ITALIA

SCALES — L/S – Urban / architectural LOCATION — Cuneo, Piemonte POPULATION — 56,104 inhab. STRATEGIC SITE — 50 ha / PROJECT SITE — 4.2 ha SITE PROPOSED BY — Cuneo Municipality OWNER OF THE SITE — Cuneo Municipality POST-COMPETITION PHASE — Workshop onsite with the rewarded teams, allowing the site developer to determine a project team for implementation

Federico Borgna — Mayor of the city of Cuneo

1. WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE SITE MUTATION? The project involves the functional recovery of the former military buildings transforming them into a “Community hub” of cultural production with green spaces and multi-purpose buildings for leisure, sport, art and entertainment for the population living in the surrounding neighbourhoods, in synergy with the identity value that the historic centre assumes for its citizens. The area has never been open to public and now that it is owned by the city’s administration, it will be central to the future development of the city, which has a linear conformation.

2. HOW CAN THE SITE BE INTEGRATED IN THE ISSUES OF PRODUCTIVE CITIES? HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THE PRODUCTIVITY ISSUE? Since the launch of the Europan competition, the area is part of the southern suburbs development strategy, which the administration is aiming at. The productivity of this part of the city, which is now predominantly residential and scarcely involved in events, is generated by the creation of a pole able to attract users and visitors who can help animate the urban context and support the many existing activities and services.

3. HAVE YOU ALREADY DEFINED A SPECIFIC PROCESS FOR THE URBAN AND/OR ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SITE AFTER EUROPAN? The process for the urban development of the site was defined at the same time as the Europan competition notice in order to give the winners of the competition the opportunity to realize their ideas. Europan Italy and the city of Cuneo have chosen a two-steps procedure: 1. Europan 14 competition 2. Workshop: involving the winners, for a few days, to work and to produce a master plan and aiming at selecting the team that will continue. The aim is to identify the specific topics around which to build the project’s operational tool, under the direction of the city’s technical structure, with the technical and scientific contribution of the winning teams and experts who have contributed to the development of the program. And finally to produce a masterplan able to start the process of defining projects, assignment of tasks and implementation.

Green is the Colour

CUNEO (IT) — WINNER

AUTHOR(S) — Federico Aru (IT), Michela Serra (IT), Architects CONTACT — Sestu (IT) T. +39 3461491851, aruserrarch@gmail.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — The project operates on three main scales, which gives an answer to the new idea of productive city. On a large scale the project area relates itself to the existing public spaces through sustainable mobility systems to connect the most peripheral and fragmented neighbourhoods of the city. The proposal insists on the bond with the nearest existing facilities that can be reactivated spontaneously. The park nourishes from three fundamental elements: the wall, the vegetation and the large pavilions. The project does not completely demolish the existing wall, but it considers it as a protection for the existing vegetation: it selects and regulates the access to the park and structures its paths. The buildings are considered as large empty containers that might accommodate different productions.

JURY POINT OF VIEW — Through an in-depth analysis of the urban system, resulting in a graphic definition deliberately “integrated” with the existing environment, the project succeeds in transforming the use of reality by trying to respect the Genius Loci, which has been preserved despite the transformations of time. It represents a manifesto of the balanced coexistence between built environment and nature, respecting the existing and structured green, implementing it in a timely manner and taking into account its vital cycles. The important value of the project is the approach that makes it suitable to serve as a guideline to the various interventions.

Making Room(s)

AUTHOR(S) — Cristina Renzoni (IT), Ianira Vassallo (IT), Architects-urbanists; Silvia Lanteri (IT), Eudes Vito Margaria (IT), Architects CONTRIBUTOR(S) — Giorgia Greco (IT), Student in architecture CONTACT — makingrooms.europan@gmail.com www.makingrooms.wordpress.com

CUNEO (IT) — RUNNER-UP

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — Making Room(s) is structured around the connection of the new centrality of Caserma Montezemolo with other meaningful places, sewing up the city East-West from river to river. The plan is figured out as the result of a simulated process of collaboration with citizens and associations, with the purpose to transform the dismissed barracks in a COMMON GOOD. It is a project made of interlinked rooms, each one with a vocation, in order to 1) make visible the relation between the city and its own territory; 2) allow the creation of new spaces of centrality beyond the traditional ones; 3) experience a new way of planning the city, more conscious and inclusive. Making Room(s) starts from here: a potential involvement of local communities; a project of liveable spaces; a possible program of uses.

JURY POINT OF VIEW — The project respects the new contemporary sense of living the city as a “common good”. In that way, spaces, paths and buildings, starting from a very simple basic organization and based on “rooms”, are functionalized and inhabited by the citizens spontaneously but also guided by specific initiatives (adopting a “room”, a carrot city, an artisan’s lab, an open library, etc…). It is distinguished by the activation of a “slow path” that also connects the city transversely by offering an interesting contribution to the future process of realization on the area.

AUTHOR(S) — Andrea Benelli (IT), Davide Lucia (IT), Elisa Monaci (IT), Vincenzo Moschetti (IT), Luisa Palermo (IT), Giacomo Razzolini (IT), Architects CONTACT — Firenze (IT) T. +39 3403502402 filoferroarchitetti@gmail.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — The richness of the landscape surrounding the city of Cuneo suggests in its dense atmospheres many project themes. It thus becomes pervasive in the composition, defining criteria and architectural moments. A new urban park is born, between the barracks and the Arms square, it is a new weaving of the city, ready to welcome many different attractive activities, becoming an educational and communal place. Inside the area, therefore, a new type of landscape is reconfigured to unite the interrupted parts of the urban weave. The project aims to protect the lives of citizens whose rituals are transfigured in architectural themes in a necessary moment of sharing. The great architecture is declined as a long open-air promenade, becoming a threshold and a shadow area as the essence of this new place.

Lucy in the Wood with Diamonds

CUNEO (IT) — SPECIAL MENTION

AUTHOR(S) — Francesco Lenzini (IT), Architect CONTRIBUTOR(S) — Martina Corbella (IT), Francesca Luci (IT), Margherita Marri (IT), Andrea Mologni (IT), Jacopo Rosa (IT), Students in Architecture CONTACT — Reggio Emilia (IT) T. +39 3388053263 arch.lenzini@hotmail.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — “Lucy in the wood with diamonds” is a biodiversity-based project. It is conceived as an incubator to preserve and increase the natural richness of Cuneo’s landscape, as well as amplify the presence of vegetation within the city. At the same time the proposal extends the potential and attractiveness of Cuneo through the involvement of new economic and social opportunities that we place as the current basis of an authentic productive city. We conceived the project as an organic process linked to the natural growth of the urban forest. The strategy develops over time in four different phases respectively characterized by specific functions involving differentiated users due to the greater attractiveness of the area in terms of daily and seasonal use.

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — The aim of this project is to revitalize the military site by inserting different typologies of productive activities, including: craftsmanship, digital production, exchange of local products, agriculture and culture. Each one of these activities is represented through a specific object conceived either as the refurbishment of an existing building or as a new pavilion. All these objects are connected by a sinuous covered trail that develops in the outdoor space of the site, which is reconfigured as a picturesque garden. In addition, the project highlights the strategic position of the project site, along the main road of the city, by proposing a big portico in continuity with the urban system of the Portici. This portico gathers one of the existing military pavilions, which is converted into a new concert hall, and new spaces for culture and entertainment.

AUTHOR(S) — Andrea Albert Dutto (IT), Architect CONTRIBUTOR(S) — Andrea Aliangena (IT), 3d artist; Chiara Genta (IT), Andrea Giordano (IT), Students in architecture CONTACT — Cuneo (IT) T. +39 3299803258 andrea.alberto.dutto@gmail.com