1 — THE WINNER
Paolo Brescia (OBR Paolo Brescia e Tommaso Principi) – group leader
Michel Desvigne (Michel Desvigne Paysagiste)
Alberto Romeo (Intertecno)
with Tommaso Principi (OBR Paolo Brescia e Tommaso Principi), Elisa Siffredi (OBR Paolo Brescia e Tommaso Principi), Enrico Ferraris (Michel Desvigne Paysagiste), Massimiliano Marzo (Intertecno)
“The park presents an elaborate vegetal and mineral composition that we conceived by interpreting three-dimensionally a specific cartography. The aerial views of Prato, that show a succession of vegetation and factories, have been decrypted, superimposed, developed. We abstracted the rhythms and the geometric motifs that reorganize the substance of the city. And these elements become the matrix upon which we imagine the new possible landscape for the park […].”
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
2 — second place
Ferdinand Ludwig (Baubotanik) – group leader
Daniel Schönle
Markus Allman (Allmann Sattler Wappner)
Carlo Scoccianti
with Lukasz Lendzinski (Umschichten), Peter Weigand, Sergio Sanna, Bernhard Scharf (green4cities)
“The skyline in Prato is characterized by peaks or high buildings. In the city center, inside the area delimited by the medieval walls, historical towers and other important buildings are numerous; outside, chimneys and water towers stand as symbols of the industrial city. The project proposes to add some emblematic “living tower” to enrich the skyline and represent the social, cultural and economical transformation ongoing in Prato. The towers, with their concrete bones – which are the only remaining portions of the old hospital – and the plants growing on them, connect past and future […].”
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
3 – third place ex aequo
Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT | Enric Miralles – Benedetta Tagliabue) – group leader
with Matteo Francesco Ruta (Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento ABC), Gabriele Masera (Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento ABC)
“We travelled through the past of the city and we studied the possibilities and the historical or contemporary usages of fabrics and gardens, weaves and canals which in ancient times modeled the project area and powered textile factories. We transformed those elements coming from the past as they would be o cuts merged to compose clothes, weaving the project elements in a new way for the P arco Centrale di Prato. We recovered the original paths of the old canal used for industrial purposes and we transformed it into a central element for the park, to serve users, citizens, visitors. This canal distributes and splits the zones within the park, as being a yarn weaving a new natural landscape, and then join the urban area of Prato […]”.
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
Emanuele Barili – group leader
Alejandro Aravena (ELEMENTAL)
Gonzalo Arteaga Rozas (ELEMENTAL)
Cosimo Balestri
Teresa Moller (Teresa Moller Landscape Studio)
with Olivia Gori, Mattia Di Carlo, Knut Stockhusen
“The Park aims to reconnect an area of the city on the edge between inside and outside the ancient walls. To this purpose, and in order to develop a stitching project, the strategy is to enhance what already exists on the area. Its rich nature and diversity, the history of the place and its cultural system, the ancient memory of the urban garden are the selected ingredients to design the new park, revealing a meeting space for the whole community […] ”
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
4 – fourth place ex aequo
Rients Dijkstra (MAXWAN ARCHITECTS + URBANISTS) – group leader
with Franca Maria Luisa Neonato (PN STUDIO)
“Parco centrale di Prato is not just another urban park. The park is designed like an exquisite sheet of textile, woven by a variety of threads; landscape, cultures, activities, history and contemporaneity. The park embraces people of all ages and ethnicity, now and in the future. Parco Centrale will be the new gravity of the city of Prato. This extraordinary space of over three hectares in the city centre is a huge opportunity to stitch, mend and embroider new urban threads. […]”.
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
Massimo Alvisi (Alvisi Kirimoto) – group leader
Petra Blaisse (Inside Outside)
Maurizio Milan (Milan Ingegneria)
Alessio Montanari
with Giampiero Aresi, Aniello Camarca, Eloisa Susanna
“The new Parco Centrale di Prato aims to become a productive organism -Textile City Park- that will invite all citizens and visitors to learn about textile production and, more specifically, that will share information on the kind and the amount of plants and animals that supply the production of fibers and natural dyes. Each new plant in the park will be related to textile production, as well as to the Museo del Tessuto and in general to the rich art activities of the city, so to expand its productive, educational, and creative visions. […]”.
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
Martino Tattara (Dogma) – capogruppo
Pier Vittorio Aureli (Dogma)
Luciano Aletta (Dogma)
Paolo Rigoni (StudioSilva)
Marco Sassatelli (StudioSilva)
con Elia Zenghelis
“Our project reconsiders the theme of the garden and envisions the park as a sequence of continuously diversified gardens. Evoking the theme of the garden does not mean to go backwards in history, on the contrary it means to go forward and beyond the idea of a park as a place for passive contemplation of nature, proposing instead the park as a space for diversity, sharing, solidarity among citizens. As in a medieval garden, the contemporary garden is a space composed by different “rooms”, always changing, whose vegetal and mineral forms respond to the wishes of the citizens of Prato. T he project we propose for the Parco Centrale di Prato must be intended as a first layout setting the rhythm for future situations, various and unexpected […].”
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
5 – fifth place ex aequo
Dominique Jakob (Jakob + MacFarlane Architects) – group leader
Pablo Georgieff (Coloco)
Laura Gatti
with Francesca Borrelli
“This project is an unmissable occasion for urban and landscape transformation in one of the most important cities of central Italy, in a context oaf absolute value. A t this point in the history of human beings on this planet, relation between man and nature would seem well tested already. The space of a park is not only made by fundamentals, but it is highly symbolic for our way of living and working with and within nature. So, in order to answer the questions raised by this project, our design team considered essential to get back to the definition of this very relation, and then propose a way to conceive a living and evolutive project […]”.
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
Roberto Pasini (AUS pasini ranieri)
Kongjian Yu (TURENSCAPE)
Giovanni Grappeggia (Studio Verde)
Marco Francia, Deris Ortali (Eltec)
Andrea Ranieri (AUS pasini ranieri)
Matteo Giulianelli
“Food puts people of various ages, lineage, creed, and culture together. The kitchen is the place where family meets, as well as a group of friends or people who still don’t know each other but they do it there. The Parco Centrale di Prato is conceived as an Open Kitchen for young and old people, women and men, diverse cultures, nations and ethnic groups to meet. The variety of agricultures cultivated in the park socially processed, cooked, shared or even debated and celebrated by them […]”.
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
Dan Dorell (DORELL.GHOTMEH.TANE/ARCHITECTS) – group leader
Lina Ghotmeh (DORELL.GHOTMEH.TANE/ARCHITECTS)
Tsuyoshi Tane (DORELL.GHOTMEH.TANE/ARCHITECTS)
Franck Boutté (FRANCK BOUTTÉ CONSULTANTS)
Klaas De Rycke (BOLLINGER + GROHMANN)
Simone Murr (BOLLINGER + GROHMANN)
Laure Vandeputte (BOLLINGER + GROHMANN)
Gabriel Auger (BOLLINGER + GROHMANN)
with Marco Tosato, Leonardo Oprandi
“The Parco Centrale di Prato has a fundamental strategic importance for the city. Given its position, it is configured as a new gateway to access the historic city center from South that also connects areas that are now totally separated by the city walls. A permeable green area, open to all, everyday. Furthermore, this intervention interprets the relaunch expectations for the entire urban area and will contribute to the socio- economic development of the city center, strengthen its touristic attraction, answer to the most advanced requisites for sustainability and accessibility. We felt that the best strategy we could pursue was to take advantage of all resources already available on site […]”.
Excerpts from the technical report, downloadable here
