Costanza la Mantia | University of the Witwatersrand (original) (raw)

Papers by Costanza la Mantia

City of Dead, the widest and most ancient cemetery of Cairo, hosts, starting from the ninth centu... more City of Dead, the widest and most ancient cemetery of Cairo, hosts, starting from the ninth century, many "inhabitants", starting from the massive immigration from rural areas bordering Cairo, and then as a response to the impressive, massive urbanization that, together with a constantly increasing demographic index, made of Cairo a metropolis with an unsustainable density, producing, beside other effects (traffic, pollution, soil consumption , etc.), a huge number of homeless. In a world in which homologation of cities, disguised under the word development, hides the slavish acquisition of imported development models, it is important to work in order to defend uniqueness and differences and to convey it to governments, either local or national, as a policies’ framework, based on their resources and identity, is the only way to follow for to attain a real and sustainable development. In this trend it is placed this International Action-Research project "Living in the City of Dead"; an Italian-Egyptian bi-lateral project between Polytechnic of Milan and the University Ain Shams in Cairo. The purpose of the project is to overcome the partial and reductive vision about City of Dead as a "plague" of Cairo and make it reconsider as means of extraordinary resource, either cultural or etno-anthropological. Thus the deep aim of the project is about valorising it as cultural heritage to preserve with all its social, architectural and environmental systems, viewing it as an experimental context on which it is possible to test new strategies and development models for Cairo of tomorrow. The project works on several levels, starting from a detailed study of the site, of its problems and potentialities, it proposes the structuring of governance process leading to a new Vision (project) and to the definition of relevant policies for City of Dead: policies in which the inhabitants are considered an active part in the retraining processes. Moreover, on a parallel plan, it is brought forward a field work with the inhabitants, for assisting them to form into a recognizable Association and to develop a circuit of Integrated Relational Tourism within City of Dead. This point is starting from the deep belief that this kind of intervention can generate new informal micro-economies, capable of gradually improving the inhabitants’ socio-economic conditions. Consequently this is a project with a strong trans-disciplinary approach, which weaves the themes of valorisation of local heritage either material or non material, of the policies designed to pursue a sustainable and lasting development through new ways of interactive planning and of tourism as a bottom-up development engine. The paper outlines the project, the working methods and the first achieved results

$Research paper thumbnail of Visions: sperimentazioni creative alla ricerca di una nuova identit\ue0 urbana$

The Urban Book Series, 2021

This chapter outlines a framework for an interconnected, multi-tiered strategy linking architectu... more This chapter outlines a framework for an interconnected, multi-tiered strategy linking architecture and development planning in the rural Lesotho town of Semonkong, using a hospital project as a case study. The concept of inverse planning is introduced, focused on small-scale strategies that challenge the scalar movement of influence, seeking to work from micro-scale systems and logistics towards macro-scale tiers of influence. The concept of socioecological infrastructure is also used as a core theoretical framework for process development and design strategies. The chapter outlines a rigorous community engagement rooted in the capability approach, and a structure tying it to the development of an underlying impact strategy using a process entitled POISE (possibilities, opportunities, indicators, support, and exit strategy). The chapter outlines the findings of research done to develop the impact strategy and it translates them into practicable actions and strategies. The project i...

This chapter presents both the premises and the general outcomes of an International Planning and... more This chapter presents both the premises and the general outcomes of an International Planning and Design workshop held in Johannesburg from September 12–26, 2015. The workshop was organized as a partnership between the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies—DAStU from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the Wits City Institute and the Centre for Built Environment Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). Starting from an existing engagement between scholars from the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Kya Sands Community in Johannesburg, the two universities decided to mobilize resources and expertise and organize a two-week collaborative upgrading workshop in Johannesburg. The workshop, framed as a laboratory for technical and social learning, was open to international postgraduate students and young professionals willing to challenge their knowledge in a trans- and multidisciplinary setting. By framing design both as an exploratory and exemplification tool—able to foster negotiations and collaborations while triggering creativity—the workshop aimed at responsively rooting and contextualizing solutions in the community. Through the exploration of experimental collaborative design and planning methodologies, the workshop explored a holistic, incremental, and integrative development strategy for the settlement.

Sustainable Urban Development and Globalization

This paper aims to give an evocative rather than technically descriptive portrait of the city of ... more This paper aims to give an evocative rather than technically descriptive portrait of the city of Johannesburg, attempting to reveal how a logic which structured the city around control and segregation is disrupted more by the informal flows of life than by the rhetoric of spatial and economic transformation that characterizes the city since the demise of apartheid. In the face of a specifically engineered physical dispersion and segregation, and in tension with both physical realities and government policy, the urban poor have been re-territorializing the city, undermining the legacy of rigid apartheid spatial segregations. This is opposing the paradigm of a world shaped and controlled by power and rational social planning with one built around relational networks and basic needs, and characterized by informal practices. The paper argues that if liberated by the vocabulary of a hegemonic Westernized culture, informality can reveal itself to be a counter-strategy capable of generating a means of response to the failure of certain urban mainstreams tied to a market economy.

Cairo is a dense, compact megalopolis with an urban growth, mostly the victim of inadequate or no... more Cairo is a dense, compact megalopolis with an urban growth, mostly the victim of inadequate or non-existent planning, that spilled out during the last century into the informal sector and is powerfully threatened by the new Cairo 2050 strategic plan. Policies already partially put into action before the revolution reflected a government characterised by a top-down system of decision-making, the same system the evolution strongly placed in jeopardy. For the City of the Dead, an immense historic cemetery, still functioning and still inhabited, and a major symbol of the complexity and contradictions that distinguish Cairo, this urban policy envisaged the complete eradication of the resident community and its destruction. The lack of recognition of its rich social and cultural fabric and the complex heritage unrecognised as a resource, underline an attitude that characterises the urban policies of the deposed Regime.

… di ricerca. Ricerche di territori. Atti …, 2010

Sezione Iv declinare l'equitÀ nella pianiFicaZione Temi e questioni tra difficoltà reali e p... more Sezione Iv declinare l'equitÀ nella pianiFicaZione Temi e questioni tra difficoltà reali e possibili scenari Costanza La Mantia, Giovanna Regalbuto Premessa. Delle definizioni: un dibattito acceso L'Equità è un concetto che attiene strettamente a quello di democrazia e di giustizia ...

The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization

This booklet is the result of a three-year funded programme at the University of the Witwatersran... more This booklet is the result of a three-year funded programme at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) titled “Urban Resilience Assessment for Sustainable Urban Development”. The Programme was developed with the specific intention of giving support to local government in South Africa. This was done with the recognition that municipalities have a potentially vital role in proactively managing processes of change.
The idea of resilience arguably adds a new and compelling dimension to policy and planning, but there is also a danger that, as its use multiplies, it will become an increasingly fuzzy, catch-all term that we pay homage to as a form of lip-service.
The specific purpose of this document is to assist municipalities in South Africa in applying ideas of urban resilience in a thoughtful, intelligent and critical, way. It is not designed as a “manual” or “tool box”, but rather as a tool to promote urban resilience thinking.
The booklet is the result of this three-years, trans-disciplinary Research is divided into five major thrusts, being:
1. Resilience and urban governance
2. Resilience in urban form and fabric
3. Resilience in urban infrastructures
4. Resilience of natural assets and ecological systems
5. Green economies for resilience

The City of the Dead is the name of Cairo's historic cemeteries. They are both part of the incred... more The City of the Dead is the name of Cairo's historic cemeteries. They are both part of the incredibly rich architectural heritage of the city and one of the most populated informal settlements in a city where 75% of housing is informal. They are a unique case of an extraordinary coexistence between living and dead people, but also one of the few green infrastructures of the city, rich in vegetation, water wells and water tables. This paper is an account of a long collaborative research project, culminated with the production of a participatory "counter-Vision" of the future of the Cairo historic cemeteries. A Vision inspired by the principles of urban resilience in all its connotations, and triggered by a series of small experimental projects developed together with the inhabitants. In reflecting on this experience in Cairo, this paper sets a series of question around the role of design in the complex contemporary urban scenario: How can we impact resilient transformations in cities while using far fewer resources to address far more people's needs? What is the role of design in operationalizing sustainability and resilience principles within this highly multi and inter-disciplinary framework?

The paper offers a critical account of the strategic planning process carried out in Mazara del V... more The paper offers a critical account of the strategic planning process carried out in Mazara del Vallo, a medium-sized Sicilian city whose development model has been characterised by the dominant role of the local fishery economy. From the 1970s onwards, the workforce employed in the fishery industry was mostly of North African origin (particularly Tunisian). In the past few years, rising economic and social processes have put into question the survival of the North African population in the city, the presence of which could be a strategic asset in light of the following future Euro-Mediterranean integration scenarios: (a) the deep crisis in the fishery sector, which is calling into question the survival of several hundred jobs for the immigrant population; and (b) the degradation of the Old Town and the ancient Canal Port, representing tangible obstacles to the diversification of the urban economy and a looming threat to local living conditions.

INFOLIO

INFOLIO marco picone francesca arici annalisa contato rosangela formoso elena Giannola alessandra... more INFOLIO marco picone francesca arici annalisa contato rosangela formoso elena Giannola alessandra raccuglia francesca lotta simona rubino angela saccomanno maria laura scaduto alvaro ramoneda f. ramòn sànchez v. costanza la mantia salvatore messina lorenzo canale fabio cutaia simone tulumello INFOLIO dipartimento di architettura sezione città, territorio, paesaggio via dei Cartari 19b, 90133 Palermo Tel. +39 091 60790108 -Fax +39 091 60790113

francoangeli.it

The City of the Dead, the largest and most ancient cemetery of Cairo, since the ninth century, ha... more The City of the Dead, the largest and most ancient cemetery of Cairo, since the ninth century, has hosted many "inhabitants", starting from the massive immigration from rural areas bordering Cairo, and then in response to the impressive and massive urbanization that, combined with a constantly increasing demographic index, made Cairo a metropolis with an unsustainable density, producing, besides other e ects (tra c, pollution, soil consumption , etc.), a huge number of homeless. In a world in which homologation of cities, disguised under the term development, hides the slavish acquisition of imported development models, it is important to work to defend uniqueness and di erence and to convey it to governments, whether local or national, as a framework of a policy, based on their resources and identity, which is the only way to attain a real and sustainable development. Within the bounds of this trend lies this International Action-Research project "Living in the City of Dead"; an Italian-Egyptian bi-lateral project between the Polytechnic of Milan and the University Ain Shams in Cairo. The purpose of the project is to overcome the partial and reductive vision of the City of Dead as a "plague" of Cairo and have it reconsidered as a means of extraordinary resource, either cultural or ethnoanthropological. Thus the primary aim of the project is about valorising it as cultural heritage to preserve with all its social, architectural and environmental systems, viewing it as an experimental context on which it is possible to test new strategies and development models for the Cairo of tomorrow. The project is structured on several levels: starting from a detailed study of the site, its problems and potentiality, it proposes the structuring of governance processes leading to a new Vision (project) and to the de nition of relevant policies for the City of the Dead: policies in which the inhabitants are considered an active part in the retraining processes. Moreover, on a parallel plane, eld work with the inhabitants is put forward, to assist them to form into a recognizable Association and to develop a circuit of Integrated Relational Tourism within the City of the Dead. This point arises from the rm belief that this kind of intervention can generate new informal microeconomies, capable of gradually improving the inhabitants' socio-economic conditions. Consequently, this is a project with a strong trans-disciplinary approach, which weaves into one the themes of valorisation of local heritage, both material or non material, of the policies designed to pursue a sustainable and lasting development through new ways of interactive planning and of tourism as a bottom-up development engine. The paper outlines the project, the working methods and the rst results achieved. 696 3 rd IRT INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE -Vol.2

Territori di ricerca. Ricerche di territori …, Jan 1, 2010

Sezione Iv declinare l&#x27;equitÀ nella pianiFicaZione Temi e questioni tra difficoltà r... more Sezione Iv declinare l&#x27;equitÀ nella pianiFicaZione Temi e questioni tra difficoltà reali e possibili scenari Costanza La Mantia, Giovanna Regalbuto Premessa. Delle definizioni: un dibattito acceso L&#x27;Equità è un concetto che attiene strettamente a quello di democrazia e di giustizia ...

IV Forum Internazionale" le città del mediterraneo", Jan 1, 2008

La città storica luogo dell'abitare 02 La cIttà STORICa LUOGO DeLL'aBITaRe 158 NUOve INTeRPReTaZI... more La città storica luogo dell'abitare 02 La cIttà STORICa LUOGO DeLL'aBITaRe 158 NUOve INTeRPReTaZIONI PeR La CITTà STORICa