Stefano Boeri Architetti, Metrogramma Milano and Inside Outside have won the competition for the Parco del Ponte in Genoa, Italy. The urban project is located under the new bridge, designed by Renzo Piano to replace the Morandi Bridge that collapsed in August 2018.
The winning proposal named "The Polcevera Park and The Red Circle", is a system of parks that aims to change the tragic perception of the Polcevera valley. With a concept based on different ecologies and infrastructures for sustainable mobility and smart buildings, the intervention will act as a catalyst for sustainable regeneration. The Red Steel Circle implemented joins the two sides of the valley and fosters multiple functions. In fact, this connection segment can be a walkway, a raised square, access and exit ramp, a corridor between the buildings or an underground path. The public space is also a bike-pedestrian road of 1570 meters long. Fostering also a Wind Tower, the project generates renewable energy.
Stefano Boeri explained in his presentation that “The "Red Circle" symbolizing the powerful local tradition of blast furnaces, cranes, and overhead cranes, runs along the locations where the tragedy of 14 August 2018 occurred. It embraces them without separating them from their context, linking them together, [...] joining the separate sections through bike/pedestrian path and distributing the renewable energy generated by the solar collectors - thermal and photovoltaic - located on the roofs of the buildings, by the Wind Tower and by the piezoelectric flooring (which symbolically contribute to the energy balance) converting into energy the traffic flows that run through the new Bridge and the Circle. Energy and movement that flow into the Wind Tower".
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Rebuilding from an architectural and urban point of view but above all from a social point of view. For this reason, the rebirth called for a project that first and foremost would be a hymn to life […] In fact, the goal is to rebuild a cohesive urban system, socially active, innovative so as to revitalize not just the area but also the neighboring ones by turning it into an attraction. -- Andrea Boschetti, founding partner of Milan-based Metrogramma.
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Gathering a variety of plants and trees typical of the Mediterranean basin, the park also hosts an art installation, Genova in the wood, featuring 43 trees, designed by artist Luca Vitone, dedicated to the memory of the victims of the tragedy. This new center, built through an open participatory process, will be the home of productivity and innovation hubs, like the BIC buildings in the Green Factory area, the New Forts and the ex Mercato Ovaivicolo.
The Red Circle, the Tower, the World Buildings, and the Polcevera Park with its vital chromatic and botanical variety will act as Genoa's welcome to the passers-by of the future [..]- A welcome to the world that crosses it and reaches Genoa from a network of infrastructure that stretches from east to west connecting Italy to Europe, parks perched on vertical walls, workers and noblewomen, singers-poets and naval engineers. A Superb City, even though it is afflicted by poignant melancholy; beautiful, even if in the harshness of its everlasting contradictions. A city of steel and sea, sculpted by wind and tragedy, but always able to stand tall. -- Stefano Boeri, founding partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti
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.jpg?1571123518 "Stefano Boeri-led Team Wins Competition for the Parco del Ponte in Genoa")
