“A regeneration that respects the historic buildings, materials, monuments and existing places that will transform Piazza 4 Novembre into a dynamic and attractive square for citizens and tourists” – so the Mayor of the town in Abruzzo, in the province of L’Aquila, had introduced the competition launched last June thanks to the “Fund for design competitions and ideas for territorial cohesion”.
An ambitious goal, which finds an answer in the proposal of TSPOONan architectural and urban design studio founded by Nina Artioli, Alessandra Glorialanza, Eliana Saracino) focused on definition of an integrated system of vehicular mobility, cycle-pedestrian paths and public spaces.
A reorganization of the hierarchies of routes, therefore, which through an organic design, aims to bring out the anthropized and natural traces of the urban fabric, thus highlighting the exceptional nature of the place and strengthening them, at the same time, from a tourist, accommodation and commercial perspective.
Starting right from the structure of the town, characterized by the walls and its pomerium and due, for this reason, to the shape of the concentric circles, the TSPOON project seeks to recompose the territorial identity, mindful of the past but in a contemporary key.
Keywords alternative mobility and respect for the environment, but also new technologies, communication and territorial marketing, aimed at new development organized in the present and projected into the future.
3 objectives for the relaunch of the city’s image
The space for socializing lost by the inhabitants due to vehicular traffic is returned by the project through a determined action aimed at promoting alternative mobility. In this way, a network of paths and collective spaces is created which, by integrating into the existing one, manages to intercept and connect areas of different nature, at the same time reinforcing the aspect of identity linked to memory.
Trying to summarize the intervention by points, they are in fact 3 main actions – concatenated – which define it:
- the definition of a ring road for cars and served by large parking areas at the ends of the town
- the creation of a dense system of public and collective spaces intended for conviviality and for tourist, accommodation and commercial purposes
- the definition of action guidelines for the areas identified which, through a system of general rules responding to a long-term vision, allows the administration to develop interventions over a large period of time, flexible and adaptable to situations and needs that may arise.
With the new design and the identification of the three urban areas – the Citadel, the Pomerio, the Extramural – Celano therefore aims to define the networks of thematic itineraries that reconstruct the hidden history, terraces towards distant landscapes and public spaces, which together with the two squares IV Novembre and Aia, become the catalyst places for the construction of urban identity.
IV November Square – explain the designers – it becomes the new welcoming gateway to the city, a fundamental pivot of the urban system, conceived as a safe and protected place, a place of aggregation and reference for the entire inhabited area. A centralizing place in which to strengthen the local identity. Thanks to the mobility system proposed on an urban scale – they continue – it will be possible to make the square, which today risks being perceived as a roundabout, a pedestrian space, which can only be crossed by authorized vehicles, and reconnected to the historic centre”.
The intervention is completed by the street furniture and the new flooring which, by interrupting the texture of the state road, would allow the expansion of the area for commercial activities and the creation of flexible spaces suitable for hosting public cultural and recreational events, giving back to the square the its previous role as a privileged point of wide views over the town.
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