Ecological Transition

Through an ecological lens a selection of 7 industrial buildings were partially removed, left alone to decay and redefined to support alternative forms of housing embracing the Italian tradition of inhabitation of industrial buildings.

In a context of reimagining our cities in ecological terms through the development of metropolitan urban plans catalysed through the New Green Deal, students considered the retrofit of the built environment of Prato, Italy toward a more shared environment with its river, aquifer, habitat and vegetation through the scale of individual building.

The textile and cement industry of the Prato valley exist in large part because of the Bisenzio River that flows through Prato on its way to join the Arno River. Since 2016 the Città del Prato has been reimagining the city’s relationship with its river and natural environment from industrial facilitator to ecological corridor through the new City Plan Verde Prato regulated in the New Operative Plan and documented in the book Prato Factories Nature.

The possibilities for building led change in ecological transition plans will be different for each city according to its ecosystems and built form. Prato is a concentrated example of multiple phenomena common in Italy: flash flooding, aquifer depletion and pollution and vacant and abandoned buildings. There is an extensive network of hundreds of such industrial buildings in Prato and the Bisenzio Valley due to the globalisation of the textile industry since the 1990’s. In the absence of the application of the Operative Plan in an administrative pause, the role of these buildings as stimulus and catalysts for environmental repair outside the regulatory framework and beyond the public realm was tested by the studio. Water and sediment support vegetation and habitat in the absence of maintenance. This phenomenon is creating its own kind of environmental network of biodiversity, habitat and demineralisation contributing to the health of soil, ground water and species diversity.

Studio Lead: Louise Wright