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MEANINGFUL VOIDS. An ARCHI+'s project about
Verona. The subject of open spaces, leading the architectural and town-planning debate, seems to stand out in a new way in these last few years. The latest thoughts about the city understood as an "ecosystem", have introduced new fields of interest in the open spaces' project. Now it is clear that the task of void cannot be that of " a reserve tank" for the future building any longer as it is necessary for it to give new meanings and new purposes in order to set a new value on void. Therefore, assuming the open space as positive and considering it as an essential element of balance in the urban ecosystem, the project planned by ARCH+ (Massimo Angrilli, Nietta Dell'Olio, Angela Di Giovannantonio) and by Pepetto Di Bucchianico and Gianluca Germinario, the winner of the international competition "Subversive Insertions" announced in 1999 by USA Institute, interprets the system of voids belonging to the unused trading estate of the Verona's bonded warehouse. Starting from voids, the project builds the water cycle of southern area in Verona, reappraising the wide water system of adduction and removal of waters, once used by industries. A waterway of industrial use is restored and utilised to lead rainwater to a series of tubs of sedimentation which opens out progressively on the basis of the extent of precipitation, making some water reabsorb in the soil, and carrying the remainder to irrigate the park. The tubs , able to perform many other tasks, complete one another into the reuse of the "Rotonda" project, the massive refrigerating system of bonded warehouse (see the report of the project). The clean water cycle's improvement , the end to be reached in order to restore and assure the functioning of the ecological process in urban areas is connected with the other aim to improve the open spaces' value in south Verona throughout many works whose aim is a better management of natural resources, whose sense is to consider them as an opportunity to do architecture. Therefore the subject of this project is that urban voids are to become environmental condition improving places , but keeping the traditional meaning given, still remaining a symbolic representation of its society, its local culture. This viewpoint , having an environmental emergency background is aimed more at creating a planned research rather than defensive actions aimed at creating new ties or proposal about "back to nature" which consecrate every open space to nature, sacrificing all the cultural and aesthetic values of an urban society. The environmental emergency is likely a new impulse to the architectural research, like what happened in the past, as for instance the housing problem, trying to consider the prospective of a tenable growth as a good opportunity to build a new relation between nature and artifice, refusing to give to odd disciplines ( Bioarchitecture? ) a role which already belong to architecture. The project attempts a break with the safe rules, which have so far governed the relationship between the city and the industrial peripheries: knocking down the walls of the factories and letting the "city" in. This is achieved giving a strong function to the Rotonda, which is proposed as a new "Concert-Hall", connected to the "Arena di Verona" through "Viale del Lavoro" (which is converted into a complex boulevard). This leads to a new "show system" made by two specialized concert-halls, the Arena and the Rotonda. The new urban pole is oriented around cultural and expositive activities immerged in a park along with green spaces, services, and public transportation for the inhabitants of the surroundings. The place's history is assumed as the matrix of the project: the industrial buildings give the planning guidelines of the park and the railways are assumed as the grid of pedestrian paths. The "water" is the principal theme of the park, employed with both ecological and esthetic purposes; several rainwater detention basins are designed to collect rainwater from the adjacent lands and buildings, so that the character of the basins constantly changes. In this way hydrological functions became part of the understanding and experience of the park and of the neighborhood, while the principle of the park is defined in a radically new way, both in terms of form and content. The rehabilitation of the Rotonda as a "Concert Hall" is done without troubles for the integrity of the spatial typology, arranging cinemas, libraries and meeting rooms. The new stage is dug out under the Rotonda and a multiplicity of steep slopes and stalls enter the secret heart of the building. The space under the dome is conceived as an urban-square where people can see cultural and artistic events directly or through monitors. The water system: the storm-water strategy aim to redress the hydrological imbalances that result from urban development by storing runoff and releasing it slowly to receiving water body (Adige). Rainwater flowing from adjacent housing and overland within the site is collected by a drainage channel (Canale di S. Giovanni) that delivers the water to the storage basins (from 0.5 to 1.75 m. of deepness). These basins range from 0.20 to 1.75 m. deep covering a surface of …… mq.. An average of two to three days is regarded as a reasonable period for a temporary storage situation. Green infrastructure: the
project attempts to safeguard open spaces as infrastrucutre in biological
and ecological terms. Industrial uses in the ex Magazzini
Generali have resulted in impacts on soil and
ground water quality. Green infrastructure may be capable of improving
environmental conditions, enhancing microclimate and aesthetic quality
and providing recreational opportunities. link: DEMOLIZIONE - CICATRIZZAZIONE - RIGENERAZIONE - 1° premio concorso internazionale di progettazione " Paesaggi Costieri Gruppo Arch+ (Massimo Angrilli, Nietta Dell'Olio, Angela Di Giovannantonio, Raffaella Falconio e Vincenzo Pomilio) con Anthony Bellezza, Emanuela Bonvecchi, Gianluigi D'Angelo. |
