As we can see from the evolution and urbanization of the cities across 10,000 years from paleotithic to nowadays, war is like a virus spreading everywhere human lives and remains many vestiges after it’s gone. Peace is something abstract and has never been steady since we are familiar with the definition of “arms race” where all the countries are trying to produce and trading more and more number of weapons and military technology to prepare for larger army. This is unstoppable process  and one of the most negative climax of global “5 scapes” (technoscape, mediascape, ethoscape, finacescape and ideoscape). Italy’s military expenditure in 1985 was the eight of the world, number at arms is among the first fifteen countries and the first six positions among the world exporters of armaments. This race has been a tendency to expand over last decade, in which Italy has become one of the major exporters of weapons systems and its military expenditure exceeds the annual growth rates decided at the NATO level (L’Italia e la corsa al riarmo, Marco De Andreis and Paolo Miggiano). That will show us how prevalent the military premises are in every cities where they are playing an inevitable role.

Piacenza, capital in province of Piacenza, is a city and commune in Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. Piacenza is much alike other historical towns with Romanesque center, medieval extension, renaissance extension and modern city area, they are arranged as 4 concentric rings one after another. There are 5 different military premises scattered all over Piacenza, they are placed in every ring of this city and one of them is Pontieri, this place is special because it situates in a knot where 4 rings almost meet. For this city in specific and for many other historical towns, the interest is not just only some buildings or some monuments but the perception of “city as a whole”, this urban quality must be questioned as the priority in order to maintain the collective image, the collective spirit and the collective system of a city. Unfortunately, Pontieri has performed as a stranger in a play where it is supposed to be an ally due to its important position. As the guideline of municipality, this area became the object for investigation and exploration which would reconsider its role in urban context of Piacenza, and would transfer it into a center of art and music that could be used to revive the spirit of the city and strengthen the bond inside this city itself and relation among the bigger system in Italy.

All of elements around this area that generate its characteristics are important and complex in which many aspects have in them both negative and positive influence and one relates to another. For example. the biggest issue is that Pontieri stops the urban fabric at the boundary and separate it from the landscape on riverside, in one hand this discrimination will control the expansion of historical urban, remain it intact beyond the modern urban and assure existing hierarchies, in the other hand it simultaneously together with PO river isolate the riverside and trap it into a dangerous area and easily be threatened by different kind of malefactors. This feeling of insecurity has been assembled by many reasons that the main one is the disconnection with city fabric and its large surface area which is fenced continuously and exclusively inaccessible. From this point, the idea of art and music center has been used as the means to archive the connection, safety and liveliness which are the leading targets for Pontieri. The idea of drawing people into this place will keep this place in natural surveillance therefore solve the problem of safety and liveliness, in this mission, again the diversity of activities is the appropriate answer.

The master plan is defined by 2 main axes created by 4 main corners of this area which are one school, one museum, one stadium and one potential opened green field. The main erected buildings work on the edge of these axes and embrace those 4 corners leaving the cross-figure courtyard clear and adequately wide to connect 4 sides of the area. Depart from that concept the big building on the left on master plan with its good architecture quality is safe from demolition and be renovated to use as the music school, and follow it, the other buildings on the edge will be used to support for this purpose such as stores, apartments, playing rooms, recording studios etc. Also the museum (Farnese, on the lower right on master plan) is opened towards to the courtyard which plays a role as the square and relational space with big steps where people can sit. These steps together with rectangular studios will divide the space of the courtyard - square into smaller space but still be able to maintain vision from one side to the other. The whole concept of this complex was imitated from the urban fabric with big square, houses with small courtyards, road and alleys, that shapes the morphology of buildings on the edge. On the aerial view, this new pontieri performs as a patch into Piacenza’s whole fabric, keep this area penetrative by the assembling work of prefabricated blocks and simultaneously be a wrapped institution forming a center of art and music.

Title: Urban Patch
Catalogue: Academic project - Landscape design
Institution: Politecnico di Milano (Polimi, Milan, Italy)
Evaluation: 30/30 (by professors)
Function: Complexity, Culture
Project area: 87000 m2
Project year: 2014