“Living in the City in the City” is the outcome of the international design competition organized by the Municipality of Genoa for the enhancement of Via XX Settembre. The elimination of private traffic on Via XX Settembre becomes an opportunity for Genoa to create new places to live in the city within the city, generating urban gravitations and reverberating existing functions in the neighbour hood.
In addition to rethink the system of mobility referring to functional and logistical requirements of traders and residents, the project produces a system of urban relationships stretched on the axis of Via XX Settembre, through a series of new polarities detected at the cross-roads, developing three themes: Culture – Information – Meeting. The idea of the project promotes a strong sense of self-identification by the Genoese, recovering the essential meaning of living seen as taking care of their city. As the inhabitant lives his own home, so the citizen lives his own city: Via XX Settembre becomes the “urban salon” where a renewed community can share their own identities. In this sense the project favourites a process of urban renewal with expanded benefits on the body of the city (in terms of real estate development also), rediscovering Via XX Settembre as a very urban place, with strong environmental and social values.
IMAGES: Courtesy of Openfabric
Design team: OBR Paolo Brescia e Tommaso Principi (architecture), Margherita Del Grosso (architecture), Openfabric, Francesco Garofalo (landscape)
Together with:
Marco Manzitti (urban marketing), Buro Happold (energy and environmental strategies), D’Appolonia (infrastructures), Doro Dietz (visualization)
Client: Municipality of Genoa
ATI:
OBR Open Building Research S.r.l. (Capogruppo)
Arch. Margherita Del Grosso
Buro Happold Limited
Dott. Marco Manzitti
D’Appolonia S.p.A
