Project of a Lifetime…
Location: Boacciana Island, Ostia, Rome
Workshop 1 dates: September 19-20, 2008
Partners: HORTUS is Harmoniser les Operations de Restauration Territorial du Paysage Urbain Southenable
AEDA-Development Agency of Athens in the framework of Interreg III B MEDOCC
LIPU- Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli (Italian Bird Protection Society)
Municipio di Roma
Landscape Architect: Pietro Paolo Anella
TAMU coordinator: Peter Lang
From the HORTUS Proclamation:
The urban regeneration processes of suburbia, rural and ex rural areas of the cities that have been characterized by settlements (houses or industries) without specific plans of urbanization of in a state of decay. Today these settlements, characterized by a low quality of life, coincide with the suburban areas of the cities. These suburbs have become the new doors of access to the urban surroundings from the country. Therefore, the project aims to improve the relationship city-country, regenerating the ways of access to the city from the country, through integrated approach which pays attention not only to the recovery building, but also to the improvement of the territorial, landscape and habitat resources.
The project H.O.R.T.U.S. aims at the urban regeneration of the border areas of the Mediterranean cities through the utilization of green areas in order to reconstruct and regenerate the urban landscape, to improve the image, the quality of life and the relationship city-country. In fact, among the H.O.R.T.U.S. activities, the one related to the Pilot Actions of urban regeneration of the landscape has the aim to improve and spread the heritage of technical and the cultural knowledge on the themes of environment, territory and the building.
The Municipality of Rome, with a territory of 128.531 Kmg is the biggest Italian municipal area, with a population of over 3 millions of inhabitants. The Municipal Administration is divided in 19 (150 people for each Municipality), 19 Departments and 12 Extra Departmental offices, with 25 units of personnel. Municipality XIII, comprehending the area of the study of feasibility has a surface of 150, 6 Kmg, the 12% of the whole municipal territory. The population (December 31st 2005) is of 208.067 inhabitants; in particular in Ostia Lido are 88.620 residents. In particular, in order to individuate the different instruments of environmental regeneration (studies of feasibility, plans, small material interventions, etc.) indicate in the same EU project, the Municipality of Rome have chosen a suburban area of its territory in the XII Municipality, an area nearby the mouth of the Tevere river called “Isoal Boacciana e territorio circstante la foce del Fiume Tevere“, where a study of feasibility will individuate one of the possible interventions of environmental regeneration through the utilisation of green spaces.
HORTUS PROJECT: Workshop 1:
Students will stay two nights in Bungalows in the Boacciana Island. Documents and Research materials will be provided for reference.
Friday (Day 1). Check into Bungalows. Students will team up in groups of 3 and complete walking, mapping, surveys, on the Nature Reserve’s periphery areas, interstitial zones and boundaries, seeking connections and barriers between the park and the city, with a focus on eventually re-stitching the Park-City together.
Saturday (Day 2). Morning visit to Ostia Antica. Afternoon: Workshop goals: the location of special zones of interaction and interconnection. (The definition of special landscapes where City and Park meet, collide or divide, as possible sites for future interventions, installations, architecture, landscaping and public spaces, and sites of local community memory- examples already include the Michelangelo Tower and the monument to Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Sunday (Day 3). Complete site surveys, documentation and mapping. Check out from Bungalows, 11am. Students can go swimming, explore the City of Ostia’s beach front and noted architecture (Libera Beach side apartments, and 1930s Post-Office).
ATTACHED DOCUMENTS:
Table 2, Analysis of the peripheral areas, barriers already existing between the city and the nature reserve.
Tabel 3. Urbanistic Map of the project. With relational axis, sensitive sites, areas for social activity and relations.
Table 4. Folding Map 1. documenting studies and projects already conducted by the Anella research group.
Table 5. Folding Map 2. with different scale urban plans and analyses.
WOP, HOP AND POP
1. WOP:
PROJECT SUMMARY:
DAY ONE: Students arrived to Ostia Lido on Friday September 19 and checked into their Bungalows at the International Camping on the Lido at 13:00 pm. A lunch was arranged at the Camping Restaurant. Following lunch, the TAMU Ends 301 class boarded a public bus and made one stop at the train station to pick up Paolo Anella, of Waterdesign and director of the Ostia Project and continued on to the Roma Marina at the mouth of the Tiber River. Despite a driving rain, the group found its way to the LIPO pavilion, organizational headquarters for the day’s workshop. At the workshop the group was joined by Federica Giuliani, architect and Alessia Cerqua faculty of landscape culture at Roma III University.
The workshop that day consisted of a presentation by Luca … from the LIPO organization (National organization for the Preservation of bird wildlife) to learn about the specific qualities of the site under survey, its rich fauna and diverse eco-environments.
The Workshop ended with a short walk to the newly inaugurated nature preserve, with its two wetlands created on a previous brownfield area.
DAY TWO: Morning tour of Ostia Antica, ancient Roman sea port city on the banks of the Tiber River located inland and originally buried under 2000 years of shifting river silt. Here we were joined for the day by Andy Stern (co-Curator American Pavilion Venice Architecture Biennale 2008, PARC) and 8 Landscape graduate students from Cal Poly, Santa Chiara Program).
At 13:00 the workshop group boarded the River Boat at the Ostia Antica port on the Tiber for a tour of the river up to the ancient Trajan Port and then back down the river Tiber to the delta mouth on the Mediterranean, pulling into dock at the Rome Marina. We were joined for this leg of the workshop by Lorenzo Romito, co-founder of the Rome based urban art and architecture research group Stalker/Nomad Observatory. Lunch on-board was provided by Ada, the community leader for the Ostia Lido district and sponsor for the day’s boat tour and lunch.
16:00: Meeting at the Round-about in preparation for the afternoon site walk workshop. Undergraduate TAMU ENDS students were mixed with Graduate Cal Poly landscape students to form the groups, Caltex, 110, OPIG, TGB.
Lorenzo Romito presented the workshop goals for the day, discussing how to go about creating alternative maps on spatial and social evidences to be discovered over the course of the group walks. Each group was provided with a set of colored balloons (hence team names were after their assigned balloon color) and a set of die. Following ancient Roman custom, each group was instructed to use the die to determine their random pathways through the 25 hectare site. Each team was to invent a procedure with which to toss and read the die, and each team was requested to mark specific sites along their walk with their team’s colored balloon. The workshop was to conclude back at the Round-about at 18:30.
2. HOP:
Hop—Happening Ostia Ponente, is scheduled to take place over the 10th and 11th of October. Organized by Catia Castagna, the Affabulazione (http://affabulazione.wordpress.com/
http://www.myspace.com/affabulazione
organization serving the local high-schools, this two day event will use an adjacent terrain that is part of the site to stage a series of performance activities and temporary art events, or Happenings. Students are encouraged to attend these events.
3. Pop
Project Ostia Ponente. Phase 1. Ends 301 students, remaining in their original workshop groups will be asked to examine one specific issue per student pertaining to the site documentation from the WOP explorations, that were marked by their color balloons.
PROJECT MANUAL: Phase 1 requires students to identify 6 specific site locations that were most illustrative of their many discoveries within the site.
These will be combined with 6 out of 12 existing typologies provided by the workshop organizers (see list below)which infringe or act on the wildlife preserve’s perimeter and its urban fringes.
The process, here referred to as Active Actors and Re-Actors sites,(AAReA sites) are to be conceived as constantly interplaying and interacting subjects that influence over time and space the dynamic context of the site.
Like a Billiard game, where 12 balls strike each other and the perimeter of the Pool table, these Para-sites should be able to act and re-act to each other at any given moment in the life-span of the project.
Example: Transportation network systems piloted by GPS that permit commuters to seamlessly move from one transport unit to another without significant wait times. Keywords: orchestration, coordination, networks, system environments, etc.
Active Actors, Re-Actors Sites (AAReA sites):
Transforming Ostia Ponente.
1. Fishermen:
A. Goals: increasing access to the river, to have access to the banks
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
2. River workers, (boatmen, associations for marine schools, etc):
A. Goals: greater access to the river to be able to intensify the relationship between inhabitants and tourists (for example create a service for bicyclists to transport back their bikes to Rome)
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
3. Cultural Associations related to River Activities(Marine Schools, similar):
A. Goals: increased access to the river to intensify connections further along the banks.
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
4. Naval yards:
A. goals: Enlarge and reinforce their economic status, (through the construction of sail boats and luxury craft)
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: the last open area was purchased to make another naval yard, in effect blocking all access to the river.
5. Cycling Associations:
A. Goal: a cycle path that would cross the site and permit pleasure access to the Ostia Ponente area.
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
6. HOMELESS:
A. Goal: to live in the place of their choice, without being disturbed.
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: spontaneous interventions, throughout the site, leaving traces, evidence of their presence.
7. LIPU (BIRD WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY):
A. Goal: Transform the area into a Natural Oasis. B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: phased series of interventions, several complete, and in the process of completion.
8. Local Inhabitants:
A. Goal: Create a more consolidated relationship with the River, and with numerous areas of “memory” that are part of the site, (Michelangelo’s S. Michele Tower, the Lipo Park, the port, the fishing village, natural preserves),
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
9. Students:
A. Goals: to be defined
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: Hop, 10-11 October 8, 2008
10. Marina port:
A. Goals: to be defined
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
11. PASOLINI Culture Park
A. Goal: To be defined
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: the development of the Park has been assigned to LIPO
12. Local Associations:
A. Goals: to bring attention to the unusual characteristics of the territory, its history, cultural and recreational landmarks, and potential.
B. Upcoming interventions planned to date: none.
