Bagnoli, a neighbourhood on the west outskirts of Naples, has been a typical industrial and working class area for more than eighty years. In 1993 the Ilva-Italsider factory was closed down. So the large territory has become object of an important conversion and urban requalification project. Today most of the area was confiscated by order of Magistracy, because of suspected irregularities in the decontamination works. The future imagined in the conversion project results, in this way, largely compromised. In this research work we intend to verify how a particular physical-spatial dimension has influenced the social relations and the same identities of the people and their “community” and which contribution the citizens of Bagnoli can give to the urban design through their own imaginary and meanings they ascribe to their environment (Lynch 1960). In this sense, the study aim at giving a contribution to the participative practice, that up to now is out of the transition dynamics.