From the square of the CITY-GARDEN to the GARDEN-SQUARE of the city

IDEA FOR THE SUSTAINABLE REDEVELOPMENT OF PIAZZA ISOLOTTO IN FLORENCE

The concept of the square is changing.
There are clues scattered in social behavior, technological advances and new architectural ideas that can not be ignored. The concept of the square is abandoning its two-dimensionality and is incorporating other dimensions.
To date, the design of urban spaces has always considered as priority the needs of commercial and/or recreational activities of various kinds and are not compatible with the urban green.
This attitude in addition to determining the increasingly frequent confinement of urban green in areas of result, has helped spread the misconception that the trees and the urban green in general are an obstacle to a modern life and development of cities.
Those who live in cities today are increasingly looking for services in a level of habitat quality. The citizen is no longer willing to sacrifice the quality of the environment to meet their lifestyle needs.
The theme is the reorganization of open spaces through the action of new and wider pedestrian and with the aim of improving the social and living conditions of the place.

Transforming the "square of the garden city " in the "garden-square of the city": this is the proposal of the italian architect Angelo Salamone (AS DOES) participant international design competition for the redevelopment of the square of Isolotto launched by City of Florence.
Was created so a symbiosis of programs between the square itself, the necessary facilities and the urban greenery. This was to combine the need for wide open spaces, paved and partly covered for the market activity, with the need to green fully usable.

The main idea of the project is to create a meeting place equipped, green and eco-friendly; a place that favors the aggregation, which can accommodate the daily market district, events, conferences, dinners, exhibition spaces and that calls people in existing stores but also just to enjoy the square itself. The presence of the green has a key role in improving the quality of life in the streets to its important decorative function and aesthetics, for the important and fundamental mitigating effect of climatic extremes of the sun, wind, rain and especially the power of aggregation that it generate if cumunità must take care.
It was to design a pleasing structure in terms of aesthetics, but also useful for collecting rainwater, to create shadow, to mitigate the albedo effect of paving of the square and to create the coverage of the market and of the other activities.
The entire square is a small ecosystem with water recycling, compost production, electricity generation and with a greenhouse bioclimatic to service the green of the square but also available to the entire community for the moments of sharing.
To allow total freedom of use of the square floor for the daily market and for the other events, the green is raised above the roof of the long shed, sum in sequence of the various structures necessary for the square. Starting from the square floor in front of the churchyard, at different altitudes, on the underside, is transformed into a single multifunction structure: from meetings, to cover for the games, a playground next to the play area, an areas equipped with tables and benches, a kiosk with newspapers, a bus stop, a telephone booth, a toilet, to become cover for the market and for the events.
But the same roof, with its upward trend, it is also a new garden of the city, made of plants that local residents will want to plant by transferring them from their private gardens.

The roof-garden, with its trend lower at 9% slope, is entirely workable, viable and usable by people with disabilities.
The structure is an example of redevelopment green in the city and is able to offer an opportunity of meeting and active participation in all year.

The cover soffit roof-garden is designed as a public art gallery decorated with the work of the artist Fuad Aziz representative of a number of birds in flight and stakes.

So the coverage itself also becomes a urban artwork, symbol of the new square and of the history of Isolotto district: a district multicolored garden inhabited by migrants, free travelers .