Nisida is an island and nobody knows it

The thesis project aims to transform Nisida, a small piece of land in the gulf of Naples which is now a protected area (due to the child prison) in a new naturalistic park, open to the whole city. This small intervention try to connect all the existing buildings, forming the farm colony, to generate a new public path.

Our proposal is to transform Nisida into a protected naturalistic park and entrust the management of the park to the penal institution that regulates access and therefore guarantees its protection, designing some spaces for the training of young prisoners, with the aim to re-educate them trough manual work. So, our research project is focused on a reading of the natural landscape trying to keep together the artificial conditions with an new small intervention to preserve and put in place new conditions, rediscovering all the possible paths to connect the island from east to west and from the base to the crown. Our strategy starts from the large scale for the reconnection of the island to the city by identifying parking areas and activating a shuttle that connects the public transport system with the island. However, on a smaller scale, closely linked to the use of the island itself, the intervention is structured into three actions: the climb up to the crown and the climb down towards Porto Paone, through the reactivation of some historical paths, and the design of a new system of terraces that redefine the limits of the crown. The new project is made around four small new buildings that became a new backbone for the upper part of the island. We designed two panoramic viewpoint that are the start and the end of the crown path, and in the middle we put two other small buildings. The first one is a small square, with a new bar/tourist information, the second one is a small restaurant built around the old grain silos, with a winery that will be a place to involve young prisoners and to try to insert them again into society. This small intervention try to connect all the existing buildings to generate a new public path with the aim to obtain an architectural image of the new in close relationship with the nature, trying to continue the lessons of the past and build to valorize the existing conditions.