Prato is a city and comune in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato.

Historically, Prato’s economy has been based on the textile industry. The renowned Datini archives are a significant collection of late medieval documents concerning economic and trade history, produced between 1363 and 1410. 

The city of Prato has the second largest Chinese immigrant population in Italy (after Milan with Italy's largest Chinatown). Legal Chinese residents in Prato on 31 December 2008 were 9,927. Local authorities estimate the number of Chinese citizens living in Prato to be around 45,000, illegal immigrants included. Most overseas Chinese come from the city of Wenzhou in the province of Zhejiang, some of them having moved from Chinatown in Paris. The first Chinese people came to Prato in the early 1990s. The majority of Chinese work in 3,500 workshops in the garment industry and ready-to-wear. Chinatown is located in the west part of the city

Maps and diagrams for the flexible city 

The initial research started by studying the Prato as a whole and narrowing down the study to the area of intervention i.e the Macrolloto, that is the centre of Prato home to the Chinese and the less numbered Italian community. 

 

The process included studying the area by a visit to Prato, and walking around the area observing the charecterictis of the space, understanding the urban culture and the used and unused spaces, economic acticities, architrcture, poor urban design.

 

A set of sensory maps were prepared for the initial study.

 

Heat map showing the density of public, industrial and residential areas of Prato Chinatown

The main concept revolves around the idea of reactivating the space all day long with several activities that take place at different places at differnt time of the day. A map showing the space-time activity is represented below

The spaces are active during the day for example the map below shows at certain time of the day a market is open in the morning followed by a library in the evening. The cycle regenrates a rich social and cultural interaction within the community present in the Prato Chinatown

A map identifying the green spaces within Prato

embedding the idea of green and walk friendly space for the pedestrians and commuting by bikes

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