Invited project for the XV Venice Architecture Biennale 2016
As part of the exhibition: UP! MARGHERA ON STAGE
Padiglione Venezia - Giardini della Biennale - Venezia IT
Curators
Architecture - Matteo D'Ambros, Nicola Picco, Anna Buzzacchi
Photography - Alessandra Chemollo, Gianpaolo Arena, Massimo Sordi
Visual communication
Stefano Cecchetto, Stefano Quarta
Exhibition project
Alessandro Pedron, Marco Zito
Project and coordination
MAARCH
Stefano Peluso, Andrea Carlesso, Steven Geeraert
with
Paolo Oliva
Pietro Salamone
Landscape
Dong Sub Bertin
Sandra Matic
Urban strategies
Elena Longhin
Sustainability
Studio Azzero
Carlo Neidhardt, Marco Fontanive
Within the projecy PM800 Post Metabolic City, soil is considered the very first edifying
element nurturing the new city, instead of a tainted material to simply isolate and
withdraw form. The polluted soil of Porto Marghera, beyond bringing a dramatic social
and enviromental heritage, embodies the possibility of the construction of a new utopian
city (or a real city): PM 800 proposes an innovative and visionary program that turns the
remediation into a moment of collective reflection on the construction of the future
venetian landscape.
42% of the terrain of Porto Marghera is currently still affected by a wide range of
pollutants soaked into its exploited ground.
Multiplying the average excavation depth by the area of polluted soil we collect
32.000.000 cubic meters of contaminated earth to restore. This quantity could fill 800
towers with a square base of 20 meters and hight of 100 meters.
Precisely in relation to this paradox lays the foundation of this project: hollowing out the
ground of the entire industrial site allows for the construction of 800 tower-machines to
store and decontaminate the polluted soil on site and produce energy which feed the new
city. The tower-machine becomes at the same time the testing prototype for new
environmental remediation process and icon for the reinterpretation of the vertical city
paradigm. Once the reclamation is complete, the tower-machine will be transformed into
a living space constructed from the cleaned soil, used as a building material for both
interior rear-end collisions and facades cladding.
