e guardare oltre (Looking within and looking beyond) – the meeting promised an overview of the different tactics developed for the Darsena.

Congregating in the overshadowed corners of the garden, guests were soon invited to move together towards the separated rooms. With improvised tables built from pallets at their centre, these rooms were prepared to host the three “tactics,” sets of initiatives constituting different scenarios of urban development for the Darsena.

Based on the results of the analysis and of the workshop, in November 2021 the municipality of Ravenna announced two calls for proposals: one focusing on the venues, the spaces and the physical regeneration of the Darsena district, while the other call focusing on innovative entrepreneurial ideas. The logic of call was collaborative, instead of competitive: “When we launched the calls, we didn’t describe it a competition: we intentionally wanted to stay away from a competitive mindset as we wanted to encourage cooperation,” recalls Emanuela Medeghini, project coordinator of the DARE project. The process was conceived as “participation by doing – instead of a participation of proposing.”

The urban development proposals had to fall under three types of intervention (activation and reuse of common goods, temporary use and reuse, transformative projects of public interest); had to fit into at least one of the three development scenarios and identify up to three objectives of the call; had a good level of definition and economic and technical feasibility; and had to realistically envision to start their project by 2023.

In order to support a conscious and collective involvement in the transformation processes of the Darsena, DARE designed and launched  “Approdo Comune” (Common Landing place), a digital environment to encourage the construction of collaborative and participatory project proposals. The proposals were published online between November 2021 and February 2022, allowing initiators to find new partners, make connections and develop synergies with each other.

In March 2022, an Evaluation Commission certified the formal requirements and the consistency of the proposals with the objectives and development scenarios. In order to make projects evolve and mature, March, April and May 2022 were characterised by an in-depth study of project proposals. During this phase, proponents had the chance to learn about new opportunities to finance their projects, meet potential financiers, and establish new partnerships and alliances both with local and national entities. The cornerstone of this phase was RADAR, a real estate forum held in Darsena on April 26-27, 2022. This event was aimed at investors and real estate advisors, representatives of the construction sector, industry and SMEs, researchers and third sector operators, innovators, property owners and representatives of the Public Administration. Through the activation of three working tables, MULTILAB helped proponents work on possible synergies between the project proposals that will activate the “tactics”, integrated and coordinated sets of feasible projects which can guarantee the greatest possible effectiveness in the development of the regeneration process by jointly pursuing a shared development scenario. By the end of May 2022, initiators were invited to re-submit their projects informed, inspired and refined by these new encounters.

The tactic of the Darsena Laboratory (a place of knowledge of experimentation) envisioned the area as a centre of artistic and cultural production, hosting major events and concerts and accommodating the creative energies of professionals and citizens alike. The tactic of the Cosmopolitan Darsena (a place of community, inclusion and interchange) characterised by a strong sense of belonging and pride among its inhabitants, aimed to strengthen the awareness of the history and complexity of the place where they live and cultivates this sense of community. The tactic of the Green Darsena (a place for sustainable and open-air lifestyles) offered a healthy and responsible lifestyle in a neighbourhood with a low environmental impact and develops a Darsena to be experienced mainly on foot and by bicycle.

The projects constituting these tactics included a Multidisciplinary Centre for the Performing Arts in the Almagià; the ZamenhOFF project for the recovery and enhancement of personal and neighbourhood histories; the Darsena Youth Space, a multifunctional centre dedicated to young people and the Pole of Digital Culture; the Galleria Simultanea dedicated to contemporary artistic languages; the Officina dei Mestieri, a school for lost trades connecting artisans and young people; the festival Legante combining literature with scientific dissemination on the sea and its ecosystems; Digital Orthopaedics, an innovation space focusing on materials applied to orthopaedics; Inclusivicity for accessible accommodation and sports services; DarsenaPark for skateboarding, Canotaggio for watersports in the Darsena; the Bicigrill, a space for cyclists with information, services and refreshments; and SUSPORT for the construction of an integrated system of photovoltaic panels and a charging station for electric cars at the Port Authority premises.

Some of the proposals were conceived with specific locations in mind, often falling in love with one of the industrial buildings in the former port. Others focused on an activity, looking for suitable spaces that could accommodate them. This is where the role of the municipality was crucial: public officers needed to continue the work started at RADAR and take the role of matchmakers, helping initiatives find their locations and engaging property owners to connect with the initiatives.

Between June and September 2022, the three tactics, presented through the initiatives, were competing for votes. Ravenna citizens were asked to decide whether they would like to live in the Darsena Laboratory, the Cosmopolitan Darsena or the Green Darsena, giving voice to their preference using BiPart’s digital participation platform. Besides matchmaking with relevant property owners, the winning tactic and the corresponding projects won support by the DARE partnership in the form of targeted consultancy, guidance and fundraising.

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I followed the crowd moving across the open room as the event unfolded. In each open room, separated by the concrete walls of the former shooting range one of the tactics are presented. The waking wind that blowed through the open structure made the warmth of the afternoon more tolerable. In the open rooms, the improvised pallet tables were covered with posters and the initiators of projects for the Darsena took the stage. One after the other, they presented their proposals according to the tactics they belonged to, based on the synergies developed in the past months. The tactics were conceived to connect the individual projects, developing synergies between them and turning them into development scenarios for the whole neighbourhood. “I don’t think there is one single project that would make this area better,” explained to me Emanuela Medeghini. “I think that altogether they will make this area alive again.”

The proposals, ranging from smaller interventions, festivals and temporary actions to larger renovation and adaptive reuse projects, corresponded to the diversity of ideas for the Darsena. ”The proposals are very rich in terms of their perceptions of the area,” recalled Francesca Passeri, member of the selection committee, “they are a combination of non-profit ideas, for-profit proposals from different business sectors, with different kinds of inclusion models – they represent the soul of the city.”

By the time we finished the presentations of the tactics through the initiatives, the night fell over the Darsena. The evening continued with an aperitivo, live music and the screening of archive films, found in family archives by the association Sguardi in camera (Glances in the camera), specialised in collecting and showcasing amateur movies created on Super8, 9.5mm and 16mm film.

My head was full of memories, images of the past Darsena, when I set to leave the event. Much of what was shown on the screen does not exist anymore. Not only the people are no more whose smiles and gestures still live in these films and possibly in the memories of their descendants. The fishermen, the dock workers and the Ravennati strolling around the port in the weekend are all gone: and so are the port, the docks, the warehouses and all the industrial activities of the port. A loss of identity and reference for a generation of people whose livelihood was connected to the port.

Will the Darsena’s new identity will be that of innovation and creativity, multicultural diversity, or green areas and leisure? Walking home along the Candiano Canal I watched the area getting crowded with people enjoying the warm evening along the water. Besides the strollers who populated  the pavement along the canal, mobile vendors and terraces stretched into the public space, filling the air with the smell of consumption. Are there alternatives to the commercialisation of the Candiano Canal? Can the spontaneous, business-driven transformation of the waterfront still be shaped by the initiatives of associations, social enterprises or universities? It will take years to understand the impact of DARE and its influence towards a shared narrative of the Darsena.