From Military Arsenal to urban resource

The thesis studies how the urban edges are shaped when confining with the Nature. On the southern side of Taranto the shape of the Mar Piccolo coast defines a bay where the basin of the Arsenal is placed. The project redefines the site, consisting of different parts, coherent with the different features of this fragment of the coast, bound by the natural park.

The project has been intended as a contribution on the urban morphology. Dealt with the contradiction recognized on the structure of the city, as those identified in Taranto, meant to reflect on the functional value of the single parts, suspending the question of their intended use. What might be considered a problematic aspect of the area is reversed and valued. Precisely, the main idea of the project is to figure out and define how any part of the contemporary part of Taranto can establish a revived relation with the coastline and the sea. From the opposite coast of the basin it will be possible to recognize the whole city and identify its constitutive parts. The philosophy of the project has followed a fundamental principle, based on the importance of preserving the existing building and, concurrently, discovering a new meaning for the void interposed among them. The heritage of the military base is saved in order to become a urban resource, while the empty space obtains a unknown dignity as a concluded urban park, an artificial green area constantly bound with the blue horizon of the sea. Four new architectural episodes, which integrate the existing building of the area, are thought to identify the renewed relation between the city and the sea. Through their mutual relation the wide scale of the vacuum finds its rational measure. Each part of the project (the Cretto-podium, the following Wall-building, the Water Courts and the Towers system) is intended with a strong identity, ensured by the character of its architecture. The scales, the proportions and the forms are thought in order to explore all the possible relations between the city and the sea. The irregular and fragmented trend of the basin allows a visual connection between the episodes of the project: from the places along the coastline it will be possible to understand how the city of Taranto has developed through the modernity. The final result is an architectural project intended as knowledge and representation of the urban characters, an exceptional theme to reflect on the culture of the modern city.