The Proceedings of Spaces of History / Histories of Space: Emerging Approaches to the Study of the Built Environment

On the occasion of the drawing up of the new Master Plan for the Municipality of Dicomano (Tus-cany), the authorities requested not just a project from the planners, but the initiation of a process that ‘could create and develop a dialogue between inhabitants and institutions’. The dialogical planning included a one-year Laboratory with schools (for children between 8 and 11 years), which involved young generations in the discussion of urban values, sense of belonging and transforma-tion of spaces. The idea was that of valorizing children’s knowledge on city space, and their role of “multipliers” for involving their families in the planning process. A specialized team of architects and planners followed the experience, seeking to avoid the “marginalization” of results and guaran-teeing their confluence into the “adults’ plan”. Being Dicomano a city destroyed twice during the XX century (by an earthquake in 1919 and the IIWW in 1944), the first idea was to rebuild the his-tory of spaces, creating a dialogue between new and old generations. The Children Plan proposal played as a catalyst for other citizens, which then were involved in the participatory process which shaped the Structural Plan. The paper analyses some features, limits and results of this experience.