Activation Event in Ponte Lambro

Date: 29 September – 1 October 2025 
Location: Casa di Quartiere

In Ponte Lambro (Milan), conversations about the future are underway. From 29 September to 1 October, at the Casa di Quartiere, the Municipality of Milan and the Politecnico di Milano met with residents, associations, urban regeneration experts, and businesses operating in the neighbourhood.

“Meet Ponte Lambro / Incontrare Ponte Lambro” marked the operational launch of the Horizon Europe project Utopize.
The project began on 1 May and will end on 30 April 2028, with an investment of €3.9 million from the European Union to fund tools and co-design pathways. It involves 13 partners from 8 different countries (Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Poland). For Italy, the participants are the Municipality of Milan – with Christina Paci, representative of Milano Cambia Aria, and Marco Mazziotti, Director of EU Direct Funds – and the Politecnico di Milano, Department ABC, with Raffaella Brumana (coordinator), Fabrizio Banfi (project manager), Giovanni Castaldo (member of the project’s General Assembly), Elena Mussinelli (coordinator of the Envi-Reg research unit), Roberto Bolici, Davide Cerati, Daniele Fanzini, Matteo Gambaro, and Raffaella Riva (researchers), with the collaboration of Fabrizio Schiaffonati and Andrea Tartaglia.

The neighbourhood of Ponte Lambro has been identified as a pilot case, together with Penacova in Portugal and Karlskova in Sweden.

Ponte Lambro is a Milanese district rich in potential, with a clearly recognisable local identity and significant environmental and landscape values. However, it remains isolated and poorly integrated with the rest of the city due to physical and infrastructural barriers, such as the ring road.

During the first two days of meetings in Ponte Lambro, mirroring the approach adopted in the other pilot contexts, half-day working sessions were organised. These sessions were similar in structure but addressed to different categories of participants (public authorities, academics and experts, entrepreneurs, associations, civil society, and the broader community).

Each session opened with a presentation of the Utopize project by Mauritius Duarte of Volcano (a Danish consultancy specialised in the creation of community spaces), who coordinates this phase of the project. This was followed by an overview of the Ponte Lambro context presented by the Municipality and the Politecnico di Milano, which also addressed current mobility and environmental projects. Afterwards, structured and open discussions were held, including debate following the presentations and round-table sessions facilitated by experts in participatory processes.

Participants at the tables – around twenty people per session – were invited to fill in an “empathy map”, taking on the role of themselves or of a hypothetical user of Ponte Lambro’s public spaces. Through sensory perceptions, they were asked to describe what currently exists, what is missing, their expectations for the future, and how they imagine the neighbourhood might evolve.

They were also asked to “map local stakeholders”, reflecting on their levels of influence over transformation processes and their degree of interest in the area.

Finally, during “brainstorming” and “reverse brainstorming” activities, participants reflected on the importance of participation in urban development processes and on the obstacles that hinder the activation of citizens’ active engagement, in order to identify strategies that could prove more effective and efficient in the specific socio-cultural context of Ponte Lambro.

The third day, again structured around two similar working sessions, included a field visit with a “sensory walk” aimed at immersing participants in the landscape of Ponte Lambro, understood in the full sense of the term as defined by the European Landscape Convention – i.e., a portion of territory as perceived by a population. Focusing on three open spaces in the neighbourhood – the agricultural area along the Spazzola irrigation channel marking the western edge of the built-up zone; Serrati Park, enclosed by 1970s public housing developments; and the area south of the Maugeri Institute, where a biobasin will support the water network at the point where the sewer collector crosses beneath the Lambro – the walk aimed to capture participants’ perceptions through dedicated empathy maps.

The meetings had a twofold objective: on the one hand, to present the Utopize programme to an initial selection of the neighbourhood’s most active residents; on the other, more crucial for project development, to gather contributions from community members regarding their needs, challenges, and aspirations for the regeneration of public spaces.

The results revealed convergence around several key issues: the district’s physical isolation from neighbouring areas due to a lack of pedestrian and cycling routes and insufficient public transport, especially at night; hydrological vulnerability, with frequent flooding that requires not only infrastructural containment measures but also better knowledge of emergency procedures; the limited enhancement of the landscape, with numerous agricultural structures abandoned or underused and a lack of routes for experiencing the agricultural landscape; the shortage of parking and rest areas and poor road maintenance, linked to private ownership; the abandonment or underuse of several buildings and the deterioration of certain areas; safety concerns; the neighbourhood’s multicultural character – which is undoubtedly an asset but often poorly managed; the scarcity of cultural and community spaces; and the lack of access to the river.

At the same time, several strengths emerged: the active presence of numerous associations, the clear historical identity of an independent rural hamlet, and a strong willingness among residents to take care of their territory.

Conversely, one weakness clearly identified is the lack of coordination among many diverse initiatives that – if better connected – could exponentially amplify their positive impact on the area.

These foundations will serve as the basis for weaving together the threads of discussion about the neighbourhood’s future and achieving tangible improvements in quality of life within a reasonable time frame.

The next steps of Utopize will include the creation of an Utopia Lab: a physical space equipped with digital tools for the co-design of public spaces, accompanied by training activities and public meetings involving the entire Ponte Lambro community, which will be called upon to participate actively in the programme.