Project introduction. Atelier 1 - Land trouvé. Methodologies and strategies

The Po river has an inflection near the centre of Piacenza. In the riverbed (Maggi islets) and on the two shores, there are peculiar places with historical-naturalistic values (wetland areas near to Trebbia river; farmhouses; Genio Pontieri barrack; old industrial traces; canals; rural fields). You can imagine the curve of the river like an expanded strip that extends and compresses itself into a sinusoidal mud. Railway and roads cross the river defining, together with the adjacent railway bridge, the gateway to the city but also the connection with a large scale of the territory. Between local and global levels, pre-existing elements are reference of distances and heights in a changing system that can be measured through a grid made by longitudinal paths and transversal sections. Longitudinal paths follow the dams and the infrastructures. Transversal passages cross the depth of the riverfront from a shore to the other linking significant places, identified by important gaps. These are entrances to the old town (Palazzo Farnese, ancient walls, railway and industrial areas), “filters – rooms” between heterogeneous parts of territory and very different scales; transversal and longitudinal strips interact along the southern stretch of the river route between them and also with the flood changings as part of a mobile limit sensitive to the different water levels; a place of crossing where the size is regenerated each time through the different trend of the flood, that transforms and builds various landscapes.