Branding and Communication for Bologna’s General Urban Plan

The General Urban Plan for Bologna is an innovative urban planning tool, which sets fundamental strategic guidelines for the large and small transformations that will take place in Bologna over the next few decades.

Starting with an analysis of Bologna as we know it today, the plan moves on to identify long-term objectives, which involve every aspect of the city and are grouped into three subject areas: resilience and environment, habitability and inclusion, actractiveness and work.

The Comune di Bologna council put the plan forward to the city in February 2020. It is now going through various resident and technical panel consultation phases and will be added to and updated until the definitive version is released (December 2020).

The law requires the new General Urban Plan to combine three previous urban planning tools – the Municipal Structural Plan, Urban Building Regulations and Municipal Operating Plans – and bring them into compliance with the new content established by the Regione Emilia-Romagna (Law 24/2017). It is therefore a question of drafting a brand new regulatory tool, which tackles planning in a different way.

For the Comune di Bologna, drafting this plan provides an opportunity to tackle the major contemporary challenges linked to the city and to strategically target Bologna’s future transformations towards agreed objectives, adopting a firm position on crucial issues such as the environment, society and the relationship between work and the city.

While communicating constantly with the Comune di Bologna’s urban planning department, BAM! has developed the General Urban Plan brand, which meets a twofold need.

Flexible graphic identity

The plan is a particularly innovative tool, but it is also a document that will remain in place for a long period of time. It therefore needs to be laid out and presented in a contemporary and recognisable graphic style, able to preserve its efficacy for at least the next ten years.

Communication, disclosure and engagement

During the journey towards the plan’s approval and implementation, there will be various opportunities for consultation, involving both technical panels and local residents in general. It is therefore even more important to come up with communication able to draw people closer to the plan contents, not just for information purposes, but also seeking their active engagement.

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