TURIN, ITALY (1997)
Environment Park is situated in the center of an extensive post-industrial landscape, on the periphery of the city of Turin, Italy. It is an area of approximately 20 million sq. feet, which the city Master Plan designated as an area for a green park. At the same time, there are a number of ongoing attempts to transform the abandoned factories and sheds of this area into an urban concentration of tertiary industries, service and research, as well as lightweight industries. Environment Park is the first technological park in Europe entirely dedicated to the problems of the environment. It is an ambitious architectonic project, seeking to further Ambasz’ idea of “green architecture”, which aims at establishing a strong relationship, technical as well as symbolic, between “green” and “gray”, between garden and building. This project creates a unitary landscape, which also seeks to rediscover and give value to the adjacent River Dora. Thusly Environment Park is a project with a deep-seated ecological and environmental commitment, which is quite aware of the need to control resources and to reduce energy consumption by means of natural and sophisticated techniques for the management of the buildings. The complex of buildings of Environment Park consists of 600,000 sq. feet organized into several blocks of compact buildings, which have been built on three levels. They present themselves with roofs covered by gardens, which are bisected by walkways integrated into this new artificial green landscape. In addition, the buildings’ vertical walls are covered with a dense net of nylon on which ivy is to climb. So, in addition to the horizontal gardens, this project also provides “vertical gardens”. The public can use the roof of the buildings, starting directly from the sidewalk ascending a very gentle ramp, as if it were a public park.
