Italian garden in Riyadh

admin — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:59:14 +0000

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An Italian Garden in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, inspired by historical Tuscan gardens and enriched with the amber tones of local limestone. The exuberance of the design responds to the request to articulate the area in a variety of environments to welcome guest and chill out. Regular hedges, pergolas and wooden shading structures introduce to a sequence of scenarios that combine sharp lines and monumentality.

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The exedra at the centre of the site performs as hinge between the formal and the private gardens. Behind the brick arches, columns shaped as desert rock monoliths raise from a pond. The water feature is an adjustable filling basin that, as appropriate, is able to display joyful jets or to become a dry theatre for exclusive parties.

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This is an Italian garden also considering the importance of vegetation, that connects and differentiates the areas. Palms and local trees pruned on the model of cypress welcome guests with solemnity, while bright blooms and subtropical flora enclose the spaces reserved for the family.

Plan of the garden. The central feature of the exedra sets apart the representative areas (on the left) and private gardens (on the right).

Italian garden in Riyadh

Where: Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Area: 8.000 sq m
Year: 2009-2011 (design), 2010-2012 (construction)
Services: Green masterplan concept, preliminary, executive and construction design, water features design, shading structures design, paving design, assistance during construction

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Parco dei conigli, San Donato Milanese

admin — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 17:48:47 +0000

The landmark of the ‘Rabbits Park’ is actually… a hare! One of the designer’s tasks is to understand the place where he or she intervenes, to discover its genius loci […]. Once we would have called it its tutelary deity, a spiritual entity to respect and venerate. A way of seeing that, perhaps, we are recovering in some way, if we consider today’s attention to the environment.

Valerio Cozzi, the designer

Parco dei Conigli, which means ‘Rabbits Park’, in San Donato Milanese, is called after the local wildlife and its traditional association with the positive concepts of rebirth, spring and resilience.

Under construction, the new park will rise along the renowned and expanding Polyclinic in the southeast area of the Metropolitan City of Milan. The plot has been left over both from agricultural and from urban dynamics, after a solid rural background. With the aim to give back to the community this piece of land, landscape designers Massimo Semola and Valerio Cozzi went in search of the traces left by its agricultural heritage. Signs that are sometimes still visible from the ground, sometimes with aerial photos or by studying the archives.

Greenways

The landscape project recovers the forgotten country gravel lanes, by now reduced to thin tracks, transforming them into comfortable cycle and pedestrian paths. The new trails allow to explore the park in long tours, to cross it straight from one end to the other. The South Milan Agricultural Park will also be a comfortable ride from the city centre.

Biodiversity

In addition to the connection of the Parco dei Conigli with the greenways of the area, the rebirth of the place is entrusted to the growth of a quality environment. To support biodiversity and to reinforce the ecological corridor represented by the dismissed irrigation ditch ‘Roggia Cavenaga’, vegetation is pivotal. That’s why the project recovers, integrates or replaces – when invasive or compromised – the unkempt vegetation. Plant species will be native or edible fruit, tree and shrub species such as Acer campestre, Carpinus betulus, Corylus avellana, Euonymus europaeus, Malus sylvestris, Prunus spinosa, Quercus robur, Tilia cordata. The intent is to expand the birds’ and small mammals ’areal of the near South Milan Agricultural Park.

Layout

The project of the Parco dei Conigli takes up the linearity of the rural landscape that characterized the area before urban expansion, in the 1950s. Tree species, location and density comply with the requirements of the hospital heliport and Linate airport.

A forested strip frames the central wide meadow, while tree rows foster the visual exploration through long, obstacle-free perspectives. Playgrounds and picnic areas, all next to the city edge, will introduce people to the wider wonder that is nature.

Construction works, started in September 2021 by the San Donato Group to compensate for the extension of the Polyclinic, will redevelop an area of about 90 thousand square meters.

The Park in February 2023 – photo credits arch. Massimo Semola

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Project data

Where: San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy
Area: approximately 90,000 sm
In collaboration with: arch. Massimo Semola, dr. agr. Paolo Alleva
Year: 2020-2021 (project), construction in progress
Services: Preliminary, definitive and executive design, coordinated and integrated design

Published on:

Topscape #43/2021

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Italian garden in Riyadh

Italian garden in Riyadh

To explore more Saudi projects…

Parco dei conigli, San Donato Milanese

Greenways

Biodiversity

Layout

Project data