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A space fiction on the future of two cities, based on the simple principle of keeping the void as a resource, and make the cities grow on themselves, 

densifiyng, renewing the existing fabric, and transforming the border in a shared ground, a literal cum-finis...

This connective void extends the    existing urban network in a new public heart for Gorizia and Nova Gorica, not just a park, but a productive space dedicated to advanced agriculture and fablabs for technological innovation. 

The margins of this shared and productive territory are marked and activated by a sequence of buildings for valuable programs, the Epicenter being the key    element of the sequence, a light    and festive architecture as a park pavilion,or the tent of a circus. 

The square and the building are conceived as playful devices adapting to different situations and programs that will make the Epicenter and the Europe square alive and financially sustainable.

 

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The void as an opportunity

 

Beyond any planning intention, the actual situation should be considered as an opportunity to step into a future where land consumption is over, and the cities grow by densifying themselves, keeping the existing voids as resources for collective and sustainable life.

Learning from the sequence of existing urban vegetable gardens, the project proposes to keep the existing void envisioning the possibility of a shared and productive space.

 

A connective space

 

Gorizia and Nova Gorica will continue to grow on themselves, settling along the margins of a void that will become the new center,  a green heart for the two cities and a connective space where to extend the actual urban framework.

No need for exceptional and muscular architecture to create a link between the old centers, rather a sequence of small bridges to overpass the few railway tracks that will remain, to create a network of possibilities for crossing, encounter and exchange between the cities.

 

A productive ground

 

More than a leisure park, this central park in between the cities should be a space for new modes of production, open, diffused and molecular, sustainable, technologically advanced. 

A new type of public space, a park made of a sequence of cultivated fields where to experiment innovation tehnologies for agriculture, punctuated by advanced greenhouses and fablabs accessible to companies with high added value, small buildings open to a multiplicity of public paths and spaces.

 

A viable territory

 

The economic sustainability of the future of the area, together with the viability of the Epicenter, depends on a strategy that cannot be confined in a single building, but expanded on a wider horizon. 

Considering the Transcultural Hub linked to a sequence of operations aimed to make the existing land profitable in a sustainable way should be the direction of a project that needs to connect a single architecture with an overall urban and economic development plan.

 

A light and open architecture

 

In consideration of the quality of the existing station and green landscape, the new building minimizes its impact by placing underground all the activities that require controlled access, lighting and ventilation (auditorium, exhibition spaces), while keeping overground the spaces dedicated to more public activities (accueil, café, shop/multipurpouse and educational spaces). 

The spirit that animates the new square and the building is that of a permanent fair, where  Europe stages continuously its constituent plural values.

 

An interactive public space

 

While the lamps in the square are powered by micro wind turbines that evoke a gathering of national flags, both the benches on the square and the walls in the exhibition space can move and can be arranged in multiple configurations. Flexibilty and interaction are in fact the key features of the Epicenter and the Europe square to transform the building and the surrounding spaces considered as a whole in a field of possibility, an everchanging stage for the community and its various partners and sponsors.