The Quality of Public Space Among Hybrid Nature-Ruins

Abstract

In the attempt to understand spatial transformations in contemporary society and to frame the quality of public spaces, the article proposes the empirical case study of Lago Bullicante located in Rome (Italy) where a recent and unplanned event, initiated with an illegal development of an abandoned factory, has turned a ruined industrial area into a ‘Natural Monument’.We will consider this area as a hybrid which cannot be classified as natural, nor as a place where the cultural action of humans has prevailed, but rather it takes the form of a hybrid. The article examines the social practices and relations that are built around the hybrid among ideas, actions and emerging controversies in the process of renaturation.