Abstract
Ferrando features the transformation by Simona Della Rocca of a 1960s school in Turin, Italy, considered as a textbook example of how to renovate, regenerate and reanimate a tired structure. In 2010 Delia Rocca graduated from the Polytechnic University of Turin with a project investigating the reactivation of residual urban spaces in Tokyo. Preparing for her thesis, she spent several months in the Japanese capital, exploring its neighborhoods while following an urban design studio at Waseda University, which provided her with a new vocabulary for understanding, representing and designing urban space. From this experience, Delia Rocca brought back two indelible memories which were to influence her work in the coming years: on the one hand, the speed at which the Japanese city can adapt to changing conditions, compared with the European one; on the other, an interest in spaces defined by continuous horizontal surfaces punctuated by active objects.