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Over the weekend of March 27-28, 2015, ISI Florence architecture students from Roger Williams University visited the Renzo Piano Foundation in Genoa, Italy, with their Architecture-In-Context class (Prof. Arch. Carlo Achilli).
The goal of the Foundation is to offer the opportunity to enhance the architecture profession through hands-on internships for international students. Renzo Piano came up with this idea after a trip to Japan in 1997. Inspiration for the workshop comes from the Shinto tradition and the process of taking down an existing shrine and rebuilding it in order to better understand the reasoning. Piano’s intention is to preserve his methodologies for future generations to come.
As part of the experience, students were given a lecture from Suzanna Scarabicclu, the head architect on Genoa’s water front redesign project, Blue Print. Scarabicclu explained how the project came about in 2004, involving the entire city because of the scale and significance of the site. The goal of the design is to create a vision for the future with a strong connection to the harbor. The coast covers a distance of 22 km and is the symbol of this city. The project starts at Port Siberia and extends to Punta Vagno. At first, the harbor was a much more natural place than its current industrialized aspect. In order to bring back that idea, they want to introduce a green line to serve as a buffer between the water and city areas that are open for public access. Also, part of the plan is to create a canal that connects the harbor to the industrial areas and allows for commercial activities. The project proposes relocating buildings and reshaping the edge of the coast in order to provide new organization and planning strategies to the overall master plan of the city. Of the buildings being removed, one third will be replaced within the redesign scheme. The project is estimated to cost 150 million Euros, a steep but necessary price to accomplish the goals of the project. With full understanding, the proposed task can only make Genoa that much better because it improves the community relationship with the water and will help enhance connections to the rest of Europe as a result of its central location.