The Project
The environmental and social sustainability as well as the full integration between the existing and the new are the milestones of this requalification project, intended to transform the appearance of large sectors of the city of Ferrara: the former “Mof” shipyard areas, the former AMGA area and former Beethoven district (better known as the “Palace of Mirrors”). The project, carried out by Politecnica and Behnisch Architekten on behalf of the Ferrara Real Estate Authority, aims to providing high quality aesthetic and functional solutions.
At the base of the project is the desire to redevelop and reuse urban areas now disused and the intent to make the “Volano Po” channel the new center of gravity of the city, a connection between the old town and the space of the contemporary city. Among the merits of the proposed solutions for the “Palace of Mirrors” area worth a mention is the proposal of a sustainable urban regeneration, to be implemented on buildings created in poor environmental-sensitivity eras.
As to the former Mof” shipyard and former AMGA areas, the proposed transformation without unattractive volumetric excessees is undoubtedly the main topic to highlight.
The total program features 110,200 sq. mts of surface to requalify and to be used for residential, commercial, public, sports and mixed use functions.
The “sustainability”, in its social, economic and environmental interpretation is determined as a matrix of all the design solutions adopoted. Thanks to this approach, the Masterplan has indeed received a special mention in the category “City Planning” related to the “Sustainability Award 2009, Planning and Environmentally friendly architecture in the Emilia Romagna region” organized by Bioecolab.
The areas, despite of their precise identity, have been designed with a building solutions that allow for a flexible use, which can accommodate the diversity of functions necessary for ensuring use of volumes and pleasant and economically sustainable spaces.
The Project actually started a complex intervention on extensive and important parts of the city of Ferrara. The challenge was to build a project that generates urban quality, which is based on the principles of sustainability and that ,at the same time, can be viable from the economic-financial point of view.
