Typology: Urban park
Year: 2015
Status: International competition proposal, third place
In collaboration with: ELEMENTAL and Teresa Moller Landscape Studio
Dimension: 30.000 m²
Client: Comune di Prato
Three fundamental dimensions of collective life for social identity and therefore for coexistence: play, food, worship.
Since Prato is one of the Italian cities with the highest immigrant rate in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, the key question for the park’s development quickly emerges: what should the appropriate approach be in order to create a public space in which ethnic diversity can coexist?
Our proposal involves three fundamental dimensions of collective life for social identity and therefore for coexistence.
Play: every culture has its favorite sport, the most popular one, and every sport needs a specific field. If people spend time in public space to unwind and meet, then sport is the activity that most naturally combines these two dimensions. Our proposal is to create a large open space that can accommodate all sports relevant to different cultures.
Food: another essential cultural expression is food. The richness this event can reach starts with the variety of raw materials. A trend that is gradually acquiring more strength is to use parks not only as a product but as a productive urban public spaces. This may be because parks are the only remnant of nature in the city, but also because the active connection of neighbors to the park increases the sense of ownership among the public space and community. A space that is grown (and not only visited) has a greater capacity to produce shared value.
Worship: perhaps the expression that more than others is vital in a population is its own belief. Architecture has historically been able to translate this dimension in buildings, temples and churches. Our proposal is to introduce a more archaic version of the worship space in the park: the first manifestation of the culture of nature, through the most basic synthesis.