Bologna surprises with a public space aimed at children

This is part of the city’s curiously named Plan for Emergency Pedestrianism

The Italian city of Bologna wants to find ways to pedestrianize… and do it fast. At least, that is what its Plan for Emergency Pedestrianism alludes to. The city’s official website offered us one example of what this urgent pedestrianization might look like – setting up Via Milano street as space where boys and girls can play and socialize.

The grand idea behind the overall plan is to provide residents with proximate public spaces to be used for recreational functions, be they unconventional, sporting or cultural.

The children’s street should be ready for the start of the school year

The project foresees the insertion of benches in a circle for the informal aggregation of the little ones, games designed on the ground for play and interaction, sensory pools, and an area for a didactic garden with wooden platforms. There will also be a ping pong table, an inclusive picnic table, a couple of tubular benches and an area with platforms and tree-lined pools for the free gathering of people or for the organization of small events. 

The writings painted on the ground invite walkers to reflect on the theme of children's rights while one of the squares on the ground will remain available for children to draw freely. The set of these furnishings and structures will have the function of welcoming people of different ages, motor possibilities and potential interests and of encouraging them to explore new and various possible uses of space.

The set-up will be made at the beginning of the school year and will last for about 18 months. If the impact of the temporary intervention is successful, the Emergency Pedestrian Plan provides for the possibility of designing, through a competition, and carrying out a definitive transformation of the area that takes into account the uses that people have made of the space during the experimental phase.