EMU-Semester 03

EMU European Master of Urbanism Università IUAV di Venezia Coordinator Paola Viganò Design studio Paola Viganò, Bernardo Secchi, Emanuel Giannotti with Sybrand Tjallingii (Landscape ecology), Paola Pellegrini (Fields of Knowledge), Guido Guidi, Luisa Siotto, Mariano Andreani (Tools of representation, Photography), Silvia Dalla Costa (Tools of representation, GIS) and LATITUDE Fabio Vanin, Marco Ranzato, Enrico Anguillari, Valentina Bonifacio Lectures Vincenzo Artico (Consorzio di Bonifica Piave), Alice Brombin, Andrea Goltara (Centro Italiano per la Riqualificazione Fluviale), Luca Guarino (Autorità di Bacino fiume Adige), Emanuel Lancerini, Andrea Masciantonio, Alessandra Marcon Thanks to Giovanni Bonotto, Paola Dalli Cani, Lorenzo Fabian, Roberto Gaino, Andrea Mori, Diotisalvi Perin, Carlo Tessari (mayor of Monteforte d’Alpone), Fabio Sgreva, CRIF (Consorzio Regimentazione Idraulica Fluviale), gruppo Borgo Malanotte, Comitato Insieme per Borgo Malanotte Graphic design Studio Iknoki Translation Dominic Ronayne Ilene Steingut

Our Common Risk Scenarios for the diffuse city edited by Emanuel Giannotti Paola Viganò

Index

Foreword

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Situations, scenarios Paola Viganò

9

Commons A new landscape of commons Lauren Abrahams Monteforte d’Alpone.

A short history of the settlement system Andrea Masciantonio From collective risk to a space of the commons Lauren Abrahams, Eline Bugarin, Alberto Salis CARRYING CAPACITY Carrying capacity and carrying conditions Sybrand Tjallingii Designing with water Lorenzo Fabian (W)holescape Carmen Boyer, Sofia Fernandes, Advait Jani, Ana Martinez

Tutti i diritti riservati © 2012 et al. S.r.l. via Aristide De Togni 7 – 20123 Milano Prima edizione marzo 2012 ISBN 978-88-6463-084-7 Nessuna parte di questo libro può essere riprodotta o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo elettronico, meccanico o altro senza l’autorizzazione scritta dei titolari dei diritti e dell’editore.

In copertina: foto di Mariano Andreani

www.etal-edizioni.it

RECYCLING Recycling. A renewed attention to context Emanuel Giannotti The impact of industrial development on the Arzignano leather district Alice Brombin No waste scenarios Christopher Colja, Teodora Constantinescu, Valérie Raets

20 24 30

72 78 86

118 124 130

Approaches to learning Bernardo Secchi

167

Landscape of water Mariano Andreani, Luisa Siotto

170

Photo credits

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Foreword

The European Master of Urbanism is a joint program that brings together the traditions and experiences of four European universities.

This publication is a collection of the results of the fall semester 2011/2012 of the EMU (IUAV University of Venice) produced by the Master students and professors, together with Latitude (an interdisciplinary group that deals with urban research and design) and given experts, in the frame of the 5th International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam (2012). The two cases (Vazzola and Monteforte d’Alpone) are also the objects of a parallel research carried out by Latitude for the same Biennale, named ‘Living with Water in the Veneto region’.

Starting from the two cases, the students were required to devise scenarios that took a fresh look at the città diffusa of the Veneto region, considering environmental risks (first and foremost those related to water) and the conflicts underlying the same. The intent was that of attaining visions that went beyond the current model based on consumption (of the land, resources and energy). This was done following different trajectories: exploring the possibility of defining a new space of the commons; devising projects that measured the carrying capacity of the territory; thinking up recycling strategies that reduce or eliminate waste production.

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Foreword

Situations, scenarios Paola Viganò

An approach Today thinking about the contemporary city requires the use of contrasting and distant epistemologies.

Describing: looking closer, measuring the fractures, faults and craters that open before our eyes. Describing places and recognizing situations. Accumulating idiographic stories of people and territories.1 This first epistemology involves a great deal of fieldwork, collections of hybrid observations, loosely structured interviews, casual exchanges, the construction of a glance that can single out significant figures on ordinary backgrounds.2 The recognition of subjects and actors, gathered around a circle ideally open to natural dynamics and their rationales.

The descriptive effort takes place in the present; it belongs to the present and deals with it. From this position, it derives its ability to read possibilities - written in present time and in the present territory – still relevant today, neither burned nor severed from history, but that can be inscribed in possible itineraries. In this sense, the territories of description are also territories of design.

Thinking about the future: the second epistemology is apparently opposed to the first; it looks straight ahead, opening its glance, observing vast horizons detached from contingency. It opens to the long term - a time frame that the design of cities and territories has often feared and rarely evoked. In looking at the long term, at what has changed and transformed over time, this operation often recalls history and geology. Thinking about the future mobilizes the deep past, the environmental history of places, slow movements, but it also requires the knowledge of the great upheavals and consequences caused over time by the transformations that have altered the ecological functioning of the territory.

These two epistemologies are the focus of the research, that began in 2005

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Situations, scenarios Paola Viganò

with students in the European Master of Urbanism (EMU)3 course, exploring areas of urban dispersion in the central Veneto area, or in a few large metropolitan areas such as Grand Paris and St. Petersburg.4 Often pitted one against the other - the first epistemology juxtaposed to purely phenomenological positions and the second to the construction of generic rhetoric and policy - description of the present and thinking about the future are, however, from our point of view, two key aspects in constructing the project for the contemporary city and territory.

Through the concept of possibility, the two epistemologies rooted both in the present and future and in the short and long terms, can find points of contact that bring into play individual and social expectations, new urban and regional conditions and the contradictions and paradoxes that nourish them. Perhaps it is necessary to penetrate the concept of possibility more deeply in order to clarify the initial position statement regarding the need to use distant and contrasting epistemologies, albeit linked by this concept.

not yet in act. The term also includes the idea of latency: that which is hidden, that does not betray evidence, that seems not to exist, but that could re-emerge under certain conditions.

Starting from these two terms, the territory of the present is seen as a store of possibility and potential that require skills of reading, aware idiographic content and scenarios that reveal and use them.

Possibility The word ‘possibility’ is very nuanced. Possibility is inherent in ability, in faculty, in being able to do something. In the explorations of the territories of dispersion described in this book, the ability to support a kind of development that uses non-renewable resources or resources that require a very long time frame to be able to renew was questioned. What is possible is what the territory can sustain, its carrying capacity.

If traditional geographical determinism and its relationship with Darwinian evolution seem to come to the fore in this first meaning, the word possibility also contains an echo of eventuality, opportunity, chance, unexpected occasion, even the contingent and the unrepeatable occasion. How can an area like the metropolitan area of Venice that is undergoing a critical period in economic, social and environmental terms turn some of its supposed limitations - inherent in the character of long-term dispersion, in its various morphologies, in the structure of its support infrastructure - into opportunities or possibility?

Much research effort (and this book describes only a small part) has been devoted to this question; the effort has added another point of view, formed precisely through the understanding of the description of places, the comprehension of their position in the world and the possible trajectories towards the future. The hypothesis is that the dispersed city is able to support an innovative city that can take on new urban, environmental and territorial issues.

The word possibility also contains a strong reference to power: having the faculty, force, strength, power to do, to choose, to impose. But in a democratic society, only what is socially acceptable and tolerable is possible. Another term often associated with possibility refers to power: potential, something with promise, but

A radical question: our common risk The juxtaposition of the two contrasting epistemologies defines a large hypothetical field within which design activity moves with fluidity. In the present, continuities with the recent or remote past emerge, but also foreseeable ruptures or ones that have sometimes just occurred. A new radicalism is revealed and demonstrated in the crisis of our present era; it lies in state of things, in their inability to adapt, in the conclusion of life-cycles that do not allow second thoughts, in a renewed urban question that poses new topics to planning. The hypothetical field defined by the two epistemologies becomes the terrain upon which to test interpretations and scenarios; an enquiry that takes on radicalism and the process of radicalization in relation to the era of transition that we are experiencing and to the emergence of paradigms different from the past. Radicalism is needed to better understand the magnitude of the changes underway and the potential and possibilities that they can open. The descriptive effort is transposed to the future. Citing Gaston Berger (1964), scenarios and research prospects become the concrete descriptions of future situations. The phenomenology of the present becomes the phenomenology of the future, close readings of possible trajectories and of reactivated latencies. It becomes construction of images.

Today, the condition of risk seems inevitable. Any territory is fraught with localized or global risks. Safe places and, consequently, places to address the risks that we do not want to share no longer seem to exist. In confusing hazard and risk, as often happens, we seem not to be able recognize the individual and collective responsibility that, day after day, creates conditions of greater risk.

If the need for sharing risk and its inevitability is increasingly confirmed, their consequences on urban design and planning are still not clear. To paraphrase the Brundtland report that put the future at the heart of thinking about the common good, or citing Beck and the problem of redistributing risk, like wealth in the past: what role can design play in the construction of the common good, a shared future and conditions of risk that do not discriminate? (WCED 1987; Beck 1986. See also: Fabian, Viganò 2010).

The two cases discussed in this book made it possible to explore territorial conditions in areas in which hydraulic risk is strong and creates enormous social costs: levees, dams, catch basins, canals, river banks are, at the same time, opportunities

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Our Common Risk

Situations, scenarios Paola Viganò

for the redesign of common space and devices for monitoring events. In the second case that was investigated, it was water scarcity that increased risk to the area’s irrigated agriculture, which requires storage space that can meet water demands, especially during the summer, avoiding plundering the rivers that have already been burdened by drought and upstream use. The degree of ambiguity increases due to the presence of a subsurface that is rich in gravel making the construction of new pits (instead of using places of prior excavations) an advantageous operation from an economic point of view.

Both cases make multiple points of view, different ideas of the future and the physical condition of specific sites collide and test different ideas of public space.

The result is not the casual solution, or perhaps we might say that chance allows more solutions, but an opportunity to probe deeper, to radicalize, to understand more fully, using design, descriptions and scenarios as producers of knowledge (Viganò 2010).

Re-cycle In both cases, artefacts, objects and territories are observed as expressions of life cycles (Viganò 2011) in different stages. Each is also a result of different forms of rationality in which we can recognize the passage of time, ideas, technical cultures and social evolution. Close analysis of the riverbank space over time performed in the first case study presented in this book allows us, for example, to observe the flow of ever-changing ideas regarding what sharing the space of protection means, along with several different ideas of individual and common responsibility reaching, eventually, a loss of awareness and knowledge of the real status of a place or the responsibility connected to it. The issue of maintenance, over time, of spaces that are fundamental for our security, together with processes of the spontaneous appropriation of the space of risk create frameworks for interesting thinking, albeit full of contradictions.

Adapting the territory and its different parts, even minute ones, is a continuous process of beginning and ending life cycles, today made more obvious in their transformation, particularly due to the period in which we are living. Recycling implies broad understanding of the processes of territorial transformation; it is not just stratification or an incremental project born progressively and based on existing conditions. The scenarios constructed by the three groups regarding the two case studies face the theme of recycling thus conceived.

Recognizing morphologically-defined local situations, as Samonà suggested, but also distinguishing relative positions in space, scenarios that explore possibilities and potentials emerging from reading the differences among single places: this small book, published with the help of students and teachers, is a contribution to the thinking on the project for cities and territories.

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Our Common Risk

NOTES 1 The reference is to the book by Edoardo Nesi (2010) Storia della mia gente. The bitter tale of the rise and decline of an economic cycle, of widespread small and medium textile enterprises, measured on the space of a city and a territory, Prato, began in 1995 with Fughe da fermo, through the catastrophic scenario of large abandoned brownfield lots portrayed in L’età dell’oro, 2004.

2 In the exercises presented in this publication the joined work conducted by students with photographers and anthropologists gives substance, with greater rigour, to a plural glance.

3 In particular: in the program EMU coordinated

by Paola Viganò at the Iuav University in Venice and in the ’Situations, Scenarios’, semester and design studio conducted along with Bernardo Secchi.

4 In recent years students have been involved in many research projects. See for example the work on the Parisian agglomeration in: Secchi, Viganò, 2011.

References Beck U., Risikogesellschaft - Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a/M, 1986 (English Translation: Risk Society Towards a New Modernity, Sage, London, 1992).

Berger, G., 1964, Phénoménologie du temps et prospective, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris.

Fabian, L., Viganò P., eds., 2010, Extreme City.

Climate Change and the transformation of the waterscape, Iuav press, Venezia.

Nesi E., 2010, Storia della mia gente, Bompiani, Milano.

Nesi E., 2004, L’età dell’oro, Bompiani, Milano.

Nesi E., 1995, Fughe da fermo, Bompiani, Milano.

Secchi B., Viganò P., 2011, La ville poreuse, MetisPresses, Genève.

Viganò P., 2011, Recycling Cities, in Ciorra P., Marini S., Re-cycle. Strategies for the Home, the City and the Planet, Electa, Milano.

Viganò P., 2010, I territori dell’urbanistica.

Il progetto come produttore di conoscenza, Officina, Roma (French Translation: Les territoires de l’urbanisme, MetisPresses, Genève, 2012).

WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development), 1987, Our Common Future, Oxford University Press.

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Situations, scenarios Paola Viganò

(W)holescape

Vazzola

Carmen Boyer, Sofia Fernandes, Advait Jani, Ana Martinez

In the Veneto plain the territory is shaped by a particular form of dispersed urbanization (città diffusa) combining a patchwork of built-up and agricultural spaces.

A better understanding of the relationship between urbanized and agricultural space in fact reveals how the latter plays a major role in how this ‘city’ is made and transformed and in how it defines its ‘identity’. On the other hand, the natural geological conditions of the upland plain entail that farming and gravel excavation activities share the same physical space, causing inconsistencies and confrontation at different levels. Quarrying is an important economic activity for the region, but from a spatial point of view the gravel pits are waste areas, often concealed behind screens of vegetation. Except for the few cases in which they have been reused, the pits are mainly part of the drosscape.

This project proposes a different reading of the Veneto’s gravel extraction activity by suggesting its insertion in the process of ‘making’ the city. If done in a more integrated way, the process of excavation can become a carrying structure for the transformation of the città diffusa, in order to have a better water management, more biodiversity and a connected net of generous public spaces.

Flood risk, water deficit and gravel demand The effects of climate change, what with the general decrease in rainfall (though

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featuring short-term peak events) and the increase of evapo-transpiration caused by the global warming, will significantly affect water systems, including that of the Veneto plain. The recurrence of flooding over these last decades in the Veneto region, underline the importance water management has for the area. The Piave river system, what with long dry seasons and increasing amounts of rainwater that reach the river in the wet season, is out of balance.

has the support of the local water authority (Consorzio di bonifica), is described by the stakeholders as a multi-purpose reservoir, which aims to reconcile the demand for gravel with the solution of water problems.

Nevertheless, it has caused many conflicts that blocked the project at its early stage.

Some local residents have claimed that the excavation site would disrupt the landscape,

transforming what is now a peaceful spot into an ugly, noisy, cluttered construction site.

The conflicts raise some questions. Is this project the best way to insert excavation into a valuable transformation of the città diffusa?

Even if this is the case, what will happen if we continue to dig at the current rate?

How much excavation can the territory take before becoming exhausted?

Extensive agricultural demand for irrigation, amounting to twice the river’s capacity, has led to a changeover to sprinkler systems in recent years. This artificial system saves on water consumption but requires good quality water, easily obtainable from private wells, though which is causing a lowering of the water tables.

Another aspect to consider is the permeable nature of the soil in this area, composed of gravel and sand, which favours extraction.

With an average of 17 million m3 of gravel extracted per year in the region (though since the crisis began, figures have dropped to 12 million m3), almost 50% comes from the Treviso extraction zones. The case study being proposed, a project for an Environmental Hydraulic Park near Borgo Malanotte (Vazzola), would tackle the three aforementioned aspects, providing: a basin for surplus water deriving from peak events, a storage area for irrigation water and a new gravel extraction point. The proposal, that

Gravel Pit Fiume Monticano Susegana S.ta Lucia Mareno di Piave

Colfosco Ponte de la Priula

Sta Maria

Vazzola

Tezze

Fiume Piave Cimadolmo

Water Park

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Unraveling the problem

Not in my backyard!

An anthropological approach Gravel is still a crucial resource for the construction industry. The demand for better roads, parking and affordable homes requires a great amount of gravel. Nevertheless, even acknowledging this point, nobody wants to live close to a gravel pit. The environmental impacts are well-known. To cite but some, quarrying activities expose land to erosion and diminish its filtering layer, increasing the risk of groundwater pollution. Besides the ecological downside, it shouldn’t be forgotten that these pits are seen as ‘scars’ on the landscape, open ‘wounds’ that never heal. Indeed timespans are one of the main reasons for conflict, because there is no real limit to the amount of time that these pits can stay active, spanning from ten to fifty years. This why, in general, local residents are so reluctant when it comes to opening new gravel pits.

In this specific case, the local population (most of all the borgo Malanotte group) claim that the winegrowing agricultural landscape should be protected and preserved as part of the local heritage, something that the excavation site could jeopardize. On the other

hand, both the gravel entrepreneurs and the water authorities claim that the excavation could be done in an acceptably unobtrusive manner, resulting in a park which would help the management of water resources.

The dispute raises the question: are we dealing with a water park or a new gravel pit? Therefore, it was essential to get a general picture of all the stakeholders’ viewpoints. The interviews made with the various key actors rendered several idiomatic views that would shape the idea of territory from the stakeholders’ perspective. The three most mentioned problems during the interviews were: the flood and drought risk, the unknown timeframe for the excavation process and the risk of groundwater pollution, due to the high use of fertilizers in agriculture combined with the presence of a number of deep gravel pits.

The various stakeholder groups obviously raised different questions. The local inhabitants and landowners are concerned about the protection of their heritage landscape. They argue that the countryside’s main feature is its boundless agricultural landscape traversed by irrigation canals, something that has been formed and

achieved over hundreds of years. They would rely on the landscape, local traditions and local products, mostly good food and wine, to generate agritourism.

The water authorities are interested in the construction of a safety catchment basin to contribute to solving part of the area’s water issues; therefore they informally support the project. The water authorities perceive the proposal as a solution to the floods and periods of drought due to its peak storage and water retention capacity.

The gravel companies claim to see this project as the solution for the existing water problems in the area. They declare that this is a safety catchment basin and that the gravel extraction its just a way of financing the

Locals inhabitants Land owners

Water consortium

Gravel companies

Politicians

As soon as possible

Next 10 years

10 - 50 years

10 - 50 years

• Prevent flood events

• Continue the gravel extraction business

• Balance through ‘compensation’

• Gravel as essencial and basic for development

• Social Amenities and Public Spaces

• Promoting region through DOC Wine

• Peak storage • Provide water for irrigation • Recharge ground waterlevel • Re-establish freatic level

Genius Loci

Carrying capacity

The politicians declare that, since in Italy the mining regulations are not enough to compensate for extraction and exploitation of the soil, each municipality has to find the balance through compensation. In order to gain permissions for excavation, the quarrying concern has to offer a project in which the community gains something useful in return.

Actors and expectation in time

• Protection of landscape heritage

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project. Even though they put the creation of the hydraulic park as a priority, they confirm its construction and depth will depend on the gravel market and the effects of the costs involved. The lifespan of a typical gravel pit varies from ten to fifty years, for this reason, following the dictates of the market, half a century could go by before the safety catchment basin is completed.

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Entrepreneur gravel industry First security, then our ‘Prima la sicurezza, poi activity and at the end the anche la nostra attività, poi il microclimate. microclima.’

Perceived problems by actors

Designers

Water board

Mining industry

Inhabitants

Gravel industry adviser If I won the lottery, I would ‘Se vincessi la lotteria, buy land and have vineyards. comprerei della terra e coltiverei vino.’

• Groundwater depletion • Springs disappearance • Surfacewater disappearance • Flood Risk • Drought Risk • Groundwater pollution • Surfacewater pollution • Air pollution • Sediment accumulation • Soil impermeabilization • Real Estate fluctuations • System loopholes • Timeframe • Lack or regulations • Bureaucracy • Lack or public spaces • Lack of roads • No slow mobility network • Tradition disappearance • Aging population • Urban migration • Loss of historical landscape • D.O.C. & D.O.C.G.

Employee gravel industry ‘Everybody want to maintain ‘La volontá di tutti è di a beutiful place, even though mantenere una realtà che è it´s clear that there´s a need bella… ma e chiaro che devi to keep up with time.’ mantenerti al passo con i tempi.’

Entrepreneur machinery ‘The pits are the enviromental ‘Le cave sono rovine ruins.’ ambientali.’

Hierarchy of perceived problems

Politician Vazzola Municipality ‘We borrow the earth from ‘La terra è un prestito our children.’ dei nostri figli.’

• Groundwater depletion • Springs disappearance • Surfacewater disappearance • Flood Risk • Drought Risk • Groundwater pollution • Surfacewater pollution • Air pollution • Sediment accumulation • Soil impermeabilization • Real Estate fluctuations • System loopholes • Timeframe • Lack or regulations • Bureaucracy • Lack or public spaces • Lack of roads • No slow mobility network • Tradition disappearance • Aging population • Urban migration • Loss of historical landscape • D.O.C. & D.O.C.G.

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Association Borgo Malanotte ‘First of all we live here.’

‘Prima di tutto, noi abitiamo qui.’

Inhabitant and artisan in Malanotte ‘Borgo Malanotte was in the ‘Borgo Malanotte è first row of the World War I.’ stata in prima linea anche nella Grande Guerra.’

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Excavations: facts and process Due to its direct link with economical development and construction in general, the quarrying industry could be seen as a reliable indicator for understanding the future development of the cittĂ diffusa.

50% Veneto gravel extraction

Treviso gravel extraction/per year

Gravel per year 12 million m3 What the gravel industries had confirmed

Lower taxes companies 1.115 billion

Higher proffit

Italy 36 million

5% gravel revenues Government

3% Treviso gravel extraction

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Carrying capacity

According to the Rapporto Cave 2011, the annual quarry report made by Legambiente, the situation of the Italian pit industry is quite impressive. In Italy, there are 5.736 active pits vs. 13.016 abandoned ones (without taking into consideration the ones located in nonregulated regions).

Despite the economic crisis, during 2010 more than 90 million m3 of gravel and sand were extracted throughout Italy. This means 565 kg of cement per capita vs. 404 kg average in the rest of Europe. Italy is the largest European producer and consumer of the same. In the Veneto region alone 17 million m3 of gravel were extracted, the Province of Treviso accounting for 50% of material extracted in the region, according to the regional quarry extraction plan (PRAC, Piano Regionale AttivitĂ di Cava). Despite the official figures, during the research, some of the entrepreneurs and employees of the gravel industry confirmed a higher figure of extracted m3 in this area, increasing the figure to 12 million m3 per year.

The extraction process and its consequences are not restricted to the gravel pits alone.

The immediate and even more distant surrounds are affected by the extraction activities and the chain of processes that follow. The impact of the pit industry is not only environmental but also sociological and economic.

Once the gravel is extracted from the pits, it is first transported to the gravel works where it is sent for processing. If the gravel pit is located near a settlement, the noise and air pollution caused by the excavation process can be a major nuisance for the people living in the vicinity. The gravel pits also bring about a decline of the land value of the surroundings areas. The high levels of dust particles reduce the productivity of nearby agricultural land. Since the gravel pits are generally located in agricultural areas, they are not well connected by roads and often

Once the gravel is delivered to the works, it is processed and then sent to the cement production works. The waste produced by the process is dumped into the river along its banks. This leads to the reduction in the river width, thereby reducing its carrying capacity.

Other consequences of extraction are that the process can take from 20 to 50 years before a pit is exhausted. This long time line has a lot of environmental and social effects on the immediate surrounding areas. Once the extraction is complete water is made to seep into the pits over a period of time.

These pits can be used as water reservoirs for irrigation purposes; however, if the water becomes contaminated due to the fertilizers from the surrounding fields or by domestic waste, this can pollute the underground water table.

Excavation process

Gravel extraction

From the economic point of view, the gravel extraction industry is very profitable due to its low tax burden and low industrialization costs. In the Veneto Region only 5% of the price paid for the end product goes in taxes. During the last century, the lack of regulations allowed the industry to grow and develop without facing real spatial or even economic consequences. More recently some changes have been made.

One law, approved back in 1982, urges a more ecological approach, establishing the importance of stopping two meters above the water table.

the large vehicles have to use the smaller village roads in their trips to and from the pit.

Transportation of material through the cittĂ diffusa

Gravel processing

Dumping of water byproduct on the river banks and bed

Domestic waste

Recharge of ground water; pollution of ground water: land fills from domestic waste, fertilizers from agricultural land

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Cement for construction

(W)holescape

Processed gravel for cement industry

Flooding river downstream due to sedimentation

Trend scenario

What if we continue to excavate as has been done up to now?

In this case study in particular, the interest is to find out the territorial, environmental, physical and political limits for extraction in order to understand the real problem and design innovative solutions for the drosscape generated by this activity.

The trend scenario (or: business-as-usual) looks at how the landscape of the cittĂ diffusa would look like if the excavation continued to go on at this rate and for how long this territory can be exploited for its gravel. In order to understand this, we considered the area where the PRAC allows excavating. Then, we excluded the urban settlements, the water and mobility infrastructures, with a 50 meters buffer around them. According to these parameters, it is calculated that out of the 256 km2 about

106 km2 of area is suitable for excavation.

Keeping in mind the average depth of the ground water table is at 26 m, it is estimated that the region has a potential of 2.76 billion m3 of gravel reserve under it. If the excavation were to continue at the present rate (12 million m3 per year), it would take a century before all the gravel in the area in question is exhausted. The maps and the collage show what the spatial consequences of this extreme scenario would be.

The present landscape of the cittĂ diffusa would be scarred everywhere with large pits located close to roads, rivers and built-up areas. The heritage landscape of this region would be completely lost and there would be huge damage done to the environment, especially to the groundwater table. The scenario underlines the necessity to rethink the excavation activities in a more sustainable way, bearing in mind the limits of the territory.

Existing urbanized areas

+ 50 meters buffer

Existing water system

+ 50 meters buffer

Existing infrastructures

+ 50 meters buffer

Suitable areas for excavation

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Carrying capacity

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(W)holescape

(W)holescape scenario

Countering the trend: looking further afield Gravel is a commodity material, the use of which needs to be gradually replaced and reduced. Being a non-renewable resource, one could face the problem by simply limiting or banning its excavation, but this would cause serious upsets to the socio-economical model based on gravel exploitation. The construction industry relies heavily on gravel and sand excavation and, at the time, recycling percentages of gravel in Italy are far from being considered acceptable (only 8%). Therefore different solutions need to be found to enable a gentle decrease in the exploitation of this natural resource, thus avoiding the need for imposing an abrupt halt to excavation at some future date. We should thus consider an approach that would accommodate the fragilities of this complex problem, interpreting the same into opportunities.

The idea behind this reflection is to consider the hypothesis that ‘death’ can lead to the creation of ‘life’, that once a resourceful (gravel rich) landscape has been turned into a waste-scape (once the resources have been used up), might we not be able to consider it as resourceful once more?

And indeed how? By proposing it in an underlying system that benefits from the continuous change to the landscape wrought by water and gravel, this in a perspective of re-use, of reinsertion into a process and into a context.

What if we continue excavating, but in an integrated way?

While alternatives to gravel are sure to be developed, we argue that we need to keep excavating, but in a more integrated way, as

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a part of the ‘making’ of the territory. Our proposal is that the decision of how and where the new excavation work should take place should be governed by two criteria.

The first is the respect for the elements of value that, from an economic, ecological and cultural standpoint, comprise the territory of the Veneto. This criteria has led us to define a ‘map of values’ that should be deemed provisional inasmuch as it should be discussed and agreed upon by all the stakeholders present. The second criteria is that all excavation work be done in an integrated manner, in synergy with the other forces involved in the transformation of the territory. In this regard, layers are seen as fundamental in order to reduce the complexity of an approach that addresses the different stakeholders and problems.

Each stakeholder has his or her own reasoning and his or her own perspective.

Conflicts then arise from a form of ‘autism’ or radical refusal or incapacity to discuss common problems. This scenario creates carrying structures from the basic elements that comprise this territory, uses its problems to generate dialogue and combines the same with new perspectives for the future in an attempt to address the conflicts. Therefore, we propose to combine excavation with the three following elements:

in coherence with the urban development of the città diffusa.

Agricultural Land – The new pit should not damage the landscape, although a ‘conservative’ attitude should be avoided in favour of an instrumental perspective, which will operate by reinserting, restoring, renewing.

G – Gravel W – Water storage

and flood protection P – Public spaces and facilities L – Landscape and

agricultural land

Water – an articulated system would prevent flooding, ensure agriculture irrigation, recharge the groundwater table and promote the development of green corridors. In this regard the existing pits and the new ones would become water retention basins.

Public space – The process of excavation can be used in order to improve the network of open spaces, green areas and facilities,

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Value Map The strategy for presenting this scenario does not dictate form or shape but rests on building up physical carrying processes.

It considers the excavation pits as ‘urban plugs’ strategically connected to the existing and the new; it explores the resources contained in the natural and cultural history of the site as well as the potential for new programmatic issues to be broached by the plan. Starting from a work done in the previous EMU semester (C. Pisano, C. Roch, V. Saddi, Venetian Bassorilievi) and considering the collective picture(s) that emerged from the interviews, we mapped the qualities of the area. We considered

Value map

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heritage town centres, public facilities, slow mobility networks (pedestrian routes and bicycle), green corridors and ecological areas, main open water structures and perennial crops such as vineyards. The resulting ‘value map’ will set the base and the rules for the potential new excavation areas.

The new pits would be planned according to this map in an incremental way, allowing a process of learning by doing. Understanding how and where the pits are to be excavated will depend on the context, on the specific situations and on the suitability and adequacy of the same on both a small and a large scale.

Venetian Bassorilievi – C. Pisano, C. Roch, V. Saddi

Ecological corridors

Valuable agricultural land

Buffers from existing gravel

Buffers around settlements

Potential areas for new excavations

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GW – Ramification Excavating in the water flow perspective entails understanding the existing system, considering the hydraulic risk and drought risk data. Water deficit (dry season) is estimated in an average of 3.4 million m3 and, in dry years, this deficit can reach 75.5 million m3.

The peak storage requirement to prevent the Piave from over-flowing has been estimated as about 90 to 100 million m3. By linking them to existing water networks, the existing pits can become a storage basin to accommodate floodwater. Additionally to peak storage, the existing pits would be transformed and adapted to accommodate proper water filtering for further irrigation purposes. This strategy would enable a substantial part of the peak storage to be covered, but around 23 million m3 would be still needed. We propose to create new shallow pits as ‘forest mosaics’, that would be connected to the previous systems. These forested corridors, would provide space for water storage and groundwater recharging during flooding, opportunities for timber extraction, and diffuse pollution control by recycling nutrients in farmland runoffs. Moreover, they could become new territorial parks and they would contribute to improving and strengthening the existing ecological network.

Opening the way, flooding pits



Possible areas for floodable pits

Flood risk

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Possible connections for floodable pits

Carrying capacity

Completing the system

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GP – Constellation In the present moment there is a sprawl of public areas and facilities that correspond to a disconnected slow mobility (bicycle and pedestrian) access. By making ‘public mosaics’ out of new shallow excavated areas and connecting them with bicycle paths and pedestrian walkways, a new public infrastructure network can be envisioned.

GL –Sequence As emerged in the interviews, agriculture has a very important role in building an ‘image’ of the territory. The close relationship between built-up and cultivated space makes the città diffusa a kind of ‘Agropolitana’. Therefore the new excavation should preserve this rural image. The new shallow pits would result in only a slight modelling of the topography, without compromising the agricultural activities. Saving the topsoil and replacing it where it has been removed, guarantees land productivity, promotes possible changes in crops and types of farming, but most of all, it defends the heritage landscape while accommodating the extraction activity.

Historic centre

School Sports Park

Public areas and facilities

Public facilities as plugs

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Multi-level Agricultural landscape

Completing the slow mobility network

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Designing with excavation So as to make the extraction work more sustainable, we studied the different excavation possibilities and the viability of integrating the pits with other activities and functions.

process of excavation and in an increase in transportation activities. Nevertheless, this kind of excavation reduces the environmental impact, preserves the rural landscape and lowers the risk of contamination of the water table.

Deep pits In the case of a demand for water, deep pits can be dug up to a depth of 5 meters or more depending on the conditions.

Nevertheless, in such cases, priority will be given to the reuse of the existing pits. They can be used to address flood protection, as storage to meet irrigation demands or for recharging the water table. Moreover, they can also be turned into recreational parks, whether empty or filled with water.

Possible uses A shallow pit, after its exploitation, can be reused for a number of activities. Considering a parcel of land equal to the project of the Hydraulic Park proposed in Vazzola (700 x 800 m), the possibilities are: Agriculture – once the topsoil is re-laid the piece of land can be re-cultivated, producing up to 421,970 kg of corn, 210,980 kg of cereals or 137,000 litres of wine.

Shallow pits This excavation process is not very common in the region and has been tried out at certain locations as an agricultural ‘reclaiming’ process. The process involves 3 phases: the removal of 0.5 m of the fertile topsoil in order to preserve the same; the excavation of the gravel down to a depth of 2 meters; the replacement of the topsoil for agricultural purposes. Due to the depth limit, larger tracts of land need to be excavated, resulting in a less profitable and less efficient

A

B

Solar energy – Photovoltaic panels can also be installed. Covering the said parcel of land, 411,200 WP of energy can be produced, which is the consumption of a hundred households.

Biomass – The crops involved do not require much sunlight or water to grow, and have a turnaround period of 2-3 years. Once harvested they can be mixed with coal in the thermal power plants to produce energy.

Some 1,750 tons of biomass crops can be produced per year.

Short rotation forest – While allowing timber production, the forest can also constitute a potentially floodable basin or even a public space.

Compost – The pits could be filled with layers of domestic organic waste. Once covered they can be used as a temporary public space. After a period of 2 years, the manure is removed and used.

Exemplify the process The process of recycling of the pits effectively lends itself to tiered multifunctional use. The following is an example: Stage 1 - After the selection of a suitable place, only a smaller area within the site is excavated to the required depth. The topsoil is saved and stored on a part of the site.

stage 1

stage 2

C A - Agricultural re-use B - PV energy production C - Biomass production D - Short Rotation forest E - Composting waste

D

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E

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Stage 2 - The excavated ground can be replaced with organic waste and then covered with the previously removed topsoil.

The pit surface can be used as park and gardens. Simultaneously, a second pit can be dug alongside the first one and re-employed for a different use, such as a potentially floodable short rotation forest.

Stage 3 - After a period of 2-3 years the park (first pit) can be excavated as the compost would have been converted to manure, which can be used as a suitable replacement for chemical fertilizers.

Stage 4 - The same process can be repeated over again. The short rotation forest planted in the second pit can be removed after a period of 8-10 years and can be used for the production of biomass.

stage 3

stage 4

A new territorial park mabe by excavation

Venetian Bassorilievi C. Pisano, C. Roch, V. Saddi.

Plan and sections of the new territorial park.

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Venetian Bassorilievi C. Pisano, C. Roch, V. Saddi.

Views in the dry and wet seasons.

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Susegana S.ta Lucia Mareno di Piave Ponte de la Priula

Vazzola

S.ta Maria Tezze

AREA B

AREA A

Fiume Piave Zoomed areas: physical laboratory

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Cimadolmo

Municipality Gravel industry

Colfosco

Municipality Gravel industry Water board

Fiume Monticano

Area A: an alternative proposal for the Borgo Malanotte area

Inhabitants

Hence the key criteria for the excavation will be water storage and the creation of a future park. Thus the new pit will become an ‘urban plug’ that will complete the pedestrian and bicycle network, constituting a further tessera in the mosaic of public spaces, associating greenery, water and public facilities while connecting the river Piave up with the urban fabric.

Inhabitants

More extensive excavation work could be done in another area (area B ), that has been chosen to satisfy the need for water storage. This site is situated close to the

Piave riverbed and is also well connected to the existing irrigation system. These two conditions make it ideal for water storage and flood prevention. Moreover, the area is strategically located close to a gravel processing works, which will cut costs and co2 emissions due a reduction of truck traffic.

Finally, the site is close to a settlement, which makes it perfect for establishing a new park adjacent to the river Piave.

Water board

Zooming back in Borgo Malanotte The actual proposal for the Hydraulic Park as we understood it was not the most suited one for the location (area A), given the proximity to Borgo Malanotte, the main problem being the opposition of the local residents, who want to safeguard the landscape and exploit the same for agritourism. An alternative prospect that could reconcile the expectations of all the stakeholders would be gravel extraction by way of shallow pits. This would shorten excavation times and enabling the use of the area as an agricultural park after a brief span of time.

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Municipality Gravel industry Inhabitants Water board Inhabitants

Municipality Gravel industry

Enlarging the river’s basin

Public space

Completing slow mobility network

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Our Common Risk

Water board

Inhabitants

Floodplain forest

Municipality Gravel industry

Water board

Area B: proposed floodable park along the Piave

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Pointing to…

Diffuse urbanization, that can be interpreted as a new form of city and landscape, entails a close relationship with agriculture and ‘nature’. The immediate contact between urban and natural resources makes the impact of the same faster to perceive.

The fact that the territory is often used and explored to engender processes of urbanization (like gravel extraction for the construction industry) leads to a drosscape that is difficult to accept and remedy. This highlights the fact that the territory is a complex, collectively produced construction, which must be transformed carefully. As Alan Berger claims ‘The challenge for designers is thus not to achieve drossless urbanization, but to integrate inevitable dross into more flexible aesthetic and design strategies’ (Berger 2006). Considering the risks of continuing to excavate as done hitherto, something needs to be done to curb the effects prevailing trends will inevitably have in the future. At the same time, aware that an immediate, abrupt stop in excavation activity is out of the question,

REFERENCES Berger A., 2006, Drosscape. Wasting land in urban America, Pricenton Architectural Press, New York.

Legambiente, 2011, Rapporto Cave 2011, http://www.legambiente.it/sites/default/ files/docs/rapporto_cave_2011_0.pdf.

Meadows D., et al., 1972, The Limits to Growth, a report to the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind, Universe Books, New York.

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the (w)holescape scenario has been devised to test the possibility of continuing to excavate and furthermore considering gravel excavation as an opportunity, in order to make the selfsame process part of the territorial transformation, rather than something that is detached from the same. The outcome suggests that this can be achieved, but it also points out that we urgently need to increase re-cycling and even more important, find a way of replacing gravel. There are ‘limits to growth’, that cannot be completely measured, as maps and statistics can be deceiving. The uncertainties are considerable, but they can be explored through constructing scenarios, by posing new questions or by simply revealing ‘inconvenient truths’.

Resource consumption cannot be only considered quantitatively, or in terms of given time frames, it has to be seen as a problem of the form and shape of the territory: in the way it affects and transforms the territory physically and in its genius loci.

Overall strategy plan : water, agriculture and Public space

Tjallinggi S., de Vaan M., 2009, Cradle to cradle, Hype or Hope, procedings of AESOP conference, Liverpool.

Viganò P., 2011, Recycling Cities, in Ciorra P., Marini S., Re-cycle. Strategies for the Home, the City and the Planet, Electa, Milano, pp.102-119.

Viganò P., et al., 2009, Landscapes of water.

Paesaggi dell’acqua. Un progetto di riqualificazione ambientale nella città diffusa di Conegliano, Risma, Pordenone.

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