FRAME: Milan's Tactical Urbanism Creates a New Public Square in Pratocentenaro

The FRAME project, a tactical urbanism intervention in Milan's Pratocentenaro neighborhood, has transformed a former traffic area into a public square. Part of the Piazze Aperte program launched by the Municipality of Milan in 2018 and developed by AMAT (Agenzia Mobilità Ambiente Territorio), the initiative involved 15 participants including students and young architects in a workshop organized with the association Terraviva and coordinated by the multidisciplinary design studio ECÒL, based in Tuscany. The square, named FRAME, occupies a perimeter between a cooperative housing building with facade decorations and a church built in 1938. The design draws on 20th-century Milanese vocabulary of geometric patterns and floor inlays, featuring concentric squares around key areas like urban living rooms, a ping-pong zone, and pedestrian crossings. Furnished with municipal catalog items such as wooden benches and tables, the space accommodates multiple functions and encourages spontaneous use, including a labyrinthine path and hopscotch-like games. Piazze Aperte, developed in collaboration with Bloomberg Associates and Global Design Cities Initiative, reached its 40th intervention with this project. The program was co-financed by the European Union through EIT Urban Mobility (part of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology) under the CLEAR project. The intervention aims to reclaim public space and strengthen community belonging through experimental use of urban areas.