Students and the City: Design Ideas Between Education and Urban Transformation

What role can university students play in tackling real-world urban challenges? A recent article by Ticino Scienza, featuring interviews with Professor Martino Pedrozzi of the Academy of Architecture and Interim Rector Gabriele Balbi, highlights how the educational phase serves as a unique space for experimentation. Here, solid expertise is combined with a level of design freedom that can generate fresh perspectives for the city.

Throughout their academic journey, students are increasingly required to engage with concrete issues related to urban transformation. Although they have yet to gain full professional experience, they already possess robust theoretical and methodological tools. Occupying this middle ground allows them to develop proposals free from established routines, paving the way for original solutions and new questions about how design and the city interact.

A significant example comes from Lugano, where students from the USI Academy of Architecture worked on the Unfolding the River project, dedicated to the redevelopment of the banks of the Cassarate River. In dialogue with the city authorities, these proposals looked at public and communal spaces, recasting the river as a key element of the city's infrastructure. As Professor Martino Pedrozzi points out: "I believe that, while maintaining a necessary design freedom, it is more stimulating for a student to deal with real-life situations." This experience also heightens the perception of offering something back to the collective, even without the immediate goal of construction.

However, design freedom does not equate to being arbitrary. "The freedom given to students must be channelled," observes Prof. Pedrozzi. "Creativity is not the opposite of rationality; often, it is rationality itself that makes it stronger." Indeed, the students' work is grounded in rigorous observations, objectives, and design logic, demonstrating that the educational phase can be a fertile space for disciplined experimentation.

The resulting proposals—sometimes bold, sometimes more naive—are not intended as final solutions, but as tools to fuel debate and open new perspectives. Even when not immediately feasible, they can offer valuable insights to professionals and decision-makers, helping bridge the gap between academic training and practice.

Ultimately, experiences of this kind take on a broader significance in the relationship between the university and the local area. As noted by Interim Rector Gabriele Balbi: "Building a university city takes time, but initiatives like this make the university's contribution clearly visible." In this sense, the educational phase is not a marginal period, but an active resource capable of generating value for the community.

The full article, written by Asia Della Bruna for Ticino Scienza, is available at this link. (Italian only)