Re industrializing marghera_EMU_ IUAV Fall semester_Venice2014

Re-Industrializing

A d i t y a

D e s h m u k h _ A n t o n i o

Marghera

S a n n a _ K a t e

C l a r k _ S h i

H u i

Colophon European Postgraduate Masters in Urbanism DESIGN STUDIO WORK EMU FALL SEMESTER 2013/14, IUAV Venice

‘Recylicng City’ Students:

Aditya Deshmukh Antonio Sanna Kate Clark Shi Hui

Studio Instructors:

Prof. Bernardo Secchi Prof. Paola Viganò

M A R G 1908

1917

1940 Istituto Geografico Militare-IGM

H E R A Porto Marghera can be critically described and also is in debate due to the present issues and as a very well-known example of nowadays complexity. The big industrial platform was planned almost one century ago as a modern combination of chemical production factory and large scale logistic hub juxtaposed to a residential district with a Garden City concept. It was a modern top-down approach needed because of the emerging necessity of a fast economic development. As time passed by economies changed and due to the crisis most of the industries had to abandon the sites leaving behind lots of pollution and vacancies.

Source: Google maps

In this particular case of Porto Marghera, pollution is everywhere, into the soil, the water and the airr. It is one of the main issues due to the presence of some hazardous pollutants like heavy metal, arsenic and hydrocarbon, which have a very strong impact on human health. The existence of “masterplan per la bonifica dei siti inquinanti di Porto Marghera� does not change the condition as very few actions have been taken in actual remediation process. Moreover, the reclamation of a 2000 ha site needs a big amount of money and a strong political position which this site is in desperate need.

Source: Google maps

REGIONAL CONNECTIONS Road

Rail

Source: GIS Veneto

A nal y sis

Graph showing number of workers working in different sectores of Porto Marghera in the year 1965 and 2008.

Porto Marghera is divided into two parts, the logistic harbour and the industrial area. The major part of the abandoned buildings and plots are located in the industrial area. Logistic platforms are divided into sectors that can receive and distribute different types of goods (containers, and liquid bulk).

Our attitude according to the delicate situation combines the necessity of recycling a place which is redundant of potentials in terms of existing networks and structures, the necessity to have a detail analysis of what the place can offers in order to come upto any solution.

Source;Regione Veneto-geographic database

Residential + Industrial

Source: GIS Veneto

Graph showing importance of Porto Marghera at local and global scale Source;Regione Veneto-geographic database

Regione Veneto-geographic database

Rail Network rails

Source: GIS Veneto

Immigrants: Average age

Graph showing the average age of the immigrants of different nationalities in Marghera.

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Source: Comune di Venezia: anagrafe popolazione residente (7-11-2013)

Residential Landuse

Source: GIS Veneto

Source: EMU 2012, Porto Marghera group

Flows

Commercial Civil

Hydrography

Source: GIS Veneto

S cenario

Z ero

As starting point we decided to analyze what actually is happening in the urban area of Marghera, thus considering existing projects and proposed one, we set up our scenario zero as the one which evolves from an actual situation without any external proposal to interfere.

Projects in the pipeline: 1. Mestre master plan.

2. Vaschetta social housing( Porta sud) 3. Shopping mall 4. Container terminal (Port Authority) 5. Ferry terminal ( Porto Authority) 6. RET rail connection to Fusina.

Two main tendencies in Marghera: 1. Transformation of urban form towards mixed use and facilities with new local actors 2. Re-structuring industrialisation logistics (container terminal, offshore platform) re-industrialisation (waste recycling in the South of Marghera, engery plant) 3. change in mobility mono-rail connection Garden City Porto Marghera Station integrated in RET ferry terminal.

European harbour activities Source: European commision. Eurostat.

Reclamation

Mestre master plan

Vaschetta social housing Shopping Mall CONTAINER TERMINAL

Proposed RET connection FERRY TERMINAL

“The scenario is described as a (hi story of the future, a pondering of possible futures, as the singling out of a dominant future and its possible deformations, as a coherent play on hypotheses, as the description of one or more situations that could develop from the present, as a relevant form of organized learning , as a hypothetical sequence of events that has the purpose of mobilising the actors� - Luciano

Vettorato

The specific issues that we discovered during the prior stages of research were translated more in terms of research questions, by framing them in to complimenting What if’s‌??

-What if abandoned rail tracks could be used for public transport?

-What if Fratelli Bandiera is no more an infrastructural barrier between garden city and industrial area?

-What if the waterfront is made more accessible for the local people?

-What if the newly planned industries are integrated more with the local environment?

In the process of re-industrialization what steps we need to take as planners and designers, not only in order to deal with the issues in the past, but also and create new conditions for a sustainable future by means of renewable resources, integrating activities with the process of de-pollution, providing spaces for interaction, integration and inclusion of the city? What if, we create qualitative conditions for re-industrializing Porto Marghera towards clean, innovative and inclusive industry to put it back on regional as well as local competivity. However, though in our scenario, re-industrialization is, indeed, about empowering industry, but it is also about transforming it in something inclusive, integrated and interlinked with its surroundings.

ENEL power plant

Abandoned petrochemical areas

Source: Wave workshop 2013

FIN Cantieri

A ctivities

Abandoned plots Active Industries

EXISTING NETWORKS

GREEN

A bandoned structures

R eclaimation

opportunities

strategic areas

P lot taxonom y The Port Authority plays a very important role as an actor in our scenario.

The proposed projects of the container terminal and the Motorways of the sea terminal will be the driving forces for the re-industrializing process. As most of the land is owned by Port authority and private companies we develop plot taxonomy by choosing different plots within the proposed strategic areas by emphasizing on the positives of the plot in terms of accessibility, embodied energy, landscape quality and the methods to de-pollute the land.

proposed networks

pro j ect area

Canale Industriale

P roposal When Marghera was first designed in 1917, the idea was that domestic, civic activity would take place in the Garden City, and labor and industries would occur separately on the southern side of via F.lli Bandiera. However, now only a small percentage of employment is secured by the industrial sector and the rest is in services outside of petrochemical production “traditional” to the area. By working with pre-existing, emergent tendencies we aim to take this thread and extend it. In a post-industrial setting, Marghera is experiencing a confusion of identity. How to address this question? We aim to propose that Marghera can attract both industrial and touristic traffic as a place with an emerging artisanal and industrial green footprint.

Considering Marghera’s distinctive spatial design, perhaps the best thing would simply be for a large private company engaged in a sustainable industry to reinhabit the industrial zone. This would quickly solve the high unemployment rate in the area, if Porto Marghera was effectively resuscitated as a mono-industry zone with a large workforce. But in Porto Marghera, however, the problematic regarding land ownership and management between the Port Authority and the municipality are so complicated and confused, it

Infrastructural barrier

would be impossible to impose a project in a single layer on the space that would require funding and support from a sole developmental entity. Instead, we have to work in the cracks, with what is emergent, and in turn adjusting and introducing the networks between those cracks. This is the first step that we propose for a longer term project of economic, social, and environmental rehabilitation of Porto Marghera.

As Francesca Gambarotto and Marco Rangone write in the Rise and Decline of the Venetian Industrial Site of Porto Marghera, “a consistent proportion of small and medium firms in the region may play a fundamental role against degradation.” They continue by stating, “unemployment in an industrial town becomes a special problem when the local economy is highly specialized” (Gambarotto, p.6). So, through the lens of economy, our proposal in turn focuses more on engaging the activities of the public at large, instead of private industries. Through our interviews, we found that there was a large demand for places like sporting centers, cultural spaces, churches, youth centers, etc.

These needs can be answered in the array of abandoned spaces south of via F.lli Bandiera.

Vaccancies

“Activities” cannot purely be of a social nature, however, so have developed a set of medium and large scale productions that could repopulate the Porto Marghera area. As we are not economists, we have stopped at the point of proposing a single activity for each space, but instead have worked spatially, considering abandoned space, roads, paths, transit flows, and cultural activity. Through heavy analysis through field work, google maps, and previous EMU research, we quantified all of the buildings in the strip for their potential to support small, medium, and large scale activity. From this, we developed “case studies” that through diagrams, collages, and schematic sketches, visualized not only what could take place in the abandoned building, but also how the activity would be connected a greater proposed soft and hard mobility network.

Social segregation

Città Giardino Industry Port Grain difference

Lack of Amenities

Water

Soil and WaterPollution

I nterviews + workshops Instead of proposing single activity for each space, we try to work spatially, by re-qualifying the public spaces and networks which act as attractors for investments. As our project is working directly with abandoned green space and buildings, with what is immediate and emergent, the idea of public participation became even more important to facilitate than for a scenario that takes solely a longterm approach. As the concept of our scenario developed, we worked in co-operation with Chiesa Gesu’ Lavoratore to host a series of workshops and events with youth of Marghera. Through these forums, we are working with children, teenagers, and their parents to develop sketches that re-imagine the kind of activity that could happen in key abandoned spaces in Marghera. In the workshop, we included photos taken of sites that we felt were crucial for redevelopment in Porto Marghera. Students then drew on top of these photos, creating images of activity that they would like to take place in the area. Though it is a simple gesture, it came from our long process of scenario development surrounding economic recession and revalorizing unused space in the area. This approach connects to what Vettoretto writes, “The paradox of realism can be got beyond if the scenario is meant (and practiced) as a construction of social interaction, rather than as a readymade product for social interaction�

workshop drawings These were some of the drawings produced by the participants of the workshop

F unctions

V accancies

G rain

Small

Medium

Large

opportunities

infiltration

Attractions

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Infiltration points

N etwork shift

Proposed section of Fretelli Bandiera

Proposed section of soft connection from garden city to the waterfront integrated with the recycled tram connection

Proposed section of Via Elettricita

Existing soft connections within the garden city are extended to the industrial area and to the waterfront integrating it with the recycled rail lines into extended tram network.

W aterfront connections

Soft connections connecting garden city and waterfront

Abandoned,polluted green plot transformed into phytro-remediation plot

Area transformed to publi space surrounded by activities

ic

Probable proposals for small, medium and large scale activities

W aterfront

Tram station

Re-cycled container box on abandoned rail Phytro-remediation park

Tram line

Yacht club

Stepped waterfront and Floating platforms

Bike and Pedestrain path along the waterfront

Proposed waterfront

Re-cycling container boxes on abandoned rail lines

Collage showing proposed waterfront

spatial q ualities for activities

Small scale activities

Medium scale activities

spatial q ualities for activities

large scale activities

Source: Author’s own

R eflections Questioning the future is part of human nature.

We make conjectures, analyse data, follow trends, minimize the number of incognita, relate data, extrapolate‌ We can take the past and translate it into a future. A key function of urban planning is to make decisions in the present that will direct future activities in a way that will create cities that are economically thriving, culturally vibrant, socially cohesive, clean, green and safe, and in which all citizens are able to live productive lives.

The transformations of the present can be developed into possible future through scenario construction. The results are uncertain but normative and have multiple starting points. They are meant as a communicative and learning tool as they not only imagine the future, but also discover the consequences of the current trends.

Porto Marghera is one of the most complex system of activities and urban environment. It is place of flows and production, carried by a dense network of infrastructures The ‘Re-industrializing Porto Marghera’ scenario considers this a quality and adds to it by proposing synergy, both on local and territorial scale. The abandoned structures, all the embodied energy are not part of just one closed system, but it can be opened up to serve its immediate surroundings.