Clusters of specialized activities and peri-urban spaces in Bologna metropolitan city. A survey on planning instruments, between continuity and innovation

In the framework of a broader disciplinary debate (regarding the urban regions’ peri-urban areas and the fragmented and discontinuous dimension of the contemporary territory), the contribution presents a design exploration focusing on the definition of the new guidelines for the functional poles’ territorial agreements in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, Italy. The experience has been developed in connection with the new city’s PTM - Metropolitan Territorial Plan. In this specific context, the functional poles represent the large service structures and settlement on a metropolitan scale, elements at the core of the previous polycentric strategy, linked to railway infrastructures and with the aim of controlled growth. In the process for the new guideline’s definition, a “tester” - composed by a general scheme, guidelines of interventions and a wide range of references - was developed. The need to introduce new elements for the design of the metropolitan poles, in addition to the traditional ones, was strongly indicated and developed. The new guidelines elements are connected to the issues of habitability, regeneration, spatial and functional articulation. In particular, they focus on new forms of mobility’s, connections and paths within the territory, internal structures’ articulation, and poles’ open spaces qualification.