THE GREEN IN BETWEEN | Venice, Italy | William Sherman, Ali Fard

All work was produced collaboration with Ailsa Thai

The walk from mainland Italy to Venice is a delirious, monotonous, and poetic 2 mile walk. Crossing the bridge is often the closest one gets to the lagoon, though one rarely notices. Over the edge, oysters, fish, and crabs dwell in riprap and seagrass. The walk gives time to speculate the inevitable changes coming to Venice. On one end of the horizon, one sees a dying industrial site and on the other, a city trapped in time. Both threatened by sea level rise and decay.

Inspired by our daydreams during this walk, this project reveals the bridge as critical joint between Mestre and Venice. We imagine a bridge without cars, oriented towards pedestrian mobility. The bridge acts like a warm-up to a city where walking is the only sensible way to navigate.

Embracing and amplifying its proximity to the water, the project subtracts paving to make space for spontaneous vegetation to take over, while also adding elevated pathways that allow one to explore spaces above, below, and between this often ignored Venetian infrastructure.

Venice from the Bridge (above, right)

Study models for grooving patterns (below, right)

Spontaneous vegetation in Venice (opposite, full spread)

Urban Sketching

During our six week stay in Venice, sketching became the primary way of record keeping. Of particular interest to us were the details both old and new. The joint work of Carlo Scarpa, corner details of Palladio, and historical palimpsests of Codussi keyed us into the Venetian mindset. This was critical in attempting to weave the bridge into the city’s urban fabric.

Most only experience this bridge through the window of a train or car. The journey lasts less than five minutes. The walkway is for those wanting a slow experience full of distractions.

We deconstruct the street with existing surface groovers, allowing spontaneous vegetation to thrive. The elevated walkway still allows cyclists and joggers to speed across the bridge. But the more adventurous can always step off to stick their nose amongst the weeds and rocks.

There are no shortages of sneaky paths in and around the city. Behind the Arsenale on the northeastern edge of the island is a precarious walkway. We found this by accident. The walkway contorted around portals and walls of the city like it was avoiding capture. Less than twenty feet from the edge, we could spot the mud flats that undergird the city. The excitement of that proximity inspired us to give access to the inaccessible.

Accordion

How do you convey the daydreams that flood your mind on a long walk? We used an accordion book with a drawing and aerial of the bridge on either side. This allowed us to parse the bridge into discrete pages. We could geolocated every drawing, map, observation, and thought we had, mirroring our minds on the walk. The book is our record of the real and fantastical worlds within that one conjures when in Venice.