Rethink Spaces with Students. Graphics: The Use of Drawing to Redesign a Square in Bicocca

Abstract

The article recounts the workshop that took place during the Image Education AA 2018/2019 course with the students and the aim of it was; the observation and the proposal of possible transformations of an external space. Specifically, the work elaborates the exploration of a newly inaugurated green area and then the renewal of a square inside the campus of University of Milan-Bicocca. The development of a project to modify the layout and urban furniture thanks to the placement of an assembly connected to the symbol of the Third Paradise of the Michelangelo Pistoletto can be found in this location. Beyond the actual execution of the project, this perspective has been taken as a pretext to work on the spaces. This action is closely linked to the ultimate graduation objective of these students, which is to become teachers in kindergartens and elementary schools. For them, the understanding behind setting up spaces, interpreted as a “third educator”, is one of the key elements of the education. Careful observation, on-site sketching and working on maps were the fundamentals of the workshop. These instruments became the means of personal and collective documentation that which unfolds various scenarios; confining the assignment to the classroom, contributing to the research to find an expressive procedure, but also opening up to the transformative and participative prospective of the city, understood as a place to exist in a different way, giving space to one’s own and to other people’s voices in a process of change and improvement.