A wasteland is a place that has been drained of its more precious characteristics by humans, making it pass through alien phases that turned it into a scar which forming steps have overlapped making its story illegible.
Picturing possible futures for the system of quarries along the Ticino River acting like scars in the landscape. The site project is an active sand/gravel quarry that interprets the concept of wasteland and envisions an alternative scenario after the dismiss, keeping the scar visible and strengthening it, designing the whole project around it instead of the common remediation procedure.
The goal is to show the effects of human intervention on the landscape, the irreversibility of its actions and keep fresh in people’s mind which are the layers that compose this landscape – the layering of different stories, different phases – providing a theatre of nature re-appropriation phenomena in a disturbed context.
With this in mind, the design provides a pause within the linear park of the Ticino River engaging people through three different experiences given by three pathways: the Time Zero of the scar – the injury, the transformation – represented by an impervious mineral path cutting the site; the Time One of a steep transition towards the high vegetation, that varies in proximity of some landmarks resembling the quarry machines; the Time Two of the flat loop within the developed vegetation and some peeks given by the previous land topography, typical of quarries.
You come from the river, entering the woodland – the prologue – and you will read the site your way depending on the path chosen, enabling you to watch different phenomena.
Theatre of Phenomena
Location: Lonate Pozzolo, Varese, Italy
Students: Sara Ingignoli, Giorgia Lentini, Eleonora Santoro at POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Image Credits: Sara Ingignoli, Giorgia Lentini, Eleonora Santoro