Architectural Design 9

Learning about the principles of sustainability is only a part of a much larger educational goal - the application of those principles to the design of contemporary urban projects. Students are challenged to develop a sustainable mixed-use project that includes the redesign of a modernist piazza in Genoa. The program includes a hotel, restaurants, and leisure spaces in Piacentini's Piazza Dante - a Rationalist urban design from the 1930's that ceded public space to the automobile. The project reimagines a portion of this failed urban space (a massive parking lot for motorbikes) as a vital urban space supporting the health and well-being of the city, its residents, and visitors.