Venice Cityvision Competition

Venice city vision

Venice cityvision architecture competitions http://www.cityvision-competition.com/venice/

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Index Introductions Venice city vision ...if Venice survives through reflection?

Venice is not an island City of the lagoon Venice or Disneyland?

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Introduction Giuseppe Longhi

Design proposals presented below, concening the future morphological structure of Venice, are the result of a process of teaching experimentation twenty Testi years long and witnessed in the book “Venice Industriale/Industriosa” (1999)1. This process is inspired by the theories of Seymour Papert2, raised by Paul Virilio3 and the assets of the today’s trend that theorizes creative models in education4. This learning process takes note that the university education system is still inspired by a model of work organization which dates back to the first industrial revolution, proceeding in a linear way for step slow.

His organizational model of reference is the production line; the project has taught for stairs, passing from the “easier” to “more complex”, thinking that the design capacities should do to proceed a little at a time.

It ‘s true that over time this model has changed, with the establishment of workshops and Erasmus exchanges, but it is clear that the top-down logic of teaching was not minimally affected, as well as the iteration with exogenous forces that affect the design reality is weak.

This organization completely ignores the new models made possible by: availability of interactive tools, the globalization of knowledge, complexity of design processes, rapid pace of economic and social change. A set of factors enormously affecting the organizational evolution of the project, which must be fed by an increasingly diversified set of cultures belonging to the five continents. For this reason, the organizational form which refer to the experiences presented here is that of the ‘cloud’, whose operation is based on the awareness of the collective dialogue value.

The ‘cloud’ is an ecosystem of interdependent relationships, not hierarchical, with variable geometry, ‘ubiquitous’, accessible from anywhere at any time, whose structure is characterized by diversity and plurality. Organizational characteristics of the ‘cloud’ are: Modeling, as Forrester has taught since the early ‘70s, the design must be formally structured in complex models, because to proceed on the basis of simple intuition leads to colossal errors5; Hospitality, which is the ability to recognize and enhance the system of preferences of design users and, therefore, not to impose the will of the designer to the citizens. So ‘hospitality’ is the ability to critically assimilate cultures ‘alien’ in order to innovate the design potential; Improvisation, which is learning and progressing the project for feedback, being able to adapt to changes and re-evaluate the behaviors that facilitate our exchanges with the world; Housekeeping, which is the constant experimentation and reorganization of people, knowledge and resources, which is the true characteristic of the innovative project. Scope of work is to activate processes of co-creation: multidirectional, which producing feedback to encourage multiple, continue, active participation, to overcome the one-to-one dialogue; Large scale, that have large data bases, to increase the level of knowledge, and work for meta-filters, to increase the quality of design.

In this environment: • the teacher becomes the coordinator community, the promoter of an interactive agenda; • the students, having large interactive database are able to design interacting with the world; • the technological tools are not seen as tools intended to automate or simplify the old design way, but as support for human-machine iteration process in which the machine helps to increase the potential of design studente; • the design objective becomes to develop a logical -spatial alphabet able to facilitate dialogue between different cultures; in this dimension the primary design purpose is not is to define forms, going to functions, with the excuse to meet the arbitrarily defined needs of the past (usually defined from teachers), but is ‘generative’, that is able to generate virtuous relationship with physical, natural and social spaces. http://vod.blogsite.org

Note 1 Giuseppe Longhi, Venezia industriale/industriosa, Supernova, Venezia, 1999 2 Come sarà la scuola del prossimo millennio? Intervista a Seymour Papert in: http://www.mediamente.rai.it/ biblioteca/biblio.asp?id=259&tab=bio Seymour Papert, Teaching Children Thinking, Technology and Teacher Education Review, 5(3/4), 353-365, Columbia University, 1980 3 Paul Virilio, Lo spazio critico, Dedalo, Bari, 1988 4 Jhon Goddard, Reinventing civic university, 2009 ppt elaborato da NESTA, London in: http://www.nesta.org. uk 5 Claudio Ciborra, The Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002 6 Anthony Townsend, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Rick Weddle, Future Knowledge Ecosystems:The Next Twenty Years of Technology-Led Economic Development, IFTF Report Number SR-1236, Institute Didathe future, London, 2009 for

Obviously, the testimony of this work is no longer entrusted to a paper but to a complex web location: http://vod.blogsite.org that synthesizes a complex Testi organizational learning and research model.

It’s inspired by the model of creative chatter and is structured to facilitate multiple levels of dialogue that are activated by different network components.

The location is to configure it as a “portable laboratory”, whose main facilities are: • the network description and the presentation of its components; • the virtual classroom, to work collaboratively 24h/24; • the blog, to generate creative ideas and communicate with the world; • the library, in order to feed collaborative knowledge; • courses online, update for long life.

This experience, introducing the concept of “portability of the university structures,” suggests substantial changes to this institution, exciting the pervasiveness and, specularly, opposing his advanced sclerosis.

First, the portability enhances the process of dematerialization, because it changes the traditional relationship between the physical structures and intangible resources (networks and knowledge). A time the physical presence was essential to gain access to knowledge, hence the motivation of education large phalansteries, today much of the infrastructures are translocating in “the cloud” and the physical structures are used for targeted and high added value purposes. A system translating the main investments by the real estate sector to high-tech sector, with large savings in material and sustainability increasing.

“Portable laboratory” is today experimentation field of hybrid intelligence forms, based on a mix of vital places, algorithms and networks of men. It is expressed through the reinterpretation of the traditional work space - the classroom - and its infrastructure, with the result of experiencing new forms of communication and new variations of physical spaces. The hybrid intelligence is the distinctive element of “Notebook Lab” that is configured as a collaborative research space, able to integrate network enabling high-speed access to any information resources in support to studentes, researchers and social networks, ables to communicate tacit knowledge at distance. Basically, this model of space with hybrid intelligence announce a university morphology no longer located for blocks in the city (the university district or campus), but a system of creative nodes distributed in the environment, that will be structured in regional ecosystems of the knowledge 6, intended to organize scientific chatter in: • “local buzz”, which is the daily dialogue, knowledge and information circulating in a well-defined territory, which must be assisted and coordinated through a network of “Netbook Lab” that providing search services. In this way it achieves a soft landing system, intended to internalize exogeneous resources that can be attracted in the region, as foreign companies looking for new know-how or new markets; • “global pipelines”, which is the flow of more structured knowledge institutions operating on an international scale, to be attended by important technological structures (eg wind tunnel, supercomputing centers, etc.)..

Regional ecosystems should be bodies developping both of these functions - speeding up the flow of knowledge within the region and facilitating the import of knowledge and dissemination of benefits globally.

As the search spaces of knowledge activated by the regional ecosystems are collaborative, have to be redesigned according to the of the three pillars industry, universities, research - logic, contributing to the realization of the platforms dictated by the EU. The proposed educational model teaches students to be resilient, to be cooperative in meeting the articulated needs of the people who make up the platforms, to be able to quickly locate in the new mechanisms where they can produce tangible benefits for the research.

The great recession means the start of great visions: our “notebook laboratory” can be seen as the means by which students will be able to start a new boom of higher knowledge spread, in a process similar to that initiated by the Olivetti Lettera 22, the instrument in support of micro enterprises literacy that allowed the start of the economic boom after World War II. http://vod.blogsite.org

Introduzione Giuseppe Longhi

Le proposte progettuali che vengono di seguito presentate, riguardanti il futuro assetto morfologico di Venezia, sono l’esito di un processo di sperimentazione didattica ormai ventennale, iniziata nella seconda metà degli anni ’90 e testimoniata nel volume “Venezia industriale/industriosa”, pubblicato da Supernova/Venezia nel 19991. Questo processo è ispirato alle teorie di Seymour Papert2, riprese da Paul Virilio3 ed oggi patrimonio del filone che teorizza modelli creativi nell’educazione4. Questo processo didattico prende atto che il sistema d’istruzione universitario è ancora ispirato a un modello dell’organizzazione del lavoro che risale alla prima rivoluzione industriale, ossia procede in modo lineare per step lenti.

Il suo riferimento organizzativo è la linea di produzione; il progetto è insegnato per scale, si passa dalla “più semplice” alla “più complessa”, perché si pensa che la capacità progettuale debba procedere un po’ alla volta.

E’ pur vero che nel tempo tale modello si è modificato, con l’istituzione dei laboratori e con gli scambi Erasmus Program, ma è indubbio che la logica top down dell’insegnamento non è stata minimamente intaccata, così come è debole l’iterazione con le forze esogene che condizionano la realtà progettuale.

Questa organizzazione ignora completamente i nuovi modelli resi possibili dalla disponibilità di strumenti interattivi, dalla globalizzazione della conoscenza, dalla complessità dei processi progettuali, dalla rapidità dei cambiamenti economici, sociali e spaziali che coinvolgono lo spazio. Un insieme di fattori che stanno influenzando enormemente l’evoluzione organizzativa del progetto, che deve essere alimentato da un sistema sempre più diversificato di culture appartenenti ai cinque continenti. Per questo la forma organizzativa a cui fanno riferimento le esperienze qui presentate è quella della ‘nuvola’, il cui funzionamento si basa sulla consapevolezza del valore del dialogo collettivo.

La ‘nuvola’ è un ecosistema di relazioni interdipendenti, non gerarchiche, a geometria variabile, ‘ubique’, ossia raggiungibili da ogni luogo in ogni momento, il cui assetto è caratterizzato da diversità e pluralità. Caratteristiche organizzative della ‘nuvola’ sono5: Modellizzazione, come ha insegnato Forrester a partire dagli anni ’70, la progettazione deve essere strutturata in modelli formalmente complessi, perché procedere sulla base della semplice intuizione porta ad errori colossali; Ospitalità, ossia la capacità di riconoscere ed esaltare il sistema di preferenze degli utenti del progetto e, quindi, di non imporre ai cittadini la volontà del progettista. Quindi ‘ospitalità’ è la capacità di assimilare criticamente le culture ‘aliene’, con lo scopo di innovare il potenziale progettuale; Improvvisazione, ossia l’apprendimento ed il progetto procedono per feedback, sapendosi adattare ai cambiamenti e rivalutare i comportamenti che facilitano i nostri scambi con il mondo; Bricolage, ossia la costante sperimentazione e riorganizzazione di gente, saperi e risorse, che è la vera caratteristica del progetto innovativo. Scopo del bricolage è attivare processi di co-creazione multidirezionali, che producono feedback per stimolare una partecipazione multipla continua e attiva, per superare il dialogo one-to-one; Grande scala, ossia disporre di grandi data base, per aumentare il tasso di conoscenza, e operare per meta-filtri, per aumentare la qualità della progettazione.

In questo ambiente: • il docente si trasforma nel coordinatore della comunità, nel promotore di un’agenda interattiva; • gli studenti, disponendo di grandi data base interattivi sono in grado di progettare interagendo con il mondo; • gli strumenti tecnologici non sono visti come attrezzi destinati ad automatizzare o semplificare il vecchio modo di progettare, ma come supporto a processi di iterazione uomo-macchina nei quali la macchina contribuisce ad accrescere il potenziale progettuale degli studenti; http://vod.blogsite.org

Note 1 Giuseppe Longhi, Venezia industriale/industriosa, Supernova, Venezia, 1999 2 Come sarà la scuola del prossimo millennio? Intervista a Seymour Papert in: http://www.mediamente.rai.it/ biblioteca/biblio.asp?id=259&tab=bio Seymour Papert, Teaching Children Thinking, Technology and Teacher Education Review, 5(3/4), 353-365, Columbia University, 1980 3 Paul Virilio, Lo spazio critico, Dedalo, Bari, 1988 4 Jhon Goddard, Reinventing civic university, 2009 ppt elaborato da NESTA, London in: http://www.nesta.org. uk 5 Claudio Ciborra, The Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002 6 Anthony Townsend, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Rick Weddle, Future Knowledge Ecosystems:The Next Twenty Years of Technology-Led Economic Development, IFTF Report Number SR-1236, Institute for the future, London, 2009

• l’obiettivo del progetto diventa elaborare un alfabeto logico-spaziale capace di agevolare il dialogo fra culture diverse; in questa dimensione lo scopo primario del progetto non è definire forme, procedendo per funzioni, con l’alibi del soddisfacimento di bisogni pregressi arbitrariamente definiti (solitamente dalla docenza), ma è ‘generativo’, ossia capace di generare virtuose relazioni con lo spazio, fisico, naturale e sociale.

Ovviamente la testimonianza di questo lavoro non è più affidata a un supporto cartaceo ma a una complessa postazione web: http://vod.blogsite.org che è il motore del modello organizzativo della didattica e della ricerca fin qui illustrato.

La postazione si ispirata al modello del chiacchiericcio creativo ed è strutturata per agevolare i livelli multipli di dialogo che sono attivati dai diversi componenti della rete.

La postazione si viene a configurare come un “Laboratorio portatile” (o Notebook Lab), le cui pagine principali sono: • la descrizione della rete delle relazioni e la presentazione dei suoi componenti; • l’aula virtuale, per lavorare in modo collaborativo 24h/24; • il blog, per generare spunti creativi e dialogare con il mondo; • la biblioteca, per alimentare in modo collaborativi la conoscenza; • i corsi on-line, per l’aggiornamento long life.

Questa esperienza, introducendo il concetto di “portabilità delle strutture universitarie”, suggerisce sostanziali modifiche all’assetto di questa istituzione, esaltantandone la pervasività e, specularmene, contrastando la sua avanzata sclerotizzazione.

Innanzitutto, la portabilità esalta i processi di dematerializzazione, in quanto modifica il rapporto fra le tradizionali strutture fisiche e le risorse immateriali (reti e conoscenze). Un tempo per accedere alle conoscenze era essenziale la presenza fisica, da qui la motivazione dei grandi falansteri dell’istruzione, oggi gran parte delle infrastrutture traslocano nella nuvola e le strutture fisiche sono usate per scopi mirati e ad alto valore aggiunto. Un sistema, quindi, in cui l’investimento portante trasla dal settore immobiliare a quello dell’alta tecnologia, con grandi risparmi di materia e aumento della sostenibilità.

Il “Laboratorio portatile” è oggi terreno di sperimentazione di forme di intelligenza ibrida, che si fondano su un mix vitale di luoghi, algoritmi e reti di uomini. Esso si esprime grazie alla reinterpretazione del tradizionale spazio di lavoro – l’aula- e delle sue infrastrutture, con il risultato di sperimentare nuove forme di comunicazione e nuove declinazioni degli spazi fisici. L’intelligenza ibrida è l’elemento distintivo del “Lab portatile”, che si configura come spazio di ricerca collaborativo, strutturato nella forma della rete integrata che permette l’accesso ad alta velocità ad ogni risorsa informativa, in supporto a studenti, ricercatori e social-network, i quali sono in grado di comunicare tacita conoscenza a distanza.

Tendenzialmente, questa declinazione di spazio a intelligenza ibrida annuncia una morfologia dell’università non più a blocchi nella città (il quartiere universitario o il campus), ma un sistema di nodi creativi diffusi nel contesto, che andranno a strutturarsi in ecosistemi regionali della conoscenza6, destinati a organizzare il chiacchiericcio scientifico in: • “local buzz”, che è il dialogo quotidiano, le conoscenze e le informazioni che circolano in un ben definito territorio, che deve essere assistito e coordinato attraverso una rete di “Laboratori portatili”, che erogano servizi di ricerca. In tal modo si realizza un sistema di approdi soft, destinati ad internalizzare le risorse esogene che circolano o devono essere attratte nella regione, come le imprese straniere alla ricerca di nuovo know-how o nuovi mercati; • “global pipeline”, che è il flusso più strutturato di conoscenze che le istituzioni gestiscono a scala internazionale, che deve essere assistito da importanti strutture tecnologiche (es. tunnel del vento, centri di supercomputing, ecc.).

Gli ecosistemi regionali dovrebbero essere organismi che sviluppano entrambe queste funzioni – velocizzando i flussi del sapere all’interno della regione e facilitando l’importazione dei saperi e la diffusione dei benefici a livello globale.

In quanto gli spazi di ricerca attivati dagli ecosistemi regionali del sapere sono collaborativi, dovranno essere ridisegnati secondo la logica dei tre pillars, http://vod.blogsite.org

industria, ricerca, università – concorrendo alla realizzazione del sistema delle piattaforme dettata dall’Unione europea. Creare spazi dove imprese, ricerca, individui e piccoli gruppi possano sviluppare nuove relazioni associative sarà un’enorme fonte di creazione di valore. Le piattaforme, a loro volta, daranno luogo a istituzioni di formazione superiore temporanee, destinate a durare il tempo del raggiungimento di scopi scientifici ben determinati, secondo il modello che si sta sperimentando dell’ European Institute of Technology.

Il modello didattico proposto insegna agli studenti ad essere resilienti e cooperativi nel soddisfare i bisogni dei soggetti che compongono le piattaforme, a saper rapidamente individuare nei nuovi meccanismi dove si possono produrre vantaggi tangibili per la ricerca.

La grande recessione implica l’avvio di grandi visioni: grazie al nostro “Notebook Lab” abbiamo l’ambizione di inserire gli studenti in un nuovo boom del sapere superiore diffuso, in un processo simile a quello avviato dalla Lettera 22 dell’Olivetti, lo strumento a supporto dell’alfabetizzazione delle micro imprese che ha permesso l’avvio del boom economico del secondo dopoguerra.

Giuseppe Longhi

Design Bibliogaphy Goals Europe 2020 A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth http://ec.europa.eu/eu2020/index_en.htm Angelo Grasso, Giuseppe Longhi, The need to apply an integrated approach to urban regeneration, European Economic and Social Committee, exploratory opinion ECO 273, Bruxelles, 2010

Human resources Millennium goals http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx

Climatic change Growing within limits. A report to the Global Assembly 2009 of the Club of Rome http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2009/Growing-within-limits.-A-report-to-the-Global-Assembly-2009-of-the-Club-of-Rome.html

Scenarios Global: Instiute for the future http://www.iftf.com UE: Vision Europe 2020 http://www.europe-now.org/page/Vision%20Europe-en.html Urban development: EEA, Prelude project http://scenarios.ewindows.eu.org/Home Climatic change: ONU IPCC http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp Costructions: UE costruction scenarios http://www.emcc.eurofound.eu.int/publications/2005/ef0566en.pdf#search=%22construction%20sector%20 scenario%22 Energy: Energy Strategy scenarios http://www.worldenergy.org Water:Water strategy scenarios http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org http://vod.blogsite.org

Tech: http://www.efmn.info/kb/thinking-debating-shaping.pdf Transport: http://www.foresight.gov.org

U-City N. Negroponte, Being digital, Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York, 1995 William J. Mitchell & Federico Casalegno, Connected sustainable cities, 2008 http://www.connectedsustainablecities.org/ Senseable city http://senseable.mit.edu/ U-concept http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_02/ict/u-japan_en/index.html MIT Center for real estate http://web.mit.edu/cre/research/ncc/casestudies.html Singapore http://www.itu.int/ubiquitous Songdo masterplan http://www.songdo.com/songdo-international-business-district/the-city/master-plan.aspx Busan http://english.busan.go.kr/02_government/09_04.jsp Arabianranta (Helsinki) https://www.taik.fi/en/about_taik/arabianranta_.html

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Venice city vision Would be Venice an excellent node in the “ubiquitous cities” net? Will be Venice able to transform its historical inability to adapt itself to technological progress into a beautiful handling of physical space, once a time? The huge polluted Portomarghera spaces, full of “Hard Architectures” frames composed of sheds, big machineries, negative environmental and social externalities, are evidences of the Venice industrial history; a very different history from the wellknown pre-industrial one. According to Nicholas Negroponte, Portomarghera is an historical monument of a hard development irreparably beaten by the new rules of “Soft architecture machines”.

These “Soft Architecture Machine”, at first complete the traditional physical and local instruments, and after replace them by means of immaterial, global, and interactive technologies; in a sequence where bits support atoms, starting a relentless run toward the dematerialization.

Today, cynic speculators, politics without scruple and accommodating archistarlet wish the ‘”rehabilitation” of this monument, in a melting-pot of greed, cultural poverty and social irresponsibility.

Our group propose a design strategy for Portomarghera rehabilitation oriented to responsible and sustainable development, based on the knowledge implementation and natural resources revaluation.

Knowledge implementation aims to increase human resources capability and wellbeing, by means of an internalization strategy of the exogenous forces shaking global world. It’s important to propose an inclusive design vision, based on the Venice connection with the new Euro-Asian cultural and economic fluxes, renewed thank to the re-opening of new silk road by rail, ship and high capability TLC, to reach this aim. The new role of Portmarghera historical territorial system is to become a metropolitan node of these new Euro-Asian relations. The rehabilitation process of these areas is a foundational moment of a new “Ubiquitous Venice”, connected in real time with any site all over the world. The social and physical model of the “Ubiquitous Venice” is inspired to the “Fondaco” historical typology, thought as a multidisciplinary and multifunctional platform, connected with the “cloud”. The fondaco organizational model is a non-hierarchical relation ecosystem, defined by: • Hospitality, a model based on courtesy and capability to absorb and appropriate/assimilate the alien cultures, with the aim design potential innovation; • Improvisation, relations based on feedback, adapting to the changes and easing the world exchanges; • Bricolage, capability to observe and to reorganize people, knowledge, resources; • Large scale, capability to work with great data base, to increase knowledge level, and with meta-filters, improving design quality.

Natural resources rehabilitation: handling natural resources aims to reduce design ecological footprint and to increase biodiversity, improving production of natural goods, and services, on land surface different from the present one: the one left over after raising of the sea level because of the Climate Change.

Driving forces of 2050 scenario are: • New environmental conditions (clime, biodiversity, vegetal and animal species,.) produced by climate changes; • The International Conventions about environment and human resources long time targets (2030-2050).

Venice-Portomarghera New “Fondaci” Following these assumptions we propose four strategic designs about “Fondaci” of Japan, India, Pakistan, China. The design driving lines are inspired to the http://vod.blogsite.org

Erasmus Intensive Program Tutor Andrea Pennisi Anna Omodeo

transformation of a derelict platform of “hard architecture” era into a soft and ubiquitous platform, thanks to architectures founded on dematerialization, connectivity and natural resources supremacy.

JAPAN Fondaco The Japan Fondaco 2050 vision in based on steady development; the spatial effect of this theory is a flexible, creative, diversified, self-adapting, complex settlement model. This settlement extended in three islands with different environmental pressure: • Transition island, a creativity centre, its spaces are dedicated to knowledge and production; • Slow life island, proposes a different life style: people live in houseboats built with new hybrid sustainable materials (nanotech + biotech) and the natural biodiversity is granted by a large park favouring leisure and natural responsibility; • Very slow life island, its surface will be mostly biotic, it proposes the dialogue and the return to the rhythms of nature, with temporary settlements that comply with the natural cycles, spaces to reflect and permaculture.

INDIA Fondaco The new India Fondaco proposes knowledge, culture and tolerance as strategic elements to exchange between east and west. The Fondaco is a system of collaborative platforms, in which the relationship between material and immaterial resources are articulated on various levels: • Development of all forms of knowledge, promotion of arts and cultural diversity; • Development of a collaborative and creative strategy, also thank to the support of TLC; • Development of advanced logistic integrating port, airport ad telematic systems.

In this environment the promotion of human activities, the development of physical and natural settlements and the technological application must satisfy the 10 Factor, according to Wuppertal Institute definition. These premises are the basis of three urban scenarios: • Biological city: the settlement model is inspired by the DNA of living human being, the morphology of the settlement is a double spiral and strongly adaptative; • Sponge city: the expected high increase of sea level inspired a settlement in piles. The morphology will be dictated by the channels shape, like the Venice model; • Lotuses city: inspired by Indian lotus, it is interpreted like a great floating ark, metaphor of the welcome and protection against climate adversities.

PAKISTAN Fondaco The mission of the Pakistan Fondaco is twofold: the first is to connect the traditional Asian productions with the most advanced technologies. Symbol of this philosophy is the cash-bit (cashmere + bit), fusion of the typical cachemire production with the most advanced nanotechnologies, which allow to fabric to be an instrument of communications, of temperature self regulation, etc… The second mission is to transform the wastes in goods, testing new productions.

CHINA Fondaco The China Fondaco will favour the cultural activities and stimulate exchange between Chinese and European knowledge, with the aim of promoting their conservation and regeneration. The fondaco design will be based on the feng-shui rules, will be coherent with the natural resources metabolism and will be develop three themes: • Memory, a floating settlement will study and spread the relationship between eastern and western culture; • Nature, in an oriental shaped park will be experimented the traditional eastern natural medicine practices; • Creativity, a new international research centre will develop the dematerialization theme and its connections with building technologies.

Competions result: entries

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...if Venice survives through reflection?

“And if we are indeed partly synonymous with water, which is fully synonymous with time, then one’s sentiment toward this place improves the future, contributes to that Adriatic or Atlantic of time which stores our reflections for when we are long gone. Out of them, as out of frayed sepia pictures, time will perhaps be able to fashion, in a collage-like-manner, a version of the future better than it would be without them. This way one is Venetian by definition, because out there, in its equivalent of the Adriatic or Atlantic or Baltic, time –alias - water crochets or weaves our reflections - alias love for this place - into unrepeatable patterns…”

Joseph Brodsky, Watermark Anyone who has lived, or has simply stopped in this city for a few days, knows that there are two Venice off the coast of the Adriatic sea, two identical city living under the same sky. In the eyes of the careless tourist maybe these two cities seem to be the same thing, or one is trivially a continuum of the other, but in reality these two cities have very little in common beyond the fact of resting their feet on the surface of the same sea. And perhaps the most important thing that joins them, besides the name of course, is the ability to generate wonder and astonishment in all the people’s eyes, just like in a neverending race in which neither will ever be able to overcome the other. Or at least, until now has been so.

Leaving aside the beauty which sets them apart, what differentiates them and makes them unique essentially is the material of which they are made. One is built of stone and brick, is firm, penetrable and screams his strength and solidity. You can touch her, you can enjoy her for hours, you can live her, and she will never refuse you a photograph. But unfortunately, she is not immortal, and looks like a huge clock of the world through which you can realize the passage of time, and year by year, century by century, shows its wrinkles and all its fragility and weakness.

The other Venice instead, the upside down one, citing Calvin, is untouchable, unfathomable, impenetrable, unreachable. The infinite in which she throws you is the inevitable consequence of the mystery that surrounds her. You cannot touch her otherwise she would disappear, you may want to lock her in a photograph, but it would be useless because in the meantime she has changed and rechanged thousands of times, even millions. And for this reason, many people have approached her to the concept and idea of the soul.

But what if this Venice, made of water, is the answer and the instrument for a contemporary long-awaited renaissance?

And if this Venice, always considered as a consequence of the other, is charged with life and meaning to the point of no longer distinguish reality from his own reflection? And if that happens, and its canals convey information and data in addition to people?

Maybe the Venice where we will choose to live in the future is alive in the reflection of the city that today we’re leaving. Maybe Venice will return to be a city and will find its contemporaneity, becoming the symbol and the emblem of a renewed life.

The idea that the city loses its identity, or rather amplifies it exponentially up to confuse the reality with the reflection, is not new. In the sense, have a look at some views of Lifschitz or Monet if you want to go further back in time. But what is creative and innovative, is the idea of reactivating a city in stand-by for too long time, through the element that mostly distinguishes Venice all over the world and has determined its fortune and greatness, but also pain and degradation, the water. New is the thought to revitalize Venice in a sustainable way, understood in an environmental way preserving the natural and cultural heritage of the city and of the lagoon system. In an economical way through the use of instruments and modern technologies that are flexible, removable, http://vod.blogsite.org

Group Alessandro Carabini Alice Braggion

proportionate and harmonized with the city. And finally in a social one, as a platform able to attract, generate cohesion and interaction, import and export ideas and creativity, and especially replace an active and open Venice in the global network in the position it deserves.

The dense and intricate branch of Venetian canals reaches and laps almost every house in the city. This system so extremely complex and widespread, dynamic and constantly changing in its characteristics, could represent a huge opportunity today. The canals that have always had the task of transporting goods and people, like the roads in all the other cities, could become flows full of information and data. In the age of the network and of the free access to a more balanced information, Venice could stand as an emblem of contemporaneity. This would be possible by exploiting and enhancing the existing complex map of the Venetian canals, which would become the first communication infrastructure of its kind. In other words, innovating and re-activating the city starting from its real essence: innovation through its tradition.

By the water and its physical properties as a liquid, it is possible the transition from physical reality to a more virtual and immaterial one. Its clear advantages and opportunities will allow the regeneration of the physical Venice. So the virtual world as a key to bring new energy to the physical city, in social, cultural and economical terms.

In this sense, the reflection is loaded with multiple meanings, as it would represent and embody the new virtual reality of Venice. The reflection, as augmented reality in every sense, wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just be confined in the romantic and metaphorical meaning. It will became a real tool of interactive communication, an exchanging surface that imports and exports the immense cultural heritage of Venice. A kind of incubator of the endless stimuli of the environment able to explode them outside, making the city open to the world.

Venice is magical just because it has this added value, it already has a kind of augmented reality which is given by its reflection, by being constantly in between two worlds, two parallel cities always present. So the question naturally arises: which place in the world is more suitable to imagine the coexistence of a people real life and their augmented reality? And in both cases, physical and social structure of the city, it is the water that allows this â&#x20AC;&#x153;augmentâ&#x20AC;?.

And if now the open and incredibly artificial system of the lagoon of Venice is limited to being the place of the exchange between land and sea, in the future it could increase its role. So not only Venice, but the whole lagoon system will become a huge platform for exchange with the world. The lagoon as a huge portal in which the city itself and also information and contents of other world cities travel. From the historical harbour wayouts will depart not only water and ships, but ideally also information and data. Venice will return lively as in the past, becoming that interactive and multimedia hub that we all dream.

Testi

Competions result: entries http://vod.blogsite.org

Venice is not an island Today we need a system of improvement for Venice that concerns the issues of the entire territory of the lagoon. We need a regional plan of strategies for a new model of a city without boundaries.

The planning method will change. The architect has to keep up with the complexity of large-scale issues. He thus becomes a designer of adaptive processes.

We propose a stategy for an urban adaptive design of the territory of Venice.

1) Several critical issues have to be analysed: • the climate conditions will always change. Global warming is the current rise in the average temperature of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere caused by the human activities. The sea level is raising every year. Probably in the Venice lagoon it will grow one meter high in 2100.

• the increase of population will press on the migration, caused by the climate changes. The town will be dense and chaotic, with serious problems for infrastructures and transportations;

• occidental governments will be even less capable to impose extensive top-down projects. The new participate democracy needs decision-making processes: a bottom-up system;

• -n a fragile eco-system the matter of water has a topic role. The regional network flows into the lagoon of Venice, crossing the entire territory. The urban sprawl brakes up the waterworks and the low-density pattern compromises the draining to the water-bearing stratum.

2) We need an adaptive action plan, capable of absorbing changes. We have to re-configurate the urban space.

We propose a new model of unlimited Venice : • it gets over the traditional idea of town and country, because it involves the concept of scale and boundary, erasing the possibility to adapt itself to unplanned changes. Instead, a connective urban textile will be able to read and design the complexity of the territory. To contrast the sea raising we will defend the lagoon: a realistic solution for the IPCC will be to separate lagoon from sea with a big bank, which will control the tidal energy. Another problem will be the management of the regional draining field. We need an unlimited connective textile, formed by different solutions to the several issues of the territory: a bank in the lagoon, a channel in the town, for example.

• we can’t devise self-sufficiency, because the growth limits should be planned from the beginning, and such a constricted system is destined to collapse. At the contrary, we analyse the landmarks and design a territorial network: a layout of connections to integrate and move people, supplies and energy. Every connective filament is ruled by a hierarchical system (primary filament, secondary filament, etc.).

• we think that the iperdense Venetian territory will be chaotic and variable. What is needed for a good quality of life is an efficient policy about transports and infrastructures. We think that the future Venice will be sustainable if it works like a metamorphic organism. The principal lines and junctions of the network will become important green boulevards and squares of intermodal exchanges. The boulevards will be able to pull down the CO2 emissions, to manage the complex cycle of water, to favor transports and better the lives of people all over the region.

• We can devise two types of architecture: persistent (not permanent) or dynamic. The latter one changes continuosly, being aware of a defined life cycle.

Buildings for apartments, commercial constructions or offices are an example of dynamic layout. More importantly, the persistent layout is constituted by durable and adaptive architectures. They have the characteristic to produce culture, and to re-configure and adapt themselves as the climate changes. http://vod.blogsite.org

Group Marco Da Re Michele Di Marco

Therefore, our project is comprised with an enormous building able to resist the changes of the Venetian territory, and absorb the density of the future chaotic city, vacating biotic lands and increasing the green boulevards. â&#x20AC;˘ We propose a tower. Vertical buildings are not such a distant idea by Venice standards. In the town we can simply go up and observe the incredibile number of steeples and bell towers. High buildings work like landmarks in the territory. Our project wants to be a virtuous example of good persistent architecture. Inspired by the projects of Louis Kahn and Buckminster Fuller we have designed a vertical and high-tech city. The tetrahedrical steel structure generates continous spaces. A central technical core serves the tower, in addition to vertical circulation. Public spaces, apartaments and offices are reconfigurable. It will be constructed step by step, simplifying the financial and social process. â&#x20AC;˘ This building will never be complete. As soon as a step will be finished, part of the population will be moved into the vertical city. The architectures inside the tower will continually change; dynamic shapes, high-tech or recycle materials, everything will be possible in the future. A complexity of styles, probably meaningless: like a techno-favela.

Competions result: entries http://vod.blogsite.org

City of the lagoon New York, Kennedy Airport, at the check-in queue.

August: “Where are you from?”

Piero: “I come from Venice!”

August: “Really? Do you live in the island? And what about rising water?”

Piero: “Actually I live in Mogliano, 15 km from Venice” Where does Venice finish? We know that it begins whit the main island, but where is the entrance of the city? Somebody talks about ‘Veneto city’, someone else about ‘Pa-Tre-Ve’ (Padova-Treviso-Venezia), we would like to start talking about the ‘city of the lagoon’.

Venice is not only what’s inside the lagoon, but also what stands around it. Mestre and Marghera could be part of the ‘city of the lagoon’, but they have an extremely serious lack of relation with water.

One day we were standing on the Marghera coastline and were looking towards East. That’s what we saw…

VENICE IS A WATER CITY Nowadays “water” has two meanings: for Venice: it is both a resource and an enemy.

It is a resource cause it is the element that has shaped Venice from age to age until today. It was once a natural defense against invaders but also the main way of traffic through the city, and boating is still the faster way to move around the city. Some of venetians functions depend on the sea tides, for example fishing or mobility are strongly related to the marine flows. The canals are one of the most living spaces of the city.

As a resource we think that the kind of the relation that Venice has with water is reproducible. Water is the main feature we want to give to the new part of the city. It will grow on the boundaries of the lagoon, defining the exact dimension of new Venice. Water will become the open space of the whole city. It will be used as the major way of traffic; the houses will be built directly on the sea in order to emphasize the particular beauty of the lagoon landscape.

As an enemy we refer here to the rising sea level foreseen for the next decades by the majority of the scientific community (see IPCC reports). Lots of studies are ongoing in order to find a way to preserve the venetian surface and to avoid a strong ecosystem disruption of the lagoon. In this case we consider the theory of some venetian hydrologists, saying that the southern part of the lagoon is too damaged to be saved and must be sacrificed in order the save the rest. They propose to build a new bank to divide southern and northern lagoon: in this way Venice and its surroundings can resist against sea level rising and can restore the ecosystem that has been already strongly damaged. Our project is built directly on water: this is an adaptation measure that permits to avoid problems in case of rising water. The houses are born to live over the sea and will continue working also with changing climate conditions.

VENICE IS A DENSE CITY Venice has an incredibly high density, more than 2,5 built m2/m2. One of the first requirement for a sustainable development is high density because it avoids the consumption of fertile soil. . Our effort is to design the new parts with the same density of Venice, with a particular focus on the solar exposition.

The high density allows to free most of the venetian mainland from the sprawl. A modular construction system fits the needs of a flexible city and can be modified very quickly in order to get the best solar exposition. The majority of the buildings grow directly on the sea and need a very small part of soil. http://vod.blogsite.org

Group Linda Comerlati Pietro Luciani

VENICE IS A WALKABLE CITY Pedestrians and boats never intersect each other: two systems that work together on different levels. We keep this amazing peculiarity of the ancient Venice, creating a suspended pedestrian/bicycle city, which touches the water in several points but never interrupts it. People can move very quickly from their homes to the closest public transit facility by walking or cycling, and always going parallel to water. This will be an urban strategy very similar to the venetian “fondamenta”: people by boat and people walking or cycling will flow together in a public livable space, not in a traffic and polluted highway.

NEW VENICE The result of our vision is a city made of small clusters linked to the new embankment. They are made of green public areas with a service tower in the middle of them. The tower provides clean energy to the city, collects and transforms garbage and is a facility for public transit, both rail and marine. The other buildings containing homes and commercial activities grow around the green core, directly over the sea. They create an interconnected system of pedestrian roads and suspended platforms where people can move or just stop and have a talk as if they were in a typical venetian square.

“The empty space of water is no more a synonym of desperation, of absence, of instability but is a symbol of hope, of ancient knowledge that make us imagine again and again. The mainland is failing exactly in his attempt to overcome the old town: his futuristic velocity against the immobility of Venice. “ MarcoPaolini, “I cani del gas” ed. Einaudi Torino, 2000.

Competions result: entries http://vod.blogsite.org

Venice or Disneyland?

The approach to the Venetian theme, suffer the subjection of the city, no longer seen as such, but as a temporary object on failure.

The distance created with its inhabitants is generated by an increase of tourism. The city has now become an open-air museum, an hours city, only populated by hungry visitors and daily users, trapped in her immobility. A place unable to offer new chances or an efficient development.

The Need for new space and services is limited to the creations of new functional appendices, completely unrelated to the city structure. At the same time, in the center, there is no clever rehabilitation of the existing spaces. In addition, no permanent solutions has been found to contrast the rise of the water level so the complete inflexibility of the city will ineluctably transform it into a dead ruin.

Based on these assumptions, our project, will propose a new idea of areas that have flexible features, open to changes.

Venice is not born from a center, but consists of a series of separate islands, like a real micro-cities, which have been connected afterwards.

We think that the answer to the future needs, is a process that goes back to the origins of the city, an island archipelago. We call it Venetian Pangea.

Thanks to a new technology, we will be able to separate each island from the earth, and make it float by substituting the pales foundations with a floating system. In this way we will be able to resist the water level rise and also to increase the distances between the existing islands.

This process will be followed by a parasitic insertion of new urban texture, that will answer all the functions and spaces need of a lively city.

The new islands will also produce energy and food, host the waste recycle systems, in this way they will help and compete, with their level of technology, the existing islands, to improve the future maintenance. The new units will be a functional complement of the old islands and guarantee an efficient level of mixitè (of uses functions people) but also add new urban areas able to change the setting of the old Venice, without compromising itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own identity.

This strategy will increase the attraction power of Venice, thanks to the new island system there will be the space and the opportunity for new grow of uses and services, that will lead to a new increase of the population, and a clever answer to natural problems.

Future Venice will reach again the guide role it had in the past, instead of dying trying to preserve it.

Group Matteo Artico Mattia Bittolo Silvia Fracassi Matteo Trevisan

Competions result: honorable mentions http://vod.blogsite.org

Titolo Testi

Dida

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