Silicon vs Chalk

We are experimenting a lighter and less fragile way to realize a couple of models that will be exhibited at the British Museum in London during the conference Anthropology in the World organized by the Royal Anthropological Institute – 8th-10th June 2012.

The 9 models we prepared for the 5th IABR of Rotterdam are made of chalk  (on the right you can see a fragment of the mold): beautiful material, very nice result but heavy and fragile. But how to go to London with a similar model in the luggage?

After some tests the best combination seems to be a layer of white silicon (acrilic sealant) filled with polyurethane foam which perfectly glues to it. We will post a picture of the final models soon, check it out!

Revealing the Sile River

Latitude and B&M Engineering are now collaborating on a hydrological study for the Sile river (Treviso, Italy). The study aims at understanding the recent dysfunctions, like the problems of draught and flood that affect the river track that goes from its spring to the city centre of Treviso, which are also linked to the intensive irrigation and hydroelectric uses of water.

But the fact that the Sile is today entirely dependent from the water coming from the northern diversions of the Piave river makes it even more fragile. Understanding the broader picture and the water systems’ mutual dependency is thus a priority.

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Paradise by the city lights

In the frame of the two weeks festival on sustainable cities ‘Paradise by the city lights: Sustainability in world cities‘ organized by UCOS (Academic Centre for Development Corporation – Brussels) Latitude has presented its activities focusing on the current researches Floating Urbanism and Living with Water.  The master class on “Sustainable world cities? Exchanging ideas on urban environments around the globe” was aiming at exchanging experiences with students on sustainability issues in different contexts.

The panel discussion on how to construct ways of achieving sustainability in world cities (yesterday 17-20 pm) took place together with Dr. Ahmed Zaib Khan Mahsud (Cosmopolis) who presented “Sustainable Urbanism: a global perspective” and Le Xuan Quynh (Human Ecology) who presented “Urbanisation and sustainable development: Challenges from a South East Asian perspective”.

The next Latitude’s lecture at UCOS will be in September.

Reforestation for Urban Resilience

Andrea Bortolotti (collaborator LATITUDE) has presented at the conference Terra Ri-genera Città the project Reforestation for Urban Resilience designed with LATITUDE, Efrem Ferrari and Claudia Ivone Martinez Feria. It is conceived as a design toolkit to regenerate urban areas thanks to new integrated reforestation devices. Both public spaces and unbuilt private areas can be temporarily forested to support the urban tissue providing a number of services (i.e. playgrounds-rainwater retention areas). The process of urban regeneration implies the negotiation between the private and the public sector: designers can guide the stakeholders in the search of win-win strategies towards common benefits.
At the moment a pilot project along the stream Olona, in an urbanized area North-West of Milan, is under discussion with the municipality.

Veneto 2100 open at the 5th IABR

The 5th IABR is now open!

Latitude is among the over 35 projects and good practices from more than 25 cities around the world that is exhibiting in Rotterdam at the 5th IABR ‘Making City’ with the research project Veneto 2100: Living with Water. The Biennale examines how the city can continue to generate our wealth in a sustainable manner and how to ‘make city’ in a fundamentally different way. Projects in such places as New York, Paris, São Paulo, Delhi, as well as Rotterdam, the Nile valley and the Veneto region try to envision different solutions.

In the future – the 5th IABR argues – city development will have to involve much more teamwork among different disciplines and continually changing alliances in which social agendas and economic ambitions must strike a balance with each other. Will cities be able to offer solutions to the major socio-economic and ecological challenges that face us this century?

Veneto 2100: Living with Water investigates how the region can transform starting from the forecasted environmental threats. A wall-map illustrates the future Veneto highlighting the dense presence of water, while nine chalk models show in detail prototypical samples of the proposed scenario and the different territorial conditions, including the geological differences. Three videos, resulting from the anthropological survey, depict the main social and spatial issues and the volume Living with Water together with Our Common Risk and Delta Landscape 2100 provide the details on the research content and process.

Come and visit!

Living with Water: Veneto 2100

Latitude’s draft-book “Living with Water: Veneto 2100” is finally printed. The book collects the results of the research Living with water in the Veneto region that was carried on during the last year. The book is articulated in four chapters that mirror the main research case studies: the Veneto;  the Po Delta Region; the Monti Lessini Creeks; the Piave River Dry Plains.

What is the future of the Veneto region given the threats posed by rising sea levels, heavy rainfall, floods and drought? What will it look like in 2100?

Latitude has imagined how three different territories might be transformed starting from a number of water threats and opportunities.Widening the riverbeds, establishing spatial corridors to buffer peaks water flow, replenishing the groundwater through the use of new basins, storing water to counteract periods of drought, reactivating the natural relationship between the rivers and the sea and accommodating the rising sea water levels are strategies that should work hand in hand with new processes of urbanization. In implementing such strategies, water becomes the starting point for rethinking, reshaping and restructuring the territories of the Veneto in an effort to design more resilient cities.

Our Common Risk

The booklet Our Common Risk – Scenarios for the diffused city is published. It collects the results of the fall semester 2011/2012 of the EMU (IUAV University of Venice) produced by the Master students and profes­sors together with Latitude, in the frame of the 5th International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam (2012).

Scenarios for two case studies of the Veneto città diffusa  (Vazzola and Monteforte d’Alpone) have been investigated considering environmental risks and conflicts among different groups of interest. The leading questions were: how can be defined a new space of the commons? Can the carrying capacity of a territory be measured? Which recycling strategies can actually reduce or eliminate waste production?

Our Common Risk was curated by Emanuel Giannotti e Paola Viganò – et al./ EDIZIONI, graphic design: Studio Iknoki