Florence Work
click to enlarge
click two enlarge
click to enlarge
Vision Florence: 2035
The city of Florence invited Eco Acupuncture International program to envision a “resilient, sustainable Florence in 2035” and to propose steps to get there.
The program took three Eco Acupuncture design researchers and 15 Masters students in architecture, building technology, urban design, and planning from the University of Melbourne to Florence in September 2012. They were joined by Masters students from the Technical University of Delft (the Netherlands) and undergraduate students and staff from New York University Florence, as well as some doctoral students from the University of Florence Architecture School.
Many of the city’s most important buildings were provided as locations for a series of seminars about the city, opened by the Deputy Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella. A design atelier space in the centre of Florence was fitted out by the city for a three-week intensive co-design process. This atelier became a hub for the study of Florence and its transformational challenges, visited regularly by officials from the city and region, local architects and staff members from NYU and the University of Florence.
The maters students and eco-design professors from Australia, Italy and the Netherlands, formed small design teams to focus on five sites within the city selected as ‘pressure points’ for the coming decades – from buildings to precincts, to larger elements of urban infrastructure:
• The Arno
• San Lorenzo and the Central Market
• The Florence tram network
• Urban piazze and streets
“Ghost Buildings” (historic buildings currently vacant)
A vision of Florence in 2035 was first developed through workshops supported and hosted by NYU Florence (see summary below). For each of the sites listed above, a number of twenty-five-year transformations were conceived and visualised and presented progressively to the city. Small scale Eco-Acupuncture interventions within the sites were co-designed as starting points for the longer term transformation.
Many of the city’s most important buildings were provided as locations for a series of seminars about the citythe Arno 2035
2035 FLORENCE- A SHORT HISTORY OF GREENAISSANCE
By 2035 Florence has undergone its second great Renaissance – leading the world in innovations that both protect its history and provide for a thriving and vital community in a new global energy and climate landscape.
In the beginning of the twenty first century, Florence had settled into an identity closely aligned to ideas of fixity and preservation. Its citizens experienced increasing vulnerability to inhospitable weather. Heating, cooling and protecting historic buildings became a significant challenge. Everywhere there was tension between the preservation of its material fabric and the utilisation of new technologies for renewable energy and insulation and new approaches to the provision of water, food and transport.
In the decade 2012-2020 the city initiated a program for strengthening renewable energy and sustainable transport, local food, water and waste recycling, revitalising the institutions of learning and innovation in the process. These strategies saw the city quickly become a new focus for international attention: the first UNESCO world heritage city to embrace the challenges of the next century.
In 2014 the first international conference – Greenaissance – on ‘social and technical innovation for resilient low carbon futures for historic cities’, was hosted by Florence, coordinated by a visiting Australian program - Eco-Acupuncture, drawing world leaders to embrace its rich history of innovative thinking as a source for new creativity for developing a resilient future.
In 2035 Florence is now a city that is shared by visitors and Florentines. A high proportion of it 14 million visitors come to learn about – and contribute to – resilient non-fossil fuel living that has transformed the economy and the fabric of this city. Florence is now a global model for a low consumption, high prosperity life based on renewable resources. A city of IDEAS for the next 1000 years.
THE ARNO RIVER
2012:
For Florence, its relationship with water is becoming critical. Rainfall patterns are changing, with the city experiencing extended droughts. Summer temperatures make public space inhospitable and mobility difficult. The roofs and the surface of most piazzas contribute to heat island effects – as does the lack of trees in public spaces. Dry, hot conditions can make heavy rain much more likely to cause flash flooding. Yet the City is disconnected physically and culturally from its main ‘water of life’ – the Arno.
Used and polluted by early industries, the quality of the Arno is now much improved, but still poor. Before the 17th century drawings show the Arno partly flanked by fields and gardens and boat landings inside its walls. When the city walls were removed in the 19th Century the walled edges of the river were extended. The devastating flood of 1966 heightened the city’s sense of great vulnerability to the flows of the Arno. The Lungarno walls were extended, structured so as to ‘protect’ citizens and the city from future flooding, with the Arno re-conceived as a gutter or sluiceway. Access to the river for much of the year is exclusively for a Rowing Club (now fitted with large flood gates).
The iconic tourist image of the Arno is as a mirrored surface for reflections of the Ponte Vecchio; otherwise its walled edges create a difficult, often unpleasant, channel for pedestrians. On hot summer days its water provides no relief for citizens or tourists.
Outside the old walled city, where parkland extends to the water, the connection with the river is ambivalent and the riverbanks are little cared for, often littered with rubbish. Walking, running or cycling from a river park on one side of the walled gutter to a park on the the other is difficult and unpleasant.
Above the Arno valley, Renaissance villas and estates (such as Villa La Pietra) ring the city; control of surface water from heavy rainfall is insufficient to prevent recurrences of small floods in the city centre.
2015:
click to enlarge
The launch of the re-invigorated Florence Fashion Festival takes place on the waters of the Arno. Temporary floating piazzas have been constructed (from small modules) for this ‘once a year’ event. Additional viewing platforms with temporary seating hang off the walls of the Lungarno.
The world sees a completely different view of the Ponte Vecchio.
Desire to regularly ‘touch’ the river increases.
2035:
Florence is re-connected physically and culturally with the waters of the Arno. A linear walking and cycling ‘piazza’ links Ponte alle Grazie and Ponte Vespucci along the south side. This piazza floats on the river, rising up and down the edge of the Lungarno wall as the river level changes.
Separate floating capsules are able dock with this linear piazza, providing services (like cafes, small art galleries, spaces to listen to music, etc). The Arno, at water level, now has a 24 hr cycle of uses associated with recreation and pleasure in reconnecting to the core of the city’s history.
When flooding is predicted, the linear piazza is able to be tilted vertically as an additional storm barrier.
A wetland demonstration and recreation park now sits beside Ponte Vespucci. The river is cleaned by this park and the movement of water in summer provides cool space. The river is clean enough for immersion and play with a healthy fish population; fishing flourishes along its banks.
To reduce the danger of flooding, a large wetland flood control park (a ‘sacrificial’ space) has been created up-river. This also functions a treatment and education centre, and has become a new tourist destination as well as a recreational space for citizens.
click to enlarge