Scalo Farini - Temporary Urban Tactics was a semester-long group project initiated by Landscape and Interior Design Studio at Politecnico di Milano. In this project, I teamed up with four students from Interior Design Master Program to design Scalo Farini, a large nearly abandoned site in the city center of Milan. Used to be a freight train station, Scalo Farini now is viewed as a “wound” in the city landscape that tears apart the neighborhoods, closed and unfriendly. This place needed to be reactivated with human interaction but also respecting to history of the site.

In the past, countless products and materials coming from other cities gathered here in Scalo Farini. Freight trains brought technology, knowledge and culture and also spread them out into the city. This circulation created a center point in the field. From such the concept of “Core” was formed. We wanted to recreate what was for the trains before in a contemporary context for the people and their daily life in the city. We imagined it to be a stop to breathe, to take a break, to socialize and to learn. For structural solutions, the wagon is the starting point. For the location choices in the site, the project creates an urban space around Lancetti Train Station glass structures, which would enabled visitors to hear and feel the train passing from underground railway.

Cores have functions related to the characteristic of the zoning: educational line, museum, social area, plaza and concert area, chill area, park, sports area, bicycle lab. The structures of the two main cores interact with movement of human and trains, keeping Scalo Farini alive.

Interactive Structure video credit: Ahmet Aslan