Landscape - Simona Serafino

Amsterdam Academy of Architecture Graduation Projects 2013-2014 Landscape Architecture Simona Serafino Scrigno d’acqua (Water casket) Water catchment design as a strategy to mitigate the desertification risk

Simona Serafino Burgemeester Meineszstraat 9 Rotterdam +31(0)6 17807529 simonaserafino@hotmail.com www.simonaserafino.LAND www.linkedin.com/pub/simona-serafino/40/b70/57b Landscape Architect

Landscape Architecture

Simona Serafino Scrigno d’acqua (water casket)

Water catchment design as a strategy to mitigate the desertification risks

Water casket addresses the problem of water management in the Salento region, a peninsula in the south-eastern part of Italy. Water management is an ever more important issue in the Mediterranean basin: due to the ongoing climate change rainfall has significantly reduced and concentrated in extreme events, which imply difficulties in water catchment and reuse. A wrong water management contributes in the long term to a growing risk of desertification, as many lands in the region are already experiencing.

Salento is one of these lands, in which increasing drought and land abandonment are tangible signs of the increasing desertification. Though, the region isn’t poor at all in water: it can count on a huge underground water reservoir which accumulated during centuries thanks to the geological conformation of the place. Salento is a karst raft lying on the sea bed, in which atmospheric water has always infiltrated through special sinkholes in the ground, mainly placed at the foot of low hills called serre. This reservoir, however, started being aggressed in the 1800s with wells withdrawals, which have grown uncontrolled in number in the latest decades, when the region has known an unprecedented urbanization due to massive touristic exploitation. At a time, however, no policy has been established to favor rain water infiltration in order to refill the reservoir. Water is rather collected and brought to the sea through an “artificial” canals network to clear out as soon as possible the flooding areas where it would stay a while before infiltrating completely.

Its population has a very special character: that of living their land in strong connection with the articulation of the seasons, which lead them to alternate between different places and landscapes – though very close to each other – according to the time of the year.

The challenge of this work is that of approaching such a multifold complexity with the instruments of the landscape design. Its primary goal is of course to produce a rationalization of the water management. This happens, however, through a reading process of the territory at the different scales, which represents a chance to make hidden qualities and structures of the landscape emerge. The study has resulted in a survey of the countless existing infiltration sinkholes, which are completely neglected in the landscape, and the criticalities of the areas around them, whose economic value and uses are now deeply affected by the flooding risk. The design proposes therefore to stop the water drainage to the sea and reactivate the sinkholes structures by connecting them with new landscape signs at the territorial scale. These actions identify some infiltration areas which are worked out in order to grant the necessary storage capacity in a limited amount of space.

This strategy generates immediately some consequences. The new signs, based on the neglected sinkholes layer which now emerges again, act as strong structuring elements in the fragmented land use patchwork. The presence of water makes possible the generation of new landscapes, which are based on the valorization of the local elements and integrate functions headed at strengthening the social community. The new hierarchy helps defining the functions of currently abandoned areas and addressing the development of the villages in a sustainable way.

Besides achieving such results this water catchment design strategy enhances a further layer in the landscape structure – that of seasonality. The alternating presence and absence of water generates in time different landscapes, each with its own seasonal vegetation, fauna and – what counts the most – atmosphere. A same place where to go under completely different conditions, for very different purposes. Finally, a place where Salento’s seasonal approach to life can mirror itself.

Graduation date 19 03 2014

Commission members Lodewijk van Nieuwenhuijze (mentor) Jana Crepon Gianluca Tramutola

Additional members for the examination Rik de Visser Silvia Lupini

Simona Serafino

1- Rainwater catchment

WATER PRINCIPLES

2- Seasonal rainwater storage

3- Water puriication

4- Water infiltration to the aquifer

5- Improving landscape qualities and uses

6- Improving landscape qualities and uses

Landscape Architecture

From house reservoir

To a regional reservoir

Sinkholes

WATER CONCEPT

Farmer plot October 2012

Farmer plot August 2013

TA V I A N O

“solar fields”

RACALE widespread city

ALLISTE

olive crops

TAVIANO, RACALE, ALLISTE and widespread city

Existing private gardens, mainly orchards

arable land

Existing land use: the parchwork system

Existing ‘neglected’ carsic structures

Existing situation

pears

figs

almonds tree

New urbanization Project proposal

Sinkhole- 15th February 2020

LANDSCAPE QUALITY: The orchards as a botanical garden

A new landscape structure for the patchwork: Doline and Vore (sinkholes)

The canals: runoff and rain water catchment and transportation to doline

open landscpae 15th June 2020

Simona Serafino

Plankaart Taviano

DOLINA has a new identity in the landscape structure: dry season: 180 d/y

Oxalys pes caprae

Dipsacus fullonum

Anemonoides nemorosa

iris pseudopumila

Calendula comunis

Juncus bufonius

Anemone comunis

january

Wet season: 10 d/y

Iris revoluta

Oxalys pes caprae

Asphodelus microcarpus

Lythrum salicaria

Paeriploca graeca

Narcissus tazetta

Anemonoides nemorosa

Anemone coronaria

Muscari atlanticum

Anemonoides nemorosa

Brassica oleracea

Ohyris sphecodes

Daucus carota

Bellis perennis

Bellis sylvestris

Juncus bufonius

Biscutella didyma

Bellis perennis

Allium roseum

february

march

Anthillys vulneraria

Oxalis corniculata

april

Laurus nobilis

Carex flacca

Daucus carota

Anemonoides nemorosa

Avena sterilis

Bellis perennis

Oxalis articulata

Arum italicum

Arbutus unedo

Oxalis articulata

may

Wet season: 60 d/y

Extreme storm event wet season: 1 d/y

Lonicera implexa

Brachypodium ramosum

Daucus carota

Andryalia integrifolia

Avena sterilis

Brachypodium ramosum

Bidens frondosus

Oxalis articulata

june

Alcea biennis

Bidens frondosus

july

Daucus carota

Alcea biennis

Brachypodium ramosum

Pistacia lentiscus

Achillea licustica

Oxalis articulata

Asparagus acutifolius

Bidens frondosus

Oxalis articulata

Brachypodium ramosum

august

Asparagus acutifolius

Pistacia lentiscus

Smilax aspera

Quercus calliprinos

Oxalis articulata

Asparagus acutifolius

Bidens frondosus

Oxalis articulata

Bidens frondosus

Quercus virgiliana

Quercus pubescens

Arbutus unedo

september

october

Oxalys pes caprae

Calendula comunis

Oxalis articulata

november

Dipsacus fullonum

Arbutus unedo

Dipsacus fullonum

december

Calendula comunis

Landscape Architecture

Plankaart Wadi park

Simona Serafino

Wadi park- 28th February 2020

Water Calendar

Wadi park- 18th December 2020

Wadi park- 13th August 2020

Master of Architecture / Urbanism / Landscape Architecture Amsterdam Academy of Architecture

Architects, urban designers and landscape architects learn the profession at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture through an intensive combination of work and study. They work in small, partly interdisciplinary groups and are supervised by a select group of practising fel­low professionals. There is a wide range of options within the programme so that students can put together their own trajectory and specialisation. With the inclusion of the course in Urbanism in 1957 and Landscape Architecture in 1972, the academy is the only architecture school in the Netherlands to bring together the three spatial design disciplines.

Some 350 guest tutors are involved in teaching every year. Each of them is a practising designer or a specific expert in his or her particular subject. The three heads of department also have design practices of their own in addition to their work for the Academy. This structure yields an enormous dynamism and energy and ensures that the courses remain closely linked to the current state of the discipline.

The courses consist of projects, exercises and lectures. First-year and second-year students also engage in morphological studies. Students work on their own or in small groups. The design projects form the backbone of the cur­riculum.

On the basis of a specific design assignment, students develop knowledge, insight and skills.

The exercises are focused on training in those skills that are essential for recognising and solving design problems, such as analytical techniques, knowledge of the repertoire, the use of materials, text analysis, and writing. Many of the exercises are linked to the design projects.

The morphological studies concentrate on the making of spatial objects, with the emphasis on creative process and implementation. Students experiment with materials and media forms and gain experience in converting an idea into a creation.

During the periods between the terms there are workshops, study trips in the Netherlands and abroad, and other activities. This is also the preferred moment for international exchange projects. The academy regularly invites foreign students for the workshops and recruits wellknown designers from the Netherlands and further afield as tutors.

Graduates from the Academy of Architecture are entitled to the following titles: Master of Architecture (MArch), Master of Urbanism (MUrb), or Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA). The Master’s