The central Veneto area, lying approximately between Padua, Treviso, Castelfranco and Mestre, has one of the most unusual settlement systems of northern Italy. This project, by LOKOMOTIV Architects, starts from the view that the phenomena of urban sprawl should be stemmed, as the sprawl gives rise to a great number of problems, among which we might mention the excessive proliferation of infrastructures, with costs for the government that are unsustainable in the long run and break the delicate environmental balance of the system created by roman agriculture colonization. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The slow but inexorable march of history reserves for architecture a sequence of alternate phases, each lasting about thirty years, at the start of which each generation takes up a critical attitude towards the previous one. Contemporary architectural culture is now in this transitional phase: today’s paradigms will gradually lose their importance, disappear or be replaced by what we today considerer as values opposed to the established values of these years. It is to be hoped that architecture will reacquire a radical formal identity. There is no doubt that this phase will peter out once its paradigms are exhausted, but during its development architecture will return to the centre of interest of the discipline. Architecture in the service of society and its policies will also affirm it’s absolute character as a material entity.
The contemporary debate over themes such as urban analyses, strategies, diagrams, etc. is a useful line of research, but one that we consider secondary. Architecture is critical, in its intrinsic, formal nature, at a time when it reflects on and consciously revises its instruments and procedures: nothing can explain the nature and significance of architecture better than architecture itself. Architecture is ‘matter’ and architects have to work witch the vocabulary and syntax of matter. It is within these general considerations that we intend to construct the design work. The principal objective of the work will be the design and project of an architectural object not just relevant to the set topic but one that expresses the architect’s position towards the fundamental themes of the composition, design and construction of architecture.
At best, the designs produced by our office should also formulate, in a clear and rigorous manner and trough the exclusive use of architectural language, new paradigms in which a radical renewal of the discipline can be glimpsed. This formulation will be achieved by devising a Manifesto: a new paradigm is impossible without a careful construction of the iconographic and representative apparatus of the project. The design will thus be understood as a fundamental instrument to express radically and polemically the deeper meaning of architectural practice.
The new city is set in the area of Camposanpiero and adopts the principle of the Roman grid as a strategy for protecting the area while making it denser. The project’s objective is to propose a new form of urban living that brings together the advantages of community life with careful use and improvement of the existing environmental system, while rebuilding the almost completely obliterated relationship between the people and the farmed fields. The essential idea is to build at the edges of the Roman century, leaving the interior unaltered and maximizing the contrast between density and empty space.
The presence of existing settlements, particularly along the east-west line along the centuries’ horizontal axes inspired taking the free sides of the centuries on the north-south line as the primary direction of new construction. The height of the buildings makes it possible to concentrate a large number of inhabitants along the succession of canals and boulevards and lets one orient oneself in the area. The proposed buildings are intended as standard examples. All of the choices are conditioned by two essential elements of the proposal: to the north, there is the upper boundary of the Musone Vecchio river; and to the south there is the lower boundary of Decumano which is urbanized by a system of squares and public spaces, which becomes the core of the city’s social life.
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- piazza
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- model 01
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- model 02
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- model 03
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- model 04
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- model 05
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- model 06
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- Courtesy of LOKOMOTIV Architects
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- typology 01
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- typology 02
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if you don’t understand those rather simple words, you can purchase a dictionary.
“manifesto” is a provocation, a radical position, a strong concept. I can’t believe the absolute superficiality an limited vision of this critic. Maybe you can be agree or not with the proposal, but never take it like a builded posibility, please use your brain!!
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WELCOME TO THAAAA PROJECTSSS Y’ALLLLLL
really interesting! I can’t wait for the publication.
Brodie, here’s a cliffs note:
Urban sprawl should be stemmed so let’s do anti-urban mega-suburbs instead; there’s a 30-year style cycle so it’s a good time to re-propose an 89-year-old urban plan and be one year ahead of the curve.
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WOW, Pee Wee Herman!!!
Yes, it is a provocative statement and thesis, but the truth is that around the world, and especially in my neighborhood, they are burning down and DEMOLISHING whole neighborhoods like this to start from scratch. The reality of the situation is that the world’s regional planners have given this idea a test-run for the past 90 years, especially where I’m from in New York, and it’s failed miserably. The desolate nature of the renderings doesn’t do much to say otherwise.
Having been throughout Europe (Italy, France, Netherlands), I know that it’s not much different over there. Neighborhoods like these house about 90% of the immigrant population in these countries and have given birth (in a similar way to New York) to their respective hip hop cultures of their own. When French or Italian gangster rap music videos are being filmed in neighborhoods like these, you know something’s wrong.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Italy does not have the complete lack of space or development area that American or Chinese or Japanese cities have, am I right? The average Italian citizen has every possibility to choose the option of living in the city or living in a country-like community, and the distance between the two are not far. This is an option that doesn’t exist in New York, or Los Angeles, or Tokyo, which is why a thesis like this was formulated in the first place: overcrowding, lack of free space, technological achievements allowing taller buildings.
I wouldn’t have written so much in response to this idea if there weren’t neighborhoods like this RIGHT near me like this, where my friends and I have all been robbed in or stared at..
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Wow. This reminds me of the italian futurist of the 30s.