Slow Down / Green Archeology / Ex-rail goods yard Territorial venetian policies are supporting the concept of zero consumption soil. The project site of the Ex-rail goods yard, intended to become a big, majestic park will be an extension of the Parco Piraghetto: with a Permaculture Forest, the new green area will need longer time to arrange itself than the buildings construction.
© Renzo Sgolacchia . Published on March 08, 2014.
The pre-existing buildings, the ex depots goods structures (or archaeologies) are maintained and renovated in order to become through time small incubators for starting businesses or ateliers: their character – even because of their architectural composition with a lifted platform used in the past for unloading the trains – recovers the idea of the classical temple with a podium.
They refer as well to the Vitruvian idea of Solidity/Functionality/Beauty. In the last centuries, abundant green decorations were typical of exclusive areas: in this project it is an archeological, civil green which comes strongly onto the scene: it is a deep-rooted element, fundamental part of the project itself; and it brings into life and harmony again the temples of the Ex- goods yard, which may become new public buildings.
The Green Mission Natural elements in the project are meant to be active part of the blending among architecture, citizens and nature. Trees and plants do not have only a decorative meaning but they interpret, thanks to their specificities, useful tasks to support the human settlement and to make it eco-compatible. Every plant develops different functions at the same time, making possible and a pleasure for inhabitants (but even random visitors of the ex-railway park) to experience a renewed environment in direct contact with nature. The integration between green and houses realizes the interdependence man-nature with a low-emitting energy settlement, with a high degree of resilience. The Urban Park green (plants trees and natural elements in general) will in fact through time: extend the open-air, permeable area of the Parco Piraghetto; reclaim the soil of the considered area; help out the thermal and acoustic insulation of buildings through the roof gardens; provide to the purification of waters (Phyto-regeneration); create a microclimate which can dilute the winter rigor and summer heat; through Permaculture systems it will be improved a food forest for the natural spontaneous production of food; stimulate esthetical enjoyment; establish a living ecosystem. The new neighborhood may become a positive example of integrating humanisation with nature.
Integration of the buildings in the Urban Park In the Northern part of the Park new essences but similar in species to the ones of Parco Piraghetto will grow, in order to create a cohesion. The buildings will be surrounded by vegetation which will fulfill different functions, as revealing the building only in their proximity. The Western side, bordering the road and the railway, will become a dike planted with trees and shrubs in order to muffle the sounds and space out the big surrounding infrastructures.
The main boulevard (Via Trento) which crosses the whole area towards North South is conserved and pedestrianized, and the plane trees which skirt it will be maintained as well: it will be an added value for the green of the new Park: the archaeologies present on site do not consist in fact only of built elements.
Soil Reclamation Together with the opening of the works on site and construction yard, in some previously defined areas, there will be planted some biological species able to absorb and reclaim the land from polluting materials as hydrocarbons and heavy metals residual of the goods yard.
Water treatment plants The marshy and aquatic plants have the capacity of purifying waste waters. Organic parts, chemical components, fats and heavy metals are captured and reconverted, then absorbed again in the aquaticecosystem. Waters coming out from a purification system can be reutilized for domestic use, offices and gardens. The system proposed in the Urban Park comprehends two different stages: the covered flow, with gravel basins where in between water flows without never being in surface; the free flow, which appears as a stretch of water. It is possible to imagine that with this system the management can be a closed-circuit, realizing then a neighborhood with a highly sustainable internal economy of freshwater consumption. Mestre is situated in one of the most important marshy areas in Italy and the water purification processes are nothing else than a copy in small scale of the bigger natural situations at the rivers outlets: the marshy zones are necessary to purify the river waters, full of sediments before they flow into sea. Which in turn, these ponds will beckon the characteristic landscape and fauna (as herons, cormorants, migratory birds in their break, bats, ducks and other aquatic birds) which will become routine-bound neighbors of the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
Microclimate Trees and shrubs can temper the summery heat, containing the solar rays, but even protecting the ground in order to not make it being overheated and to let it release more easily the gathered heat. In winter, cold and dry winds which freeze over are hold back, obliging air to pass slowly across the neighborhood. The water stretches help out as well to temper extreme cold and heat. Water has a certain thermal inertia thanks to which it releases and collects heat much more slowly than earth.
Aesthethic issues Plants and essences, morphological variety in the landscape can influence and create the feeling of an appropriate, comfortable environment for the human spirit. Natural elements and open air may support relaxation and good disposition. The scenic evolution of the seasonal figures, sprouting, green vegetation, flourishing blossom, fructifying help man to feel part of the planet, breaking the sense of alienation created by a lifeless environments just made by concrete and asphalt. Moreover, plants mitigate sounds, give shelter to birds whose singing generate benefic effects as well in human beings, creating opposite atmospheres as the mechanical ones of the modern civilization.
Speed Up / Urban Archeology / Mestre Station Area The site area concerns the new train station, which represents a wedge among different systems. Talking about the Greater Mestre is functional to take in consideration the different scales of relational systems: the city is rethinking the railway system at the territorial level and inserting new routes of the tram system at the local level (to reconnect Mestre and Marghera). The new Station fulfills the icon of Greater Mestre: it speeds up the system, since it presents itself as a fragment of a much wider network, and on the other hand, as a new strategic centrality, which would act even as a gate between Mestre and Marghera – because of the underground passages – can perform a new sense of urbanity and open up to the chance of a new public space.
The new Station of Mestre – as a linear element – refers to the systems of ancient Portici present everywhere in the Venetian Region as well as in the historical centre of Mestre. The New Portico is the infrastructure through which will pass the bus station, the underground passages to Marghera and the train platforms, the tram tunnels with the stop, the pedestrian accesses to the car and parking spaces; on the rear part, the Portico becomes the shelter of the platform as well.
It is the table upon which different objects are placed: some services as the commercial store, administrative offices, parking of bicycles and cars, the new hotel are in fact emerging from the top of the Portico.
The roof is a common garden that puts in relation the different emerging parts. If the lower functions present themselves as the more public, for passengers moving from place to another, the upper parts on the roof of the Portico represent the relaxation spaces (cafeterias) adapt for the breaks and the waiting times of the travelers, the hotel guests and the offices employees.