Urban regeneration projects: towards a common language for Italy | The Plan
  1. Home
  2. Magazine 2008
  3. The Plan 031
  4. Urban regeneration projects: towards a common language for Italy

Urban regeneration projects: towards a common language for Italy

Progetto CMR | Pier Paolo Maggiora

Urban regeneration projects: towards a common language for Italy
By Francesco Pagliari -

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...

Proceed with your preferred purchase option to continue reading
Digital

Digital

5.49 €
Printed

Printed

15.00 €
Subscription

Subscription

From 42.00 €
Choose subscription
Keep up with the latest trends in the architecture and design world

© Maggioli SpA • THE PLAN • Via del Pratello 8 • 40122 Bologna, Italy • T +39 051 227634 • P. IVA 02066400405 • ISSN 2499-6602 • E-ISSN 2385-2054