Carousel Europe

Piazza Transcalpina / TRG Europe competition in Gorizia/Nova Gorica

\ a space fiction on the future of cities

\ the masterplan of the border zones:

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.

\ the Europe Square and the Epicenter

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.

Plan and elevation on Europe Square

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.

Main entrance of the Epicenter on Europe Square

Entering the Epicenter

The main underground exhibition space

Credits

A project by Alberto Iacovoni + Luca La Torre / ma0 studio d’architettura
with the collaboration of Lavina Anzini