For the first edition of Spatial Design, the students will be invited to investigate and react to the WaltherPark case study.

The story of WaltherPark in Bolzano is one of the most emblematic and contested urban transformations in South Tyrol, where questions of design, politics, and identity converged around a single site at the edge of the historic centre. Conceived in the early 2010s by the Austrian developer Signa and designed by David Chipperfield Architects, the project promised a new commercial, residential, and cultural hub on land long marked by infrastructural gaps and post-war buildings. Its path to realization, however, was anything but linear. Years of heated debate in the city council, public assemblies, and the press revealed deep divisions: supporters saw in WaltherPark a chance to regenerate a neglected quarter, to modernize mobility, and to reassert Bolzano’s role as a regional capital, while opponents feared an oversized shopping complex that would overwhelm the city’s scale, marginalize small businesses, and privatize public life. Legal appeals, political hesitations, and ultimately a citywide referendum punctuated the approval process, transforming the project into a test of democratic legitimacy. Even after the green light, construction was slowed by complex engineering works and later by the financial crisis of the developer, forcing a transfer of control. What finally emerged is a vast architectural insertion reshaping not only the skyline and traffic flows of Bolzano, but also the ongoing conversation about how a historic Alpine city should grow in the twenty-first century.

After making emerge the complex network of stories that participate in its cultural and material construction, the students will be asked to realize an installation/intervention capable of making one of such stories publicly visible. Exemplary works of contemporary spatial practitioners will be used as references for the development of the students' ideas. The final part of the course will be dedicated to the design and realization of an exhibition that will gather the most relevant material produced during the semester.