Palermo To Trail - A Greenway for the City
The project Palermo To Trail – A Greenway for the city take place in the historical start of the railway to be Palermo – Salaparuta, this railway, thanks to the break out of the world war first had never seen this end, but the only part that had been completed was the line from Palermo to Monreale, and the train station, still used nowadays, where the railway line used to start was Palermo Notarbartolo.
Here starts the project.
Palermo Notarbartolo is one of the major station of Palermo, here we have the stops of many regional and suburban trains; we also have the stop of some minor bus line and also the stop of the tram.
Here we have a good level of communication with all Palermo and part of the Sicily, we are also able to easly reach Palermo Centrale.
Palermo Notarbartolo is in the middle of Palermo and the lines cuts the city in half, because of that, during the last century, the lines had been under grounded for encourage the mobility of Palermo.
The train station in the district called Libertà, it is built around the main axis, that of Viale della Libertà, close to the historical center, but the new great urban expansion tends to make the new city center coincide just near the neighborhood. The area subsists on a sub-flat area once occupied by several noble villas. In 1891.
The nineteenth-century rational ideals pushed towards an orthogonal knit structure with parallel paths between them, located between the main axes constituted by the Via della Libertà and Via Notarbartolo. Of the villas, some also valuable examples of Art Nouveau style, which once fell along these streets today remain very few examples, replaced by multi-storey buildings.
Nowadays the area is surrounded by high buildings that are a consequences of what is called the Sacco di Palermo, that, substantially, is an extreme building speculation act happened in Palermo from the ‘60 until the late ‘80 of the last century.
The are where the railway use to start today host an open air market, that is composed of some half fix awnings without any particular architectonic importance.
Nowadays the railway lines are completely forgotten and incorporated in the speculated fabric of the city, there is an exception in via Palagonia, close to the youth tribunal, where we can still see the differences between the different type of asphalt.
This is the train station of Palermo Notarbartolo, in this station we have different connections between Palermo and the other parts os Sicily, but also, in Palermo itself thanks to the tram and bus stops.
In this area we can observe the presence of a bridge over the railways line and, in the right corner , the presence of a owning system that host an abiding market, northern we can observe many parking lots and some sport fields.
In this place we recognize the starting point of the project Palermo To Trail, here there was the historical start of the railway trail that used to connect Palermo to Monreale touching and collecting all the workers from the countryside near Palermo. The project here wants to create an aggregation point for the community and the tourist that arrive in Palermo, here we decided to redesign the market structure for give a more stable situation and a better nobility to a decadent and not setted structure.
In doing that we recreate a space that aims to remember a train waiting platform and that actually is a public square where people can stop after they went to the new market structure.
This new structure still host the market, but also it is provided with a bar and a pedestrian roof, in this way, the users, can decide if live the public square al ground level or visit the roof square on the top for enjoy a Partial view both of Palermo and the Palermo To Trail.
The new market structure will be composed by two levels where people will buy all the products of Palermo, also the one producted in the urban gardens of Uditore’s train station.
Here the aim is to create a new meeting point for the community, here people will find a square, a roof garden, a market and a bike sharing point, useful for the people from Palermo that will boost the use of the bike.
In this area we have the sum of many actions: we are in an historical site in the middle of a new expansion of the city, dating it back to the 80’s; we added many green elements; the totems that we use for explain what is happening to the users; we create a new relationship between the walkway and the street; we added a bike sharing point for all the users typologies; we also redesign a new light system that is directly connected with the Palermo To Trail.
Going on with the path, we will follow part of the ancient railway line, even if nowadays, we have no more traces of it.
We will pass in front of the youth tribunal and follow the street until we meet the statale E90.
Just after Palermo Notarbartolo we can continue to the route of our Trail and we will discover some forgotten street of Palermo that are close to the youth tribunal.
If we continue our path we will soon enough meet the statale E90, that is a high viability street that cut Palermo in half.
There are some critical issues related with this street; first of all is a street that, as said, cut Palermo in half and brings all the traffic that comes of the highway right in Palermo, the E90 is also a dangerous place for pedestrians and people that use the bike, in general we can say that is a critical issue for all the slow mobility of Palermo, because you can cross it just in few point, and not all of them are fully protected from the fast mobility. Because of that the project aims to create a new passage for the slow mobility in a critical point for the road crossing system.
In doing that the aim is to create an underpass to let people still use the Palermo To Trail, without taking any stop under the sun or under the rain, and without trouble the fast mobility, that, in this particular point is very intense.
The project will follow all its conceptual behaviour said in the beginning, so, there will be the creation of the orange path for let the users know that they are following the right route, but also this path will be different from the one before, because this is the first point where the Trail has to depart from the original path of the ancient railway line.
In doing that the flooring will change a little, we have no more the sign of the sleepers, but we will still see the orange and the sign for the preferential bike path.
In here, as said we will use an underpass for cross the E90, but we don’t have to see this act as a bowing and reverence to the superiority of the E90, but in the opposite, this act represent an opportunity for the Trail.
The E90 is an important communication vein for Palermo and it is also something that needs respect, because thanks to it the majority of the traffic jam of Palermo is absorbed, but it will be not be as strong as the Palermo To Trail. The strength of the project is in the fact that will use the slow mobility for create a faster connections in Palermo, but not just around it, but everywhere in Palermo.
Thanks to the Palermo To Trail users will be faster that the cars, here is where the slow mobility began something faster that the fast mobility.
So, because of that we decided for the creation of an underpass, because the green way are not afraid of bowing or taking action that can hide them to the users, simply because this will not happen, because they create a so strong act of rebellion against the fast mobility and the traffic jam that they will be seen as something so strong and brave anyway.
Following the path of the Trail we have to vary a lot from the original rout of the railway line, this happen because the fabric of the city changed a lot and, for this stretch we lost the sign.
Anyway we don’t lost the right path and taking the sound steps, we arrive in the huge historical park of Uditore’s train station.
This park is in the district Uditore - Passo di Rigano
The district is located in the area known as Palermo Nord, at the foot of Monte Cuccio beyond the Palermo ring road.
Until the sixties the area was a village surrounded by extensive countryside far from the city center, its development is due to the seventies during the so-called Sacco di Palermo during which it was quickly urbanized and has acquired the current conformation. Much of it was not touched in the seventies so it is still possible to see glimpses of the countryside that give an idea of how the area appeared before the building boom, but the construction in the spaces intended for such use is restarted and the neighbourhood is again evolving.
The district includes the historic village of the publisher and from 2012 to date has been significantly enhanced by the birth of the homonymous public park with free access, Park Auditorium - Park of Memory and Legality, managed in an exemplary way by the volunteers of the Cooperative Social Park Uditore ONLUS without public funds.
Here the park is in a state of complete abandonment with just some maintenances for the historical trees that survived until nowadays.
This is one of the most interesting places all along Palermo, and, also, along the Palermo to Trail. This is the green area around the ancient Uditore’s train station. This green area has a really deep and antique history.
Created thanks to the Borbone family that green are was, once and for more than a century an experimental agricultural garden, where the gardeners were able to experiment new technologies related with the cultivation of the product of the soil. During the modern times this park lost its experimental function and was subjected to what, in Palermo, is know as “Sacco di Palermo”; we are substantially talking about the wild building speculation that happened in all the south of Italy from the ‘80 of the last century. So, during the ages the park had been drastically reduced and just a little portion of the historical plantation, situated in the south east part, survived until nowadays. To day, the area, is left alone in Palermo and it is enclosed by a fence. The project wants to pass trough this area and its aim is to create a new urban area, a new urban park and give this area back to the population of Palermo.
In doing that we will not forget to underline the historical elements that survived for more that a century, such as the historical garden, the Uditore station and the old railway tracks that are still there untouched for a century. The aim is to use the Uditore station for create a base where people can go and eat the product that will be cultivated in this park, a place where they can sit and enjoy both the historical and the new park that had been cleaned and restored; the users will also be able to learn about the history of Palermo and, particularly, about the railroad Palermo Monreale and the risks of the uncontrolled building speculation. In doing that we also thought about frame the old railway line and put a accent on it with the aim to preserve and protect it as we will do with a delicate fossil. So, following the delicate ecosystem of the Uditore train station park, we aim to create two type of park divided by a central square.
In the square we will have the Uditore train station the will be restored and will be use, at the ground floor as a workshop class room related to the ecological cultivation of the typical soil product of Palermo, at the first floor there will be a bar.
Outside we have a huge square where we can see all the urban gardens used for the cultivation of the typical soil product of Palermo and on the north east corner of the square we have the bike sharing point.
As said this central square divide the park in two, the west part is countered by a hedge that mark the space between the square and the park, this area is thought as a natural park, where the intervention is at a minimum level.
The east part is more complex, because here we have the ancient citrus and ornamental trees, this part is thought as a part of the production of the urban gardens.
Also here we have a small part of the ancient railway tracks, the idea is to let them be a part of an interesting project of land art.
The line will be transformed and restored; in the space between the partitions we will plant some colored flowers of trees due to create a view point and something that catch the eye of the users, than we will use the totems and the wooden restored partitions to let some artist create a piece of street art where in the middle of the park. In this way we will bring the ancient railway lines to a new life and they will turn to be an attraction for, not just the users, but also for the whole city, that will enjoy the peculiar art made by the street artists.
Leaving the Park and following the route we start to leave the centre of Palermo and we cross some popular neighbourhood, here the Trail has to protect the users from the view of some spaces that are not of such an high architectural quality, in doing that the project uses some trees and other green elements for frame the view that we have of the mountains, in this way the users attention will be brought to another view point.
Going on we leave the most urbanised part of Palermo and we arrive in what once was Villa Luparello; this villa nowadays is a private house, but here the path cross an ancient bridge that pass right close to the villa and goes on in the woods until, before the train station of Badia, now a private house and than in lends to one of the most subjective part of the trail, the neighbourhood of Boccadifalco, where we cross three tunnels before arriving in Monreale.
In Boccadifalco we have a splendid ancient bridge that cut the neighbourhood in half and it connect the Badia’s train station with Monreale thanks to three tunnels.
On the bridge the project put some minimum intervention to preserve the structural integrity of the bridge, we just put some seats and some metal covering for give the users some rest to the strong sun of Sicily, than we continue in the tunnels. Here the project adopt a peculiar solution for preserve and frame the ancient railway lines, here we adopt a solution where the railway is in the centre and in the middle there are some lamppost that will take care of all the light system, on the two sides we have a sort of floating pavement where people can walk and that aims to frame the ancient railway lines.
In going on we cross all the tunnels and, when we came out we can have a nice view of Palermo from the side of the mountains, if we continue we finally arrive in Monreale.
Here is the end of our Trail, here we create a square in front of the Monreale’s train station where the Trail arrive to its final act, the square is composed as a place where we can leave our bike at the bike sharing point and than enter the trains station.
Inside the station we find a museum that speaks out about the greenways movement and the history of the Trails.
Also here, the totems are used to let the users know that, if they want, they can continue to some trekking routes that are up to the mountains and that will bring them to Trapani in three days of walk. So, this is the end of our path started 12 kilometres ago in the centre of Palermo, where the landscape is really urbanized the the mountains are just a far dream and the sea is a strong reality even if it is covered and hidden by the city; we arrived in Monreale passing trough all Palermo and its surroundings, seen the beauty inside the urban park of Palermo and the close periphery, we crossed wild woods, train stations, historic buildings, tunnels, we played with dark and light and than we arrived to the beautiful town of Monreale where thousand of opportunities are here for our users.
They will be able to have a walk in Monreale, or to continue their path trough the mountains, or, simply, come back or by bus, or on feet.
Here starts the project.
Palermo Notarbartolo is one of the major station of Palermo, here we have the stops of many regional and suburban trains; we also have the stop of some minor bus line and also the stop of the tram.
Here we have a good level of communication with all Palermo and part of the Sicily, we are also able to easly reach Palermo Centrale.
Palermo Notarbartolo is in the middle of Palermo and the lines cuts the city in half, because of that, during the last century, the lines had been under grounded for encourage the mobility of Palermo.
The train station in the district called Libertà, it is built around the main axis, that of Viale della Libertà, close to the historical center, but the new great urban expansion tends to make the new city center coincide just near the neighborhood. The area subsists on a sub-flat area once occupied by several noble villas. In 1891.
The nineteenth-century rational ideals pushed towards an orthogonal knit structure with parallel paths between them, located between the main axes constituted by the Via della Libertà and Via Notarbartolo. Of the villas, some also valuable examples of Art Nouveau style, which once fell along these streets today remain very few examples, replaced by multi-storey buildings.
Nowadays the area is surrounded by high buildings that are a consequences of what is called the Sacco di Palermo, that, substantially, is an extreme building speculation act happened in Palermo from the ‘60 until the late ‘80 of the last century.
The are where the railway use to start today host an open air market, that is composed of some half fix awnings without any particular architectonic importance.
Nowadays the railway lines are completely forgotten and incorporated in the speculated fabric of the city, there is an exception in via Palagonia, close to the youth tribunal, where we can still see the differences between the different type of asphalt.
This is the train station of Palermo Notarbartolo, in this station we have different connections between Palermo and the other parts os Sicily, but also, in Palermo itself thanks to the tram and bus stops.
In this area we can observe the presence of a bridge over the railways line and, in the right corner , the presence of a owning system that host an abiding market, northern we can observe many parking lots and some sport fields.
In this place we recognize the starting point of the project Palermo To Trail, here there was the historical start of the railway trail that used to connect Palermo to Monreale touching and collecting all the workers from the countryside near Palermo. The project here wants to create an aggregation point for the community and the tourist that arrive in Palermo, here we decided to redesign the market structure for give a more stable situation and a better nobility to a decadent and not setted structure.
In doing that we recreate a space that aims to remember a train waiting platform and that actually is a public square where people can stop after they went to the new market structure.
This new structure still host the market, but also it is provided with a bar and a pedestrian roof, in this way, the users, can decide if live the public square al ground level or visit the roof square on the top for enjoy a Partial view both of Palermo and the Palermo To Trail.
The new market structure will be composed by two levels where people will buy all the products of Palermo, also the one producted in the urban gardens of Uditore’s train station.
Here the aim is to create a new meeting point for the community, here people will find a square, a roof garden, a market and a bike sharing point, useful for the people from Palermo that will boost the use of the bike.
In this area we have the sum of many actions: we are in an historical site in the middle of a new expansion of the city, dating it back to the 80’s; we added many green elements; the totems that we use for explain what is happening to the users; we create a new relationship between the walkway and the street; we added a bike sharing point for all the users typologies; we also redesign a new light system that is directly connected with the Palermo To Trail.
Going on with the path, we will follow part of the ancient railway line, even if nowadays, we have no more traces of it.
We will pass in front of the youth tribunal and follow the street until we meet the statale E90.
Just after Palermo Notarbartolo we can continue to the route of our Trail and we will discover some forgotten street of Palermo that are close to the youth tribunal.
If we continue our path we will soon enough meet the statale E90, that is a high viability street that cut Palermo in half.
There are some critical issues related with this street; first of all is a street that, as said, cut Palermo in half and brings all the traffic that comes of the highway right in Palermo, the E90 is also a dangerous place for pedestrians and people that use the bike, in general we can say that is a critical issue for all the slow mobility of Palermo, because you can cross it just in few point, and not all of them are fully protected from the fast mobility. Because of that the project aims to create a new passage for the slow mobility in a critical point for the road crossing system.
In doing that the aim is to create an underpass to let people still use the Palermo To Trail, without taking any stop under the sun or under the rain, and without trouble the fast mobility, that, in this particular point is very intense.
The project will follow all its conceptual behaviour said in the beginning, so, there will be the creation of the orange path for let the users know that they are following the right route, but also this path will be different from the one before, because this is the first point where the Trail has to depart from the original path of the ancient railway line.
In doing that the flooring will change a little, we have no more the sign of the sleepers, but we will still see the orange and the sign for the preferential bike path.
In here, as said we will use an underpass for cross the E90, but we don’t have to see this act as a bowing and reverence to the superiority of the E90, but in the opposite, this act represent an opportunity for the Trail.
The E90 is an important communication vein for Palermo and it is also something that needs respect, because thanks to it the majority of the traffic jam of Palermo is absorbed, but it will be not be as strong as the Palermo To Trail. The strength of the project is in the fact that will use the slow mobility for create a faster connections in Palermo, but not just around it, but everywhere in Palermo.
Thanks to the Palermo To Trail users will be faster that the cars, here is where the slow mobility began something faster that the fast mobility.
So, because of that we decided for the creation of an underpass, because the green way are not afraid of bowing or taking action that can hide them to the users, simply because this will not happen, because they create a so strong act of rebellion against the fast mobility and the traffic jam that they will be seen as something so strong and brave anyway.
Following the path of the Trail we have to vary a lot from the original rout of the railway line, this happen because the fabric of the city changed a lot and, for this stretch we lost the sign.
Anyway we don’t lost the right path and taking the sound steps, we arrive in the huge historical park of Uditore’s train station.
This park is in the district Uditore - Passo di Rigano
The district is located in the area known as Palermo Nord, at the foot of Monte Cuccio beyond the Palermo ring road.
Until the sixties the area was a village surrounded by extensive countryside far from the city center, its development is due to the seventies during the so-called Sacco di Palermo during which it was quickly urbanized and has acquired the current conformation. Much of it was not touched in the seventies so it is still possible to see glimpses of the countryside that give an idea of how the area appeared before the building boom, but the construction in the spaces intended for such use is restarted and the neighbourhood is again evolving.
The district includes the historic village of the publisher and from 2012 to date has been significantly enhanced by the birth of the homonymous public park with free access, Park Auditorium - Park of Memory and Legality, managed in an exemplary way by the volunteers of the Cooperative Social Park Uditore ONLUS without public funds.
Here the park is in a state of complete abandonment with just some maintenances for the historical trees that survived until nowadays.
This is one of the most interesting places all along Palermo, and, also, along the Palermo to Trail. This is the green area around the ancient Uditore’s train station. This green area has a really deep and antique history.
Created thanks to the Borbone family that green are was, once and for more than a century an experimental agricultural garden, where the gardeners were able to experiment new technologies related with the cultivation of the product of the soil. During the modern times this park lost its experimental function and was subjected to what, in Palermo, is know as “Sacco di Palermo”; we are substantially talking about the wild building speculation that happened in all the south of Italy from the ‘80 of the last century. So, during the ages the park had been drastically reduced and just a little portion of the historical plantation, situated in the south east part, survived until nowadays. To day, the area, is left alone in Palermo and it is enclosed by a fence. The project wants to pass trough this area and its aim is to create a new urban area, a new urban park and give this area back to the population of Palermo.
In doing that we will not forget to underline the historical elements that survived for more that a century, such as the historical garden, the Uditore station and the old railway tracks that are still there untouched for a century. The aim is to use the Uditore station for create a base where people can go and eat the product that will be cultivated in this park, a place where they can sit and enjoy both the historical and the new park that had been cleaned and restored; the users will also be able to learn about the history of Palermo and, particularly, about the railroad Palermo Monreale and the risks of the uncontrolled building speculation. In doing that we also thought about frame the old railway line and put a accent on it with the aim to preserve and protect it as we will do with a delicate fossil. So, following the delicate ecosystem of the Uditore train station park, we aim to create two type of park divided by a central square.
In the square we will have the Uditore train station the will be restored and will be use, at the ground floor as a workshop class room related to the ecological cultivation of the typical soil product of Palermo, at the first floor there will be a bar.
Outside we have a huge square where we can see all the urban gardens used for the cultivation of the typical soil product of Palermo and on the north east corner of the square we have the bike sharing point.
As said this central square divide the park in two, the west part is countered by a hedge that mark the space between the square and the park, this area is thought as a natural park, where the intervention is at a minimum level.
The east part is more complex, because here we have the ancient citrus and ornamental trees, this part is thought as a part of the production of the urban gardens.
Also here we have a small part of the ancient railway tracks, the idea is to let them be a part of an interesting project of land art.
The line will be transformed and restored; in the space between the partitions we will plant some colored flowers of trees due to create a view point and something that catch the eye of the users, than we will use the totems and the wooden restored partitions to let some artist create a piece of street art where in the middle of the park. In this way we will bring the ancient railway lines to a new life and they will turn to be an attraction for, not just the users, but also for the whole city, that will enjoy the peculiar art made by the street artists.
Leaving the Park and following the route we start to leave the centre of Palermo and we cross some popular neighbourhood, here the Trail has to protect the users from the view of some spaces that are not of such an high architectural quality, in doing that the project uses some trees and other green elements for frame the view that we have of the mountains, in this way the users attention will be brought to another view point.
Going on we leave the most urbanised part of Palermo and we arrive in what once was Villa Luparello; this villa nowadays is a private house, but here the path cross an ancient bridge that pass right close to the villa and goes on in the woods until, before the train station of Badia, now a private house and than in lends to one of the most subjective part of the trail, the neighbourhood of Boccadifalco, where we cross three tunnels before arriving in Monreale.
In Boccadifalco we have a splendid ancient bridge that cut the neighbourhood in half and it connect the Badia’s train station with Monreale thanks to three tunnels.
On the bridge the project put some minimum intervention to preserve the structural integrity of the bridge, we just put some seats and some metal covering for give the users some rest to the strong sun of Sicily, than we continue in the tunnels. Here the project adopt a peculiar solution for preserve and frame the ancient railway lines, here we adopt a solution where the railway is in the centre and in the middle there are some lamppost that will take care of all the light system, on the two sides we have a sort of floating pavement where people can walk and that aims to frame the ancient railway lines.
In going on we cross all the tunnels and, when we came out we can have a nice view of Palermo from the side of the mountains, if we continue we finally arrive in Monreale.
Here is the end of our Trail, here we create a square in front of the Monreale’s train station where the Trail arrive to its final act, the square is composed as a place where we can leave our bike at the bike sharing point and than enter the trains station.
Inside the station we find a museum that speaks out about the greenways movement and the history of the Trails.
Also here, the totems are used to let the users know that, if they want, they can continue to some trekking routes that are up to the mountains and that will bring them to Trapani in three days of walk. So, this is the end of our path started 12 kilometres ago in the centre of Palermo, where the landscape is really urbanized the the mountains are just a far dream and the sea is a strong reality even if it is covered and hidden by the city; we arrived in Monreale passing trough all Palermo and its surroundings, seen the beauty inside the urban park of Palermo and the close periphery, we crossed wild woods, train stations, historic buildings, tunnels, we played with dark and light and than we arrived to the beautiful town of Monreale where thousand of opportunities are here for our users.
They will be able to have a walk in Monreale, or to continue their path trough the mountains, or, simply, come back or by bus, or on feet.
