The Inner city project idea is based on the achievement of some objectives:
1. concentrate activities and population by reducing dispersion with an advantage in services and in the creation of more highly efficient collective transport networks;
2. reduce land consumption;
3. creation of new green areas and renaturalization in favor of flora and fauna;
4. create new online “centres”, supporters of symbolic values and the creation of sociality.
5. reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
Achieving these objectives is possible through some design choices:
1. buildings with significant vertical development, allow the concentration of the population of network services and collective transport based on BRT, between and subways, given the greater user base;
2. selective demolition of the existing, its concentration and overlapping allows for the liberation of soil;
3. by freeing the soil, new green and natural areas connected in a network can be created to give continuity to flora and fauna in symbiotic environments with human beings,
4. the new “centres” with the presence of multiple different activities and services as attractors and emitters of symbolism and sociality connected in networks through collective transport and cycle-pedestrian paths;
5. districts and large buildings not only as consumers of energy but as producers, capable of being self-sufficient but also of producing energy and information for other neighborhoods.
The intervention area is a neighborhood of Florence, in which there are several industrial, artisanal and commercial buildings that have remained incorporated by the residential urban expansion. Furthermore, an important penetration road divides the neighborhood into two parts. There is no important aggregating element present, but only an arrangement of blocks built along the streets.
The aim is to create a network of polarities, interconnected with each other and with the rest of the neighborhood. All this by intervening on production buildings by merging them or transferring them to other industrial areas where there are abandoned warehouses.
An uninterrupted flow like rivers and lakes spreads across the spaces and interstices of the neighborhood.
A system of new buildings, green areas, pedestrian paths, squares, new tram line, create those polarities that fit into the existing without denying it. The new buildings are developed at considerable heights, favoring densification. The basement and ground floors house production activities compatible with the residence and commercial activities, some already existing and others new. Some towers are energy accumulators, others are vertical farms. The entire neighborhood is energy self-sufficient and capable of producing surplus. A widespread network of pedestrian paths, squares and green areas gives continuity to the existing and new fabric, overcoming obstacles and fragmentations. A canal and basins collect rainwater, including that coming from the surfaces of buildings.
