The environmental remediation design of an obsolete waste landfill, near Palermo (Italy); The environmental remediation design of an open stone quarry, near Trapani (Italy).

The environmental remediation design of an obsolete waste landfill, near Palermo (Italy). Aims: to transform the landfill area dumping ground with a landscape plan, though respecting the technical rules and the legal regulation; to identy the strategies necessary for the resource-waste to be active; to know the system of real and potential resources and to draw criteria to convey financial private sources into operations, though onerous for local government; to produce a plan that has a communicable and innovative method. Hypothesis: changing the area with reference to the system of Cultural and Environmental Heritage (this hypothesis is confirmed by the knowledge of other area of Sicily, with the same morphologic and antropic shapes; by the proximity of naturalistic interest areas; by the orography of the place, marked by the two valleys of Eleuterio and Milicia rivers); realization of two plants installations: one for the production of compost from organic waste and the other the treatment of inert materials; control of accessibility regarding the big regional viability both in the view to the recovery of raw material from the referential basin and of distribution of end products. Design: realisation of an artificial hill (“the tree’s hill”, borrowing the local toponym), through the moulding of the waste, so that it becomes the foot of a sculpture (a symbolic tree). The tree’s hill is a step of a ridge path, that winds through farms, towers and farmhouses (sometimes already used for tourist purposes); it is linked to the local viability. The environmental remediation design of an open stone quarry, near Trapani (Italy). Aims: To transform the quarry, but not through a conventionale “renaturalization” technique; to find formal stuff, to use and interpret once again in a place where there are not only the archaeological sites of Segesta and Selinunte, but also an work of land art, Alberto Burri’s “Cretto”. Hypothesis: to confirm the characteristic of the Sicilian landscape characterised by a complex system of towns, located in strategic places for the territory and sea control, without remarkable differences related to the foundation period (from VII century B.C. to XX century); the landscape is also characterized by “rocche” (the toponym “rocca” means both the bare top and the towns placed on the top) thickly built, with rare vegetation; and finally, characterized by piedmont zones with big clusters and cultivated level grounds. Design: realization of a place for outdoor events with public services and a small wind plant. The quarry, with a terracing structure, is formed by two recognizable sides (the first creates a bowl, the second is on the northern side of the hill). We have outlined the edges and entrances; we have planned a basin, in its deepest and narrowest side, with a “dark” thick wood; we smoothed the bottom for performing arts. You can enter there from an external parking (that is a line of trees visible, at long-distance, as it was a wood at the bottom of a naked hill), or from the main building with an elevator.