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Forms of the Void: Gorizia and the Border that No 1

Longer Exist 2

3 The city of Gorizia, for almost 60 years, has been divided by the border 4 separating Italy and Slovenia, where on the other side, the twin city of Nova 5 Gorica has developed. Today, these two urban realities that for many years 6 have not been confronting on the urban and architectonic levels, negating 7 each other’s existence, are now a continuous entity and have to find new 8 ways to grow and develop together, even if they belong to two different 9 nations. The University of Trieste, along with the Comune di Gorizia 10 (Gorizia municipality) has developed a laboratory called RRR lab, with the 11 objective to redevelop and regenerate those urban spaces and buildings that 12 have been put back in play after the fall of the border and the new urban 13 geography that it has created. It is a landscape made up of residues, areas 14 and structures without use or significance, generated by the Dadaist collage 15 of the two cities, that were, at the time of the laboratory, together, 16 candidates for the 2025 European Capital of Culture. Starting from this 17 specific case, a more general theme of the research deals with the void. This 18 aspect is easily recognizable in the architectonic dimension, where for the 19 purpose of the quality of the work, the single parts that make up a building 20 are not as important as the spaces that are indirectly determined by them. 21 The void then, can assume an architectonic quality and become the element 22 on which to base the opening principle “where there is nothing, everything 23 is possible”. 24 25 Keywords: void, borders, architecture, city, European capital of culture 26 2025 27

28

29

Introduction 30

31

For almost forty years the Iron Curtain has divided the European continent. 32

From 1947 the Muro di Gorizia (Gorizia’s wall) has been part of this system. It 33

separated the city, situated on the edge between Italy and what at that time was 34

Yugoslavia, divided into two, with the city center of around 35.000 people on 35

one side, and outskirts and Transalpina Station on the other. 36

With the laying of the first stone, on June 13th1948, the city of Nova 37

Gorica is born and its objective was to give an administrative center to the 38

territory annexed to Yugoslavia. It is a new town, of almost 13.000 inhabitants 39

and drawn up from a modernist design elaborated by the Slovenian architect 40

Edo Ravnikar. 41

With the Slovenian entrance into the European Union in 2004, the state 42

line that divided the two cities has disappeared and a new urban condition 43

worth studying was born. 44

It is not an isolated case, the Iron Curtain had developed over 12.500 km, 45

from the Baltic sea to the north, all the way to the Black sea on the south. 46

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Starting from 1990 this border area, that was actually just an empty strip, has 1

gone from impassable to a permeable edge that instead of dividing has begun to 2

connect different realities. 3

What are the theoretic and disciplinary bases needed in order to study this 4

special condition? 5

The Iron Curtain, today, draws a new system, the European Green Belt, a 6

green infrastructure of continental scale where nature has taken over and has re-7

appropriated these areas neglected by men. 8

A first research made for the environmental and landscape sciences can 9

lead to interesting ideas before concentrating on the specific aspects linked to 10

the architectonic spaces and the urban dimension. 11

Edges interpreted as limitations along the Iron Curtain don’t exist anymore 12

or are progressively disappearing, these spaces are being replaced by other 13

forms of spaces, more ambiguous. 14

The biologist Stephen Jay Gould has based his research on the 15

indeterminism as a premise to the majority of innovative biologic processes. 16

Gould distinguishes in the natural ecologies between two types of edges: limits 17

and borders. The limit is where things end; the border is where different groups 18

interact. (Gould 1980). 19

On the borders, the organisms become more interactive because of the 20

meeting with different species and physic conditions. 21

It is a concept also expressed by Gilles Clément in the Third Landscape 22

(Clément 2014) where he recognizes the margins abandoned by men as 23

residues that group forms of richness and biologic diversity. 24

Typical examples are all the resulting spaces as directly linked to the 25

organization of the territory and so also, but not exclusively, the edges, portions 26

of territory, in some cases undetermined, on the limit of national states. 27

These marginal spaces correspond also to edges of infrastructure or rivers, 28

on the border of fields, on the residues of planned areas. They are not only 29

natural places to protect or built environment to guard. These are places marked 30

by imperfections, where evolution and development, not only biological, can be 31

accelerated, where the mixture between heterogeneous elements can be more 32

frequent, where the imbalances can be emphasized, where at the beginning 33

indecision rules. They are sites that don’t completely belong to the city nor to 34

the natural environment. 35

These analogies of biologic and environmental nature tell us that the areas 36

on the edge, of any kind, can be the most stimulating from the design point of 37

view and for this reason must be investigated in order to understand its 38

potentials and developments. 39

In these places the use of design architectural artifice can slow or 40

accelerate the evolution processes of the city, knowingly orienting the 41

transformation. 42

The following study wishes to, in the first part, starting from the study of 43

the relationship between built object and surrounding emptiness, reconstruct a 44

disciplinary and theorical image in order to individuate some architectonic 45

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strategies, functional to the operative interventions on these edge urban areas, 1

empty, abandoned and marginal, not only geographically. 2

Starting prom this image, in the scope of the didactic laboratory RRR lab, 3

seven projects have been developed, the results, commented and then organized 4

in two categories, have allowed the development of some final considerations 5

on possible intervention strategies in these particular disused urban areas. 6

7

8

Literature Review 9

10

There are two main types of spatial structures, the constructed space from 11

the contraposition of architectonic objects that look to one another but are 12

separated by vast voids, and of the space generated from the opposite 13

condition, where the shape of the established volumes is not autonomous but is 14

determined by the empty space that is subtracted or dug from a built fabric, 15

understood as homogeneous. 16

It is the classic contraposition between fullness and void traceable to the 17

models of the Greek Agora (Doxiadis 1972) and of the Roman Forum 18

(Corbellini 2000). 19

Starting from these two extremes it is possible to develop an infinite series 20

of possibilities. 21

In 1748, Giovanni Battista Nolli designs the Nuova pianta di Roma (the 22

new Plan of Rome), where the void is not only represented, for the first time, as 23

a structural element of urban space, but the logic of the two spatial structures 24

starts to become a hybrid. The reading of the city trough a sequence of “empty” 25

spaces brings Nolli to represent the streets and squares in continuity with the 26

large internal spaces of the churches and major roman palaces, while the rest of 27

the built fabric becomes an indistinctive mass of edifices. The derivate is a 28

fabric with porous margins, where the difference between the void of the 29

outdoors and the indoor space of some buildings is continuous. 30

A few years later, the Campo Marzio by Giovanni Battista Piranesi instead, 31

is understood as an assembly of fragments extracted from the typological 32

repertoires of the antiquity, creating a short circuit between these two 33

originating spatial structures, as demonstration of the possibilities of evolution 34

of these two concepts. 35

In the iconography of Campii Martii (1762), in fact, the ancient models, 36

taken singularly as recognizable and identifiable objects, through their specific 37

geometries and the internal compositive logics, also determine the rules of their 38

over-all assembly to the point of constituting a continuous and homogeneous 39

fabric that contradicts the originating identity and uniqueness of every single 40

manufact. 41

In the ‘900 the modernist movement, in its dogmatic and ideologic 42

declinations, will recognize both models. The first will birth the concept for 43

which buildings generate, in analogy with the principle of the relationship 44

between figure/background of the artistic compositions, the empty spaces 45

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around them; for example, in the case of the project for the competition of the 1

Soviet building by Le Corbusier (Corbellini 2000). 2

The second model will find application in the isotropic and homogenous 3

grids that regulate and dimension the space within which the architectonic 4

objects are systematically repeated or are adequate formally, for example Ville 5

Radieuse also by Le Corbusier (Gandelsonas 1999). 6

In 1960, Kevin Lynch publishes The Image of the City (Lynch 1960), a 7

different approach, of perceptive character, to the question of the spatial models 8

that puts the observer and the mental image of the urban space at the center of 9

reasoning, with a particular attention to the architecture of movement, a new 10

parameter that characterizes the modern space. 11

Lynch recognizes five elements that concur to define the mental image of 12

the cities. The landmarks and the districts refer to the two originating spatial 13

structures. To these, new elements are added, edges, paths and nodes. 14

They are all elements of linear characteristics, in some cases closer to the 15

world of infrastructure than that of architecture, with which our cities were 16

being developed in those years. 17

In particular, the edges are elements that the observer perceives as linear 18

interruptions of continuity, elements of separation between areas, zones, 19

contexts, like riverbeds, railway paths, urban walls, rows of trees, limits of 20

districts. 21

The paths are the “passageways”, the different “fluxes” along which the 22

observer moves (habitually or occasionally). For many individuals, the paths 23

are the prominent elements of the personal urban image (structural elements), 24

streets, pedestrian ways, water ways, lines of public transportation. People 25

observe cities moving along them, relating its image to the routes utilized 26

through sequences and narrations. The ends of the paths are the nodes, punctual 27

places from which and toward which the observer moves. 28

On the architectonic value of linear infrastructure, new or ancient, 29

Costantino Dardi (Dardi 1987) also goes back to the same aspects, when he 30

talks about the roman aqueduct, the great wall of china, the Maginot line or Le 31

Corbusier’s Plan Obus for Algiers and how they assume, on the landscape, a 32

specific role as distinguishing elements, division thresholds, rupture lines and 33

so, based on the paradoxical ambiguity between background/figure, even as in 34

meeting places, relation spaces and suture lines. 35

In Die Stadt in der Stadt. Berlin: ein grünen Archipel (Ungers 1977) 36

Oswald Mathias Unger and Rem Koolhaas propose an urban and special 37

structure formed of large parts, a city archipelago of coherent and recognizable 38

architectonic units, isolated in a large green connective. The question of 39

dimension comes to play, the architectonic objects are being substituted by 40

larger and more complex elements, entire parts of urban fabric disconnected 41

and isolated. 42

At the same time, in Collage City (Rowe 1978), Colin Rowe and Fred 43

Koetter, develop a new and creative vision of city, linked to the poetic of the 44

fragment. 45

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The book cover, from this point of view is significative, it shows the pan 1

of Wiesbaden in Germany, where the two special models are contraposed: the 2

compact historic city and the modern one, made up of groups of isolated 3

buildings. 4

Through reeding the urban form as a collage or as a collection of 5

fragments, Rowe overcomes both, the logic of the classic models, and the 6

modernist inventions, allowing access to a vast repertoire of architectonic 7

figures as base materials for design, regardless of their historic or ideologic 8

collocation. 9

At the same time as Colin Rowe’s studies, in 1978 twelve internationally 10

acclaimed architects including Rowe itself and Dardi, are invited to participate 11

to the project Roma Interrotta (Interrupted Roma). 12

Two-thousand-fifty years after Nolli’s Nuova Pianta di Roma (New Plan 13

of Rome), considered the last coherent urban plan of the city, it is taken as base 14

for twelve design interventions, juxtaposed like a collage, through the 15

manipulation of its urban fabric from the inside. The result is the image of an 16

unreal city but also fantastic and suggestive (Sartogo 2014). 17

Ren Koolhaas with Urbanisme: Imaginer le Néant (Imagine the 18

Nothingness) (Koolhaas 1985) starts to describe a new approach to the 19

structuring of space. The starting concept is the unequivocable: where there is 20

the void, every design option is possible. This vision is very closely related to 21

the oriental one (Pasqualotto 1992) that frees large quantities of creative energy 22

and invites experimentation. 23

Starting from a disappointing misjudgment on the quality of the 24

contemporary built fabric and the incapacity to be incisive with architectonic 25

projects, Koolhaas in 1987 develops a plan for La Ville Nouvelle Melun 26

Sénart, formally defining only a system of great linear voids, the only elements 27

worth preserving and on which to invest design resources. Abandoning the 28

surrounding built fabric to its doom. 29

According to Ludovico Romagni (Romagni 2016) instead, mankind has 30

always used existing parts in order to recompose them in new forms. The 31

artistic technique of the collage, but also the music one of the remixes, is based 32

on this principle. These techniques, like assembly, montage, juxtaposition, 33

require a possibly painful concept: the selection of the necessary parts to the 34

new composition requires a sacrifice, the destruction of the original. 35

These recovered parts, usually a leftover, hold, in any case, their own 36

origin, a past that makes them recognizable. In any case, this past cannot be 37

completely recovered, the attempt to preserve memory always results into a 38

selection, fragmentation and modification. 39

In architecture, the presence of unaccomplished, interrupted or abandoned 40

areas push us to rethink the manipulation devices of the existing, besides the 41

typical categories of restoration and renovation. 42

In Remix Theory (Navas 2012), Eduardo Navas individuates four 43

categories, four actions to manipulate the existing. 44

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The first category is the extension of the original manufact, by punctual 1

manipulations in its growing areas. The second, to subtract or to add elements 2

with the objective to adequate the originative element, integrating new 3

functions or removing crisis elements, without losing overall recognizability of 4

the base object. Deconstruction is the third, disassembly of the significative 5

parts and re-composition of the same in a new organism, giving up on the 6

maintenance of all the other parts. Lastly, regeneration, selection of the existing 7

elements, based on their functionality, and re-composition with the loss of any 8

link to the origin. 9

This logic acquires value if applied circularly, a dynamic form in 10

continuous evolution. 11

These disciplinary references have been the theoretical basis for the 12

development of the design experimentation established as a didactic laboratory 13

according to the methodology described in the next section. 14

15

16

Methodology 17

18

The objective of the architectural design laboratory is to individuate and 19

re-design strategic spaces of the city by intervening on the areas that need 20

requalification or regeneration in order to re-activate life cycles through the re-21

distribution of functions, resources and architectural fabrics not yet efficient, 22

that is, individuating new solutions for deconstructed places, left without 23

residual values. 24

As it is an architectural design integrated laboratory of architecture and of 25

the built environment, other disciplinary modules are part of the curricula. 26

Some include: Architectonic Composition, Advanced Survey Techniques and 27

Plastic Modeling, Requalification of the Built Environment, Architecture of 28

Big Infrastructures and Infrastructural Complexes along with numerous 29

seminaries and workshops, all taught by different professors. 30

The didactic activities have been divided into two semesters, the first is 31

more lecture based where the students experience a combination of 32

multidisciplinary lessons and the focus is to provide a theoretical basis for the 33

more hands-on approach of the second semester, the students are divided into 34

small groups and are asked to propose a design solution to an area of their 35

choosing. 36

The two semesters have been further broken down into lectures, seminars 37

and workshops. 38

The first exercise has been titled “Atlante”. The titan Atlante, after the 39

defeat of Cronus in the Theomachy has been obligated by Zeus to withstand the 40

weight of the globe. 41

Because every project begins with the elaboration of information, it is at 42

this stage that the students have been asked to begin to recognize the possible 43

themes of the project they will be developing, through the collection of useful 44

examples and theoretical references of which they were instructed to create and 45

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organize a collection of materials. The assembly of this Atlas is the first act on 1

which they will be sustaining their project. The Atlas will be constructed by the 2

thematic collections of significative projects selected by the groups of students 3

and the editorial and graphics aspects will be determined by a coordination 4

group. 5

On the final day of the first seminary, a presentation will be organized, 6

defined and directed by the coordination group, where each group of students 7

will present their collection of projects. 8

The second exercise, “Filling Voids” sees the void as content, objective 9

and design instrument. The students are asked to design the void between 10

abstraction and figuration. The outcome will be a first theoretical-design 11

“synthesis”, an urban-architectonic morpheme, a pre-dimensioning and a first 12

review of the functional program. Practically the students are expected to 13

produce a model of the voids for each study area of Gorizia, highlighting the 14

existing and design condition along with a general planimetry of the seven 15

study areas of Gorizia/Nova Gorica showing where every project is located. 16

To mark the end of the first semester, the summary workshop “Laboratorio 17

Gorizia: Masterplan” will be organized by the students. There is only one 18

defined assignment: to elaborate, a synthesis masterplan that foresees the 19

overlap of Antonio Lasciac’s 1913 plan for Gorizia and the seven new study 20

areas developed, along with a critical selection of parts of the city added or 21

removed after the First World War. 22

This way a new map will be developed, able to highlight the contact 23

points, able to resolve interferences, able to recognize and make most of the 24

shared elements, constructing a unified and coherent design, starting from the 25

way each project area relates to its context. The students have set up one of the 26

classrooms as an interactive “museum” where the materials form the previous 27

seminars will also be shown, creating a coherent narration for the birth of each 28

individual project while still maintaining a united image. The Comune di 29

Gorizia (Municipality of Gorizia) was also invited to participate. 30

The second semester was highly characterized by the beginning of the 31

pandemic and Italian lockdown from march 2020. As a consequence, all the 32

activities planned underwent some changes in order to adapt the curricula to the 33

impossibility of classroom work. Each group of students was asked to keep 34

developing their project and each week an online group revision would be held 35

with all the students and all the teachers in order to guide each project in a good 36

direction. At the end of the semester an online workshop was organized 37

alternating lectures open to the public via streaming, working hours and 38

revisions. On the final day, the students organized an online presentation of all 39

seven projects. Sometime later the students have been asked to re-present their 40

projects, after some minor adjustments, in view of “Outcomes” a one-day 41

seminary that would be evaluated as the final exam where the Comune di 42

Gorizia was also invited. 43

44

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Findings 1

2

Here are the seven projects developed during the course of the laboratory: 3

4

Group 1, Transport Interchange 5

6

The project is located where once was Gorizia’s tram depot, it is an 7

infrastructure-based and connects the modern-day Italian railway station, the 8

public transport system and the hospital. A pedestrian passageway directly 9

connects the station with the building of the hospital along with a series of new 10

constructions. These include car parking, bicycle parking and a hybrid building 11

that hosts a series of services and facilities in support of travelers along with 12

study and reading area dedicated to student commuters. The bicycle parking is 13

designed as a ribbon with two levels and covered by a large canopy. 14

15

Figure 1. Group 1, Transport Interchange, General Plan 16

Source: Elaboration by Collenz M., Di Ferro S., Lauricella L. 17 18

Group 2, Casa Rossa 19

20

The Casa Rossa project fills the large void of the forecourt of the old 21

checkpoint, born as service to the Slovenian border crossing of Casa Rossa. 22

The new park is made of many open spaces and elements. 23

On one side a large terracing along the hill of the university overlooking 24

the state line, as a sort of land art piece that takes direct inspiration form the 25

Cretto di Gibellina by Burri. 26

At the center, it is possible to see a large covered area dedicated to open air 27

markets or other events. 28

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The abandoned building of the Casa Rossa border breach is being 1

monumentalized by a large slit that connects the two sides of the state line and 2

it is transformed into a museum of itself. 3

The project is designed by slots and phases, adding a layer of feasibility 4

where the construction stages have also been developed. 5

6

Figure 2. Group 2, Asa Rossa, General Plan 7

8 Source: Elaboration by Barbiani P., Ladrero M., Morgera I. 9

10

Group 3, Points, Lines and Volumes 11

12

Points, lines and volumes is the title of this project and is located on the 13

Piazzale della Transalpina. 14

It takes into consideration the scenario of Gorizia/Nova Gorica as 15

European Culture Capital for 2025 and so the infrastructure along the border 16

line is constructed by functional elements used as support for the events. 17

Useful connections are added, able take the user from the two cities all the 18

way to Piazzale Transalpina. 19

These passageways are particularly symbolic as the Transalpina station is a 20

place of great symbolism as it physically connects the two cities. 21

It was a station of the trainway that connected Vienna to Trieste. 22

After the new border definition for both Slovenia and Italy, the Transalpina 23

station remained on the Slovenian side while the Piazzale right in front of it is 24

in Italy. 25

26

27

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Figure 3. Group 3, Points, Lines and Volumes, General Plan 1

2 Source: Elaboration by De Conz G., Lippiello T., Pigat N. 3

4

Group 4, A New Boulevard 5

6

This project revolves around traces, it deals with a primary connection axis 7

between the city of Gorizia and the access to the highway, that passes through 8

the state line and reaches the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana. 9

Beside its relationship with the highway, the area is intersected by the 10

sediment of the railway and individualizes a series of areas, in-between these 11

two traces that are underdeveloped. In particular, a large ex-military area that is 12

now in the process of disposal. 13

The project foresees a series of new architectonic interventions and, at the 14

same time, a series of new open-air spaces and parks of different nature. Its 15

objective is to overcome the limit of the railway tracks with pedestrian 16

walkways and to redevelop these bands of unqualified terrain with the insertion 17

of new buildings, characterized by a variety of uses, residential, commercial, 18

and all the necessary facilities to serve both. 19

These spaces, bands, stripes, are in some cases very narrow and the project 20

develops them as an opportunity to modulate their transversal section and 21

create spaces of different qualities dedicated to traffic fluxes and pedestrians 22

and slow mobility, that become linear parks. 23

24

25

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Figure 4. Group 4, A New Boulevard, General Plan 1

2 Source: Elaboration by D'Onofrio L., Ridolfi P., Zei G. 3

4

Group 5, via Terza Armata 5

6

In correspondence of an empty area also next to the state line, along with 7

via Terza Armata, axis of commercial and industrial development in Gorizia, 8

the project presents the hypothesis of the realization of a new commercial 9

center integrated in the landscape. 10

A large commercial building that in a way reinterprets and respects the 11

void characteristic of the area. The building is mainly developed underground, 12

under an artificial hill that is at some point dug up by the central distribution 13

devices of the building. It is almost invisible from the outside and it is only 14

possible to see it once inside. It is possible to access the building through a 15

system of overhead pedestrian walkways that pass over the main roadways that 16

service the commercial center. 17

18

Figure 5. Group 5, via Terza Armata, General Plan 19

20 Source: Elaboration by Brun L., Tomasin G., Zotti F. 21

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Group 6, Vision of Equilibrium 1

2

Vision of equilibrium, developed over Gorizia’s ex Fiera and next to one 3

of the main traces of the territory, the Isonzo river. 4

This location is particularly symbolic because the river crosses the border, 5

and joins the territories of Slovenia and Italy. In this case the hypothesis is to 6

rethink and redesign this area by creating a connection between an existing 7

sports center and the Isonzo, interpreted as a privileged area for free time and 8

sports. 9

10

Figure 6. Group 6, Vision of Equilibrium, General Plan 11

12 Source: Elaboration by Buccino D., Requena L., Romanzin A. 13

14

The project foresees the development of a park that, through a system of 15

passageways physically connects the existing sports facilities with the river 16

along with a series of buildings in order to enhance the sportive vocation of the 17

area. The buildings host different uses, a sports hall for volleyball, a sports 18

medic center, a rock-climbing gym, and a series of commercial activities as 19

support. The project is read as a large park with a series of emerging 20

architectonic objects with a strong sculptural connotation. Also in this case, 21

part of the project has been developed as a schedule in order to answer to the 22

demands of the city administration, along with a program for the management 23

and maintenance of the park. 24

25

Group 7, Archipelago Park 26

27

Archipelago park is the title of the project placed in the area of the former 28

civil hospital, situated close to the border and is completely abandoned and its 29

characterized by a series of buildings, distributed over a large green area as if 30

they were islands that make an archipelago. The project foresees the substantial 31

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demolition of these buildings with the exception of the sanatory, the building 1

with the most history and architectonic value and prestige. The area’s scope is 2

completely dedicated to mental and physical wellness. 3

The park is requalified, and a series of new buildings are added in order to 4

repurpose the area. The sanatory becomes a hotel, replacing the ex-hospital, a 5

wellness and spa center is designed, and the area closest to the state line 6

becomes an exposition center. The project deals with three different 7

interventions, all alternative to one another. On one side a scientific restoration 8

of the existing building and on the other the insertion of new architectures with 9

a contemporary aesthetic. The spa and wellness center are based on a system of 10

aggregating buildings guided by a growth matrix that can be modulated based 11

on the functional program and realization phases. In the area, the element of 12

water gets re-introduced as historically the area had humid characteristics, 13

documented by the dried fluvial traces and this distinguishing feature gets re-14

interpreted to connote the entire area, starting from the creation of an artificial 15

lake in the center of the park. 16

17

Figure 7. Group 7, Archipelago Park, General plan 18

19 Source: Elaboration by Bearzotti G, Cepach D., Ferletti A. 20

21

22

Conclusions 23

24

There are more than seventy state line walls in the world, from the 25

Hungarian barrier against migrants, to the barbed wire line between India and 26

Bangladesh, to the boarder line between North and South Korea, to the 27

separation between the United States and Mexico, or between Israel and West 28

Bank. In the last thirty years their number has quadrupled. 29

Similarly, the boarder that divided Gorizia, that was believed to be 30

definitively removed, has been quicky re-established during the pandemic. A 31

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new fence, made from metallic grids and cement prefabricated elements, has 1

once again divided for many months the two cities for sanitary reasons. 2

The results of this laboratory have been appreciated by the Municipality of 3

Gorizia, that has decided to finance a new laboratory in order to enlarge the 4

acquired outcomes. 5

The final presentation of the projects underwent an evaluation by an 6

enlarged group composed of the laboratory teachers, guest teachers form the 7

University of Ljubjana, councilors, executive and civil servants from the 8

Municipality of Gorizia. 9

The aesthetic of the void and residue as a design material to be used in 10

projects, its way of reading the study areas, and its declination through the 11

technique of compositive collage, of the remix, mash-up and the found footage, 12

have been stimulus that have allowed the groups of students to release their 13

creativity, obtaining projects different from one another, with great biodiversity 14

of forms and content. 15

The discussion has allowed, on the basis of the themes and principles 16

illustrated in the literature review, of categorizing the seven projects in two 17

great families: Fragments and Traces. 18

The fragments are those projects that are developed over a clearly marked 19

area, that have internal constructive rules, like a sort of DNA, allowing possible 20

expansions and growth. The projects of groups 1,2,5,6 and 7 are part of this 21

category. 22

The traces on the other side, are linearly developed projects, they are born 23

in correspondence to physical limits of the city, made up of the state line, but 24

also of the limits of the existing infrastructure. The projects of groups 3 and 4 25

are part of this family. 26

Fragments and traces that have been individuated, have then been re-27

composed into a unitary drawing, that has allowed to re-construct the identity 28

of a complex urban system. 29

On the basis of these first encouraging results, the University of Ljubjana 30

has also decided to embark on a twin study, on the other side of the state line, 31

in order to share and compare the obtained results with a cross-border 32

collaboration. 33

34

35

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Figure 8. General Map of the Seven Project Joined 1

2 Source: Elaboration by RRR lab. 3

4

Gorizia and Nova Gorica, even if they belong to two different states, 5

continue to imagine themselves as a single city. The scenario speculated by 6

group 5 is an example, since in December 2020 the allocation of the title of 7

European Capital of Culture 2025 has been shared by the two cities. 8

9

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References 11

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