The Isola Pepe Verde community experience is a unique case within the city of Milan: an exotic forest of indigenous plants that ruffles the composure of a neighbourhood experiencing rapid change. To the visitor the effect is that of an unruly jungle, inhabited by elm trees and children, free from the norms of aesthetics and landscape which often shape public spaces. Here the space is imbued with a certain sense of wonder, the joy of discovery encouraged. Blooming Ruins adopts as its guiding principle this character of ill-discipline – a trait which has been increasingly marginalised by contemporary urban dynamics – promoting culture through nature, safeguarding the flexibility, dynamism and mobility that have rendered this community garden both fruitful and efficient.
Here, among thriving vegetation, are the new playground areas: ruins of imaginary cities, remains of an unconscious civilisation. This ruin is understood, from one perspective, as the exemplary failure of previous settlement models, often favoured even now, but also as a form of incomplete genesis, which brings with it the power of a desired completeness. These ruins form a base from and among which children will be able to construct their own ideas of the world through play, imagination, co-operation. They will be free to interpret these structures through a wide variety of games, to modify them by adding natural elements found in the park, or green foam blocks that are strong, light, and biodegradable.
Competition
Date: 2018
Location Corso: Isola Pepe Verde, Milan
Size: 2.000 sqm
Contract value: 67.000 E
Program: Garden, Public SpaceClient: Isola Pepe Verde Association
Architects: casatibuonsante architects
Collaborator: Houman Riazi
Artist, Set Design: Iacopo Costanzo
Pedagogist: Paola Gaggiotti
Anthropologist: Giacomo Pozzi
Date: 2018
Location Corso: Isola Pepe Verde, Milan
Size: 2.000 sqm
Contract value: 67.000 E
Program: Garden, Public Space
Architects: casatibuonsante architects
Collaborator: Houman Riazi
Artist, Set Design: Iacopo Costanzo
Pedagogist: Paola Gaggiotti
Anthropologist: Giacomo Pozzi