This review of Italy’s large-scale regeneration projects shows how much the different programmes have in common. Despite their varied geographical locations on plain, hillside or lagoon, and regardless of whether urban brownfield sites or rural settings, publicly, privately or jointly sponsored, they are all geared to quality purposes and lasting sustainability of those results in terms of low energy consumption and safeguard of a common good that is our environment. Another unifying element is the attention given to blending revitalisation projects into their specific environment, and integrating new architectures into their context. Proposals aim to reinforce a particular identity and create close connections between architecture and function. This is underpinned by a basic principle to preserve and continue the mixed-use urban typology that has been key to the development of our urban systems.
It is an approach that also guides the “city within a city” concept behind some of the projects. Other commonalities include the importance given to pedestrian spaces linking public and private green areas and the realisation that our built environment must have physical and visual connections with the specific geographical setting. All these elements form a common grammar from which a wide range of urban and architectural solutions have sprung.
A concept developed by Pier Paolo Maggiora with his Studio ArchA, the LagunaVerde masterplan stretches over an area of about 810.000 sq m partially occupied by the Pirelli Gomme factory, which is due to be refitted.
A city raised above a lagoon of green belt areas, such is the project concept. The operation plays a strategic role in that it connects and completes a vast system of green areas. The clustering together of large industrial complexes had gradually eroded precious areas on the northern outskirts of the city, creating a wasp-waist in a large green corridor. There is now a chance to restore the...
Digital
Subscription
Great choices for a new Milan
MCA - Mario Cucinella Architects
For a city, to have a plan to transform vast metropolitan areas, presumes a will to have a future. It requires a meeting of minds on the urban plannin...London: urban strategies for the future
John McAslan + Partners
Some eight million people live in London’s urban area, the most populous of the western European metropolises, a civil and multiethnic community dwe...Paris: sustainable development
Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Since 2001 Paris has embarked on a sweeping operation of urban upgrade and new building affecting some 10% of the city’s territory. Out of this vent...