Timeline, Vardø / waterfront rehabilitation

The project looks into the whole port seafront (study area) in order to foresee an organic transformation. The main purpose is structuring the city life along the new axe, exten­sion to the never completed by Kirkegata, which runs along the port perimeter. (2009)

“CEDANT TENEBRAE SOLI”

In the motto of Vardø the concept of change is already in­cluded, as if it were part of its own nature. A period of crisis (in this case connected to the fall of the fish industry) always consist in a period of change, in a transition, as long as it might be , towards a new birth, flywheel for a development which is cultural, economical, touristic, but first of all for a sustainable urban development.

“WALK DIFFERENT, LIVE DIFFERENT, THINK DIFFERENT”

The project looks into the whole port seafront (study area) in order to foresee an organic transformation. The main purpose is structuring the city life along the new axe, exten­sion to the never completed by Kirkegata, which runs along the port perimeter. The identification of this new tail as new fundamental axe of the city is immediately corrected to a change in the view­point: the man going through the city replaces the projects designing it from above. The perception of the city is linear: its places are the key­frames of an urban timeline. The map of the city is to be de­signed again, the references to the experience of the places will replace the topographic ones: the map lose its shape and becomes linear, a design of the way of perceiving the spaces. Fundamental element to this operation are the abandoned buildings, un-private places of transform which link the city-sea to the places for locals, short time workers, tourist and global nomad. The identification of this new axe in the answer to the topic of the contest and turns out to be its key-part and ordering element of the programmatic conversion: a general plan for the transformation in the use of the spaces and by settling new functions gives new life to the abandoned parts of the city thanks to a new way of living these places. This transformation grand a remarkable increase if the public areas along the port edge and involves a wider system: mil­lennium path, sea path (of new conception), landing system and the new axe. In the ending area of the port on the north/west will keep its function as industrial port.

design for EUROPAN 10 competition / designers Luigi Pintacuda (team leader), Claudio Cannizzaro, Chiara Carcione, Domenico Contino, Manfredi Mazziotta, Claudia Padula, Luisa Pastore, Marco Villanti