The challenge of functional mix. A European perspective: the experiences of Milan, Copenhagen and Hamburg

A research project commissioned by the Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture within the research program ""Mixité fonctionelle versus zoning : de noveaux enjeux?". The Multidisciplinary Research group was coordinated by Massimo Bricocoli and Paola Savoldi and involved 3 research units investigating in 3 different European cities: Milano (Massimo Bricocoli, Paola Savoldi, Francesco Curci at Politecnico di Milano), Copenhagen (Jens Kvorning, Katrine Østergaard Bang, Bruno Tournay at Center for Urbanism, Royal Danish Academy for the Fine Arts), Hamburg (Ingrid Breckner, Nima Dafateri-Moghaddam at HafenCity University). The redevelopment of inner city urban areas has been a main concern for European cities dealing with post-industrial restructuring in the last decades. Large areas have been released from a manufacturing vocation and have been transformed through large-scale development projects. It is worth investigating how spatial and social organization processes are developing in these new urban areas which tend to display a significant role in supporting the attractiveness of cities and in hosting a consistent number of new economic activities as well as in housing those inhabitants who “return to the city” in a phase of re-urbanisation. In this respect, driving research questions have been: under which conditions, and with which expectations, do people decide to settle in the central city? What sort of city-space has been produced? How and why are uses influencing urban qualities? Which are the elements that allow and support a mix of functions and social groups in the face of prevalent tendencies towards separation and segregation?
Along these questions, we have been analysing (through direct observation, intensive field work and interviewing, policy analysis and a photo reportage) three redevelopment projects which are emblematically documenting the transformation of productive areas into multifunctional urban areas with a residential core function: Bicocca/Milan, Islands Brygge/Copenhagen, HafenCity/Hamburg.