Subject: www.venice@forum

From: Umberto Ceccarelli <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Jun 1996 08:01:50 GMT

www.venezia@forum

Venice of differences
Values, methods and projects for the city

The presentation of nine projects for the city is part of a 'Forum' 
developed during a course of Urban Design 2 within the IUAV, Istituto 
Universitario di Architettura di Venezia. 
Here we will focus the attention upon some general questions which will 
generate a transversal interpretation of the different projects, to 
explicit the meaning of our work.
The organization of the Forum is based upon the concept of a scientific 
approach to design, referring decisions to a common method and a shared 
set of values, as an answer to specifc questions to the project. A 
scientific method as an opposition to an empirical one in our opinion 
peculiar to a demiurgical approach to design.
Scientificity, in its different expressions within the following 
projects, would mean transparency, readability of the different parts of 
the design process and their mutual relationships, as well as in the 
feedback, retroactivity, the attitude of the project to transformation as 
its constituent elements change.
Concerning values, these could be grouped around four large cathegories: 
social and political coexistence; reticularity, the ability 
interconnected to create sinergy and functional cross-programming; 
ecological and environmental sustainability; productivity, the attitude 
of connecting design aims to economical cycles.

THEMES    @    SPACES

1. Culture factory @  Marittima, Magazzini Generali
2. Culture factory @  Marittima, Magazzini Ligabue
3. Bio-park @  Marittima, ex-gasometro
4. Terminal @ Marittima, ex-gasometro
5. Culture factory @  Arsenale
6. Airport @  Tessera
7. W.V.W.W. @  Lido, ex- Bluemoon

1. Culture factory @ Marittima, Magazzini Generali
The architecture of fireworks
Umberto Ceccarelli, Andrea Pennisi e Martina Telò

The project of a productive compartment connected to the conservation of 
the artistic patrimony of Venice towards a sustainable city has followed 
two parallel directions; one is associated to a renovation and 
conservation cycle for paintings, drawings and sculptures, the other, 
principally related to the collective values of a project for the city, 
of absolute shock and innovation.

The productive cycle of the 'Culture factory', is organized into a fixed 
dimension and a very flexible one. Even though the incoming rate of 
art-pieces from the store-rooms of venetian museums to its Deposit may be 
unpredictable, its total extent is certain; we are talking about 70% of 
Venice's artistic patrimony.
Having chosen the tip of S.Marta's waterfront as an area of possible 
intervention, the long receding row of the Magazzini Generali would 
become the store-place for resting art-works in Venice.

We associate to this fixed, certain and emblematic space the spaces for 
the restoration of art-pieces, beside the Deposit, and the spaces for a 
temporary exhibition of restored masterpieces, placed by the waterfront, 
submerged by collective fluxes of people. These are spaces whose 
dimension changes with time, depending on the number of personnel 
involved in  the restoration and in connection with the importance of 
collective events concerning exhibitions.

The 'Culture factory' should be capable of relating the innovation 
concerning the conservation of art-works with a  general innovation of 
the city; here the project expresses a fracture, a different way of being 
citizens, conscious of the operating cycle of the 'factory' and in a 
position to cooperate towards its equilibrium and  the one of the whole 
city, in the framework of an expo of projectualities proposed to the 
collective.

The 'factory' and the 'expo' then. Architecture, in the former taking the 
role of an envelope which gives form to economical space, in the latter 
emphasizes the dimension of an event: " The greatest architecture is the 
fireworker's: it perfectly expresses the gratuitous consumption of 
pleasure" (Bernard Tschumi,1978).

2. Culture factory @ Marittima, Magazzini Ligabue
The Culture Factory at the Marittima
Andrea Zanchettin, Andrea Zoia, Margherita Rossaro, Marco Terranova, 
Benedetta Rodighiero

The Culture Factory project has a solution for stopping the setting 
process of Venice sources.
The strategy consists in letting enter the artistic and natural wealth in 
a single production cycle. So, Culture Factory will create a new 
productive sector able to increase the value of Venice and its land, 
reinserting in a far-reaching market.

We propose a re-interpretation of the sources, increasing their value.
The cohabitation and the connection between differences become important 
values in the complexity of the contemporary society.
Technology has a new important part in the managment of the social, 
economical, ambiental and cultural variables.

Our project starts with an interpretation of the available sources of 
Venetian reality: bureaucracy congestion and continuos distruction of art 
works threaten the artistic, architectonical and natural wealth.
The strategy includes not only the project, but also several stages aimed 
to start sinergies between interested subjects and to restore unused and 
forgot urban sites.

The Cultural factory works with/on the artistic wealth, with different 
stages: restouring, introducing in a mediatic system and in a productive 
cyclw able to sail the acquired knowledge.

Marittima answer to the Factory needs: pre-existences flexibility,the 
possibility or urban restoure and the low durability of functions.
Different subjects partecipate to the management system, included 
citizens, able to meet in a "FORUM".

The functional organisation is composed of: srorages, working spaces, 
mediatisation area open to privats, a multifunctional area , 
administration offices, exposition area.

We tried to simulate the project impact on the morfology of Marittima 
area: with urban flux, images, connection.
We looked for historic models, studing the connections between logical 
and architectonical language.
We arrived to a comunication strategy meaning the project values: in 
Forum, for example, fracture and opening are expressed with the building 
shape. 

3. Bio-park @  Marittima, ex-gasometro
Multifunctional Bio-park, the diffusion of knowledge
Alessandro Furia, Daniele Gabrielli, Michele Lattini

The project aims at the start of catalytic process of positive 
developement, based on a code of topicals values ("Technological 
Connection", "Social Culture", "Eco-investment"), started by the 
introduction into the territory of a space-instrument able to supply new 
means of interconnection and dialogue, to menage a multi-directional 
process of information and alphabetizzation, to build a functional and 
representative base of the civic eco-abient reinassance. The new 
democracy concept is evident in the creation of the "Forum": the citizen 
is the manager of his future. The strart of the program on the territory 
is mediated by a deconstructive analytical method founded on scientific 
references.
Space - selected area for the activation of the project is the 
ex-gasometer, the unbuilded space become, in this context, the only sure 
element that unites joins flexibility, accessibility, prjectual power 
together with the evocative eco-compatible sense.
The physical structure of the project is based on the superimposition of 
series of layers connected, to the elements of the morphology, on 
different levels.
The layers are: "Mobility Alphabet", "Macro-Morphology", 
"Macro-Elements", "Coriandoli" (pointformed elements on a grid). Every 
layer is defined in terms of relaction characters with the outside and 
with the future projectual map.
The physical distribution  of the program is based on the articulation of 
provided macro-elements such as the pointformed objects in the grid 
(layer "Coriandoli"); the macro-elements and their functions are 
developed in the "Hard Elements Projectual Map", and the objects of the 
layer "Coriandoli"  are developed in the "Soft Elements Eqipping Map".
The superimposition of the two maps build the physical form of the 
project, with an direct relation between the estabilishment and the 
morphology, this relation is stressed in the crossing end experience ways 
and in the distribution of the projectual elements.
The projectual aim, the diffusion of knowledge, is developed on series of 
elements: the ones of the big scale on the "Hard Elements Projectual Map" 
and the ones puntiformed of the grid on the "Soft Elements Eqipping Map".
The whole general line of the project aims to reach the maximum 
information output concerned to urban and global events, connected with 
ambient themes, information technology, different choices regarding to 
cultural background of  urban contest.
The provided structures have been thought to allowe a wider spectrum of 
reinterpretation end functional flexibility choices, with a low level of 
physical longlasting presence.

4. Terminal @ Marittima, ex-gasometro
The Maritime Station: a New landing place for information and managment 
in Venice
Vanessa Grion, Elisa Provasi, Vesna Skabar.

Why the Maritime Station area? Our choice has been suggested by  symbolic 
reasons (such as restoring its meaning of landfall, thus its 
recognizeability), pactical reasons (such as the great availability of 
obsolete industrial and harbour sites to be reconverted) and by an 
experimental purpose such as the attempt to integrate a reality with no 
aptitude towards change  as the Venetian historical building texture and 
the information technologies.

A plan for the Maritime Station area. While proceeding through its 
deconstruction, it has been obvious how  today the Maritime Station area 
looks like a mosaic with disconnected tesserae.This kind of urban 
morphology allowed us to formulate the metaphor on which our plan is 
established : "from the physical places mosaic to the cultural mosaic". 
Starting from this metaphor, we attest the participation of each singular 
factor to the general plan. Through the values that wish a passage from 
the "mechanical" to the "organic" city (these values being 
interconnection, general sharing, emphasis put on knowledge), we get to 
the project which is based on them.The variety of sites and functions 
that characterize the area, becomes a reason of weakness when their 
condition is that of isolation and disconnection both among the parts and 
with the territory. This is a management problem that we propose defining 
by means of a Forum, i.e. an organism in which the different parts 
interact. In addition to that, we propose to re-evaluate the traditional 
meaning of the landfall by turning it to the immaterial. Its nature of 
productive site of the industrial age can also be maintained in its 
significance,but it must be updated towards the experimentation of new 
technologies, heading to the University System, the accessibility to 
which will be easily granted thanks to the introduction of new  
facilities.      

5. Culture factory @ Arsenale
Il piano hard per la Fabbrica della Cultura all'Arsenale
Maddalena Gianello, Chiara Malfitano, Francesco Giuseppe Rigoni, Michela 
Zagonel

The hard plan, or indeed, the urban big scale project, is our work 
conclusion. We had defined the guide-values such as the inter-connection 
and productiveness, the method such as deconstruction and reality 
interpretation, then the following step was to decide the reconversion 
rules about Castello's area, the "Culture Factory" and the Park.

Reconversion of Castello's Area
Studing the city's plan, we found a series of well defined marks which 
converge to San Pietro's Island, so that we fix the main entrance to the 
Factory there. In fact San Pietro's Island is the point from which the 
access to every space of the Factory and to every area of that part of 
the city is more immediate.
According to that, the urban reconversion process expands to all the 
nearby areas of Castello by a system of thematic footpath which lead to 
the hall of the Culture Factory. In such a way, San Pietro's Island 
become a very significant place in which the presence of the hall-info, 
of a park and of the coreografic buiding of San Pietro's church creates 
the best setting for entrateinment and introduction of the tourist to the 
Culture Factory.

Arsenale's Culture Factory
We estabilished the compatibility degree of conversion of each building 
by the use of an abacus. That scheme bases its results on two important 
parameter: adaptability degree of buildings and specific cost of new 
functions.
Park
The Park is the place where functions and activities which can give 
immediate profits are located. That strategy allows to auto-finance the 
conversion of Arsenale's buildings by using money earned by exploitation 
of the Park. 
The logic of the Park is compositively founded on "on theme"strips which 
order Park's structures such as "Eventi" (events) and "Coriandoli" 
(point-like activities) an a coherent scheme.

6. Airport @  Tessera
Forum: Intermodal Multimedial Center
di Marco Astolfi, Giovanni Auditore, Silvia Bertoncini

Values & Technology. The organizational model proposed by the project 
mediates values and technology. Values lead technology, a neutral means 
in itself, to a socially responsible use and, on the other hand, 
technology makes these values lasting through the innovative cycles.

Method. In the deconstruction phase a series of interpretative parameters 
allows the decodification of the present condition, from a chaotic and 
blurred set to a system of qualitatively differential fragments: in this 
way casuality is delivered by means of a hierarchy of values. The 
program, after a selection of goals inspired to the leading values, 
identifies the strategies and the instruments required for their 
fulfilment. The project is the spatial translation and articulation of 
the values knots: Forum, Teleport and Park. Key words are center, 
knoledge, producion and environment. The place is Tessera airport, where 
several kinds of flows meet.

Identity. Venice can gain an identity as a metropolis only if we are able 
to turn its disconnected slivers into a coherent system. Consequently 
center - as recognizable element, as rule formulation place, as 
multicultural multifunctional lodestar able to attract any kind of social 
actor - becomes a basic requirement. Forum is no more a local sized 
center, it becomes the fixed point of a telematic net which allows a 
series of sinergies and global connections.

Self determination. Forum gives a wide range of options to the individual 
and the community, makes information transparent and accessible in all 
its forms, democratizes the decision making process, makes interaction 
with the public administration easier.

Flexibility. A system is flexible when it does not trigger off processes 
that lead to its fast obsolescence. Economic flexibility: Teleport 
coordinates the single local production, supplies medium and small 
companies with shared telematic infrastructures and create a market nook 
for the system. Social flexibility: Forum and Teleport operate for the 
socialization of the fast changes introduced by technology, promote 
permanent education and knowledge as a new form of work. Ecological 
flexibility: Teleport and Park enhance environment not only as an 
exploitable resource, but also as object of production, study, research 
and education.

7. W.V.W.W. @  Lido, ex- Bluemoon
The WorldVeniceWide Web.
The Experience of Space
Eleonora Agnolin, Emanuela Soave, Alessia Tomasi.

The WVWW is a museum: it belongs to the range of projects relating to the 
cultural patrimony of Venice, aiming at meeting both the mentality of 
citizens and wayfarers, and  at showing the implications of entering the 
Third Millennium.
According to this, it has the goal of create a dialectic element among 
the existing ones, so to constitute a source of incentives, inputs and 
reflections.

New values towards integration
The most significant parameters can be defined as the collectivisation of 
technological and tutorial  tools essential to the belonging to the new 
Post-Industrial society and as the overcoming of space and time 
categories that strongly inform the present culture.
These issues can be expressed through Liquid Architecture, that overcomes 
the originary concept of 'stability' in order to propose 'flexibility and 
deformability' in internal and external definition, applied both to time 
and to space.

Method
Starting from the deconstruction of the given situation, the theme of 
museum has been selected, as the most responding to the proposed values.
The transparency of project operations - aimed at granting the need of 
scientific rigour- has involved a severe scanning of the theoretical and 
logical components of the work, of which a simulation through models has 
been done.

Project
It consists in a strategic mix of operations, taking place at the Lido, 
in order to adopt the site's characters, such as 'city', 'seaside', 
'sea', the aim of which is to offer varied services - not only in the  
educational field, but also in the social one - to the whole complex of 
the venetian background.
In this sense, it is not intended as a static artefact, but as a web of 
nodes, both structured and evenementials, having the purpose of entering 
 the present context in order to inject the new principles of space, time 
and relationships.