Redesigning Milan

In the last unit of the Urban Planning course we looked at the basics of urban planning in more depth. We focused more on the infrastructure and design part of the urban planning of actual places. We looked at a bunch of different cities and saw how they changed over time to become the way that they are now. For the action project in this unit, we were asked to pick an area of a city of our choice that we wanted to redesign. Something that was difficult for me in this project was picking the area I wanted to redesign. There are so many places around the world that I could have chosen. I am glad that I decided to do Milan, Italy because it is one of my favorite places. I am proud of the way my project came out.

Redesigning Milan

I will be redesigning Milan, Italy, specifically il duomo di Milano. It is the center area of Milan and holds its biggest church in the center of the piazza. It gets millions of visitors a month and the church is a big symbol in/for Milan. The strengths of this area are that it’s a big open space, there are many shops surrounding it, and it is well-known so there are lots of people. The weaknesses are that there is no greenery. It is all concrete. This space needs more trees and maybe a fountain in the center in front of the Duomo. I want to add a fountain to make it more interesting, add more trees to make it more green and make it more pleasing, and widen the sidewalk since there are so many tourists the sidewalks get pretty crowded. Widening them would help a lot, adding a green space rather than just concrete would give people a place to sit other than just on the concrete, and creating a bike path so bikers are safe from all of the traffic.

Before. MF, 2016

My fountain was inspired by the Trevi fountain that is located in the heart of Rome. I like that there is a piece in the middle to make the fountain look more extravagant. I also think that, like some parts of Chicago, I want to have sectioned off bike paths in the streets. I also want to kind of mirror the greenery that is in Central park in New York. The Conservatory Garden blooms every year and I want there to be some kind of flowers in his space to make the space more pleasing to the eye.  I was also inspired by Majora Carter who said that adding in green spaces would help brighten up the area. 

After. MF, 2016

My redesigned space relates to transportation because I created a bike path so that bikers were safer and could worry less about getting injured by a car. I also wanted to fix up the concrete so that there weren’t so many holes in it. I also created a large green space so that the space was not all concrete and it had some kind of greenery. This redesign would benefit the infrastructure of the area a lot because the concrete was becoming very dirty and no one was doing anything about it so having grass put in would make it more appealing. Adding a bike lane would benefit the transit in Milan because it would give bikers a safe place to ride and give the cars back their space so they can drive without worrying about hitting bikers.

The shape of the area I am redesigning is a rectangle that is 450m by 500m. It has an area of 225,000 meters². The volume of the sphere in the middle of the fountain is 28235.1 meters³. I found this by figuring out that the diameter of my sphere is 47.6. I then divided that by 2 to find the radius which is 23.8. Then I used the volume formula for a sphere (4/3πr³) and got 56470.2 meters³. Since it is half a sphere, I divided the answer by 2 and got 28235.1 meters³. I also found that the volume of one of the cone-shaped trees is 28233.1 meters³. I found this by finding that the radius of the cone is 23.8 meters and the height is 47.6 meters. Then I did the volume formula for a cone (1/3πr²h) and got 28233.1 meters³.

It was difficult to pick the area that I wanted to change. I also wasn’t sure how I wanted to change the space to make it more friendly to transportation. I would probably pick another space to change if I was to do this again because it would be interesting to see how another space could be recreated. 

Citations:

Talk, TED. "Majora Carter." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TED, June 2006. Web. 27 May 2016.

Moore, John. "Conservatory Garden Blooms." Central Park. Central Park, 23 Apr. 2016. Web. 27 May 2016.

Fountain, Trevi. "Your Professional Guide to the Trevi Fountain Artworks." Your Professional Guide to the Trevi Fountain Artworks. Trevi Fountain, 2015. Web. 27 May 2016.

The Wave

During this first unit of If These Walls Could Talk, we talked about murals in pre- history and the renaissance time period. For the Renaissance, we looked at multiple artists and pieces they created and how they contributed to the new era. For pre- history, we looked at the way cave painters created movement in different ways and how complex the art was even though it came from over 30,000 years ago. For the first Action Project in the If These Walls Could Talk, we had to research a neighborhood in Chicago and create a mural highlighting some of the needs that community faces. This mural would potentially be displayed in the neighborhood. I really like the way that my drawing came out. I feel like it really got the point I was trying to make across and I think my drawing are really nice.

Artist's Statement

MF

11/2015

The Wave 11” x 14”

Marker on paper

Uptown has always been a place full of culture. With its many ethnic restaurants and shops, there is always something new to try. While they do have multiple ethnic restaurants, they also have many chain stores/restaurants which is good for the majority if they just want to go to well known places. Since Uptown is one of the most known neighborhoods in Chicago, there is a serious sanitation problem. People will come and instead of throwing their trash away in the many garbage cans there are, they choose to throw their trash on the streets and in the parks. This is causing a lot of problems because it is becoming so dirty and unpleasant that people are beginning to move away. The people in the neighborhood have been trying to organize monthly garbage clean ups which never seem to work. It never seems to work because once they are finished, more garbage just suddenly appears like it fell from the sky.

MF. Mural Sketch. 2015

For my scene, I’ve sketched the outline of uptown with a large “garbage” wave falling all over the neighborhood. On the side you can see a sign that says “you are now leaving uptown” with people running away. My sketch is under the category of revolt. This is because the people in uptown are sick of all the garbage around the neighborhood and want to get rid of it. I chose the uptown neighborhood. The need of my community is sanitation. Since 2014, the people of uptown have been organizing garbage clean up days but nothing seems to be changing. The trash cans are still overflowing and people chose to just throw their garbage on the streets. My sketch references the garbage because you can see in the wave that there is a coke can and a starbucks cup flying towards the ground. I specifically chose those two products because there are a lot of starbucks’ around the uptown area and also there are a lot of convenient stores.

I decided to incorporate the Greek style by using a lot of greens and blues. Also the style of the wave kind of relates to the way the Greek painted things: very exaggerated. People have been moving away from the uptown area so I drew people running away from the garbage wave. Some people say that soon enough the entire world will be underneath garbage which is one of the main reasons why I created this. By just throwing things away in the proper places, we can help save the earth.

Once complete, this mural will be on the walls all around uptown. It will be used to show the people of uptown and the people who just come to uptown to visit that the cleanliness and the future of uptown depends on them and how they chose to keep up the neighborhood. Hopefully people will realize that by just throwing away some trash in a garbage can, they can make a huge impact.