The aim of the study is to find an abandoned building, space or area in Piacenza and convert it into a Creative Milieu, a place for the Creative Class. The site we selected is the Po Riverfront.
It is scarcely used due to the following reasons: Situated away from the urban centre. No activities on site and no street furniture. Absence of public amenities on site. “The creative city identifies nurtures, attracts and sustains talent so it is able to mobilize ideas, talents and creative organizations. The built environment is crucial for establishing the milieu. A creative milieu is a place that contains the necessary requirements in terms of hard and soft infrastructure to generate a flow of ideas and inventions.” (Anon.
, n.d.) A set of objectives is formed to rectify the issues and create a milieu for the creative class. 1. Proposal of Hard Infrastructures – Exhibition Centre, Amphitheatre, Trade and Fair spaces, Playground, Riverfront Promenade and Interactive Arts. 2. The proposal o (Anon.
, n.d.)f several Soft Infrastructures in three broad categories – Arts and Actions, Interactive Multimedia, Sports. The proposed activities can be updated on a calendar, where people can book slots for the events they like to conduct, and also view the time and dates for other events. Advertisements and various social media platforms provide the publicity required.3.
Urban Acupuncture. We selected five key locations in the Urban Centre which can attract the Creative Crowd and have water features. In those sites without existing water features, we proposed water elements.
Every selected site has installations acting as indicators to the main site.4. Implementation of Tactical Urbanism, wherein we proposed various inexpensive, temporal activities that can be taken up and implemented by the community. The 4 main action plans in this are – Pop-up Activities, the conquest of New Public Spaces, Green versus Grey and Mobile Activities. Despite the issues that are prevalent in making Piacenza into a Creative City, the proposal of a creative milieu will open new doors for research in this field.
