#nevicata14 Grand Finale
It’s been almost 2.5 years since we have presented the project of #nevicata14 — temporary configuration of the pedestrianized Castello square in Milan during EXPO-2015 — together with other 10 architectural studios during Atelier Castello public consultation process. #nevicata14 in Italian stands for the “snowfall of 2014” — the initial idea of the project was to cover the square with the layer of fine light crushed stone, which is used for the pavements in the milanese parks, in order to create an even layer of pavement that would “erase” the traces of the previous automotive use and create a blank space for everyone to “draw” on just as it happens after a snowfall in the city.
When presenting the project we have created a story told from 2024 about the past events. You can find it all here.
To put it briefly it was narrating the strange meteorological event that happened in Milan when a kind of snow fell in the middle of July and transformed the square.
It became open to the citizens appropriations and that’s how the conflict about the pedestrian transformation between the citizens and administration ended. Studio Guidarini&Salvadeo was asked to design the equipment to use this new space.
But at some point nevicata started to melt and eventually nothing was left of it after EXPO. However citizens loved the space so much, that it was decided to reproduce this strange natural phenomenon, this time permanently — Nevicata Reloaded.
This way it stayed till 2024:
When we presented this project as a story there were no real feasibility requirements and even idea of possible implementation of some solutions that we and other studios were presenting, the process was not shaped as a competition from the beginning, but soon at became one. Right after the presentation some citizen blamed us in fooling the public with some kind of poetry instead of the architecture. Soon things got a new development.
#nevicata14 wasn’t the most popular among citizens during the public vote, but the architectural jury liked it the most and eventually we got a call that it was chosen to be implemented (just like in the story Guidarini-Salvadeo were asked to develop some solutions to use the square).
Unfortunately we couldn’t recreate the initial idea of covering all the square with white material (nevicata started melting) as it was not fitting the budget and implementation time constraints, so we brought the same idea of the open and accessible space to the immaterial level — this aspect is covered at length in the previous posts.
Just as planned, #nevicata14 was taken away after EXPO, but the space was confirmed to stay pedestrian and the process of the international competition for the future project has started with (architectural) part of the initial team working on the proposal.
To say that I was obsessed with the idea that the future was already written in the story, so many events have come true, and we will win the competition is to say nothing. Turns out we were not particularly attentive to the story ourselves.
Yesterday the final results of the competition were announced and can be seen on the website. Our proposal shares 8th (the last)place with other 3 groups, but the winning project by Genuizzi Banal Architetti is unbelievable — it’s the square nicely covered with the even layer of fine crushed stone continuing from the park behind the castle:
Of course there are some differences, but I can stare at the two images below forever:
#formfollowsfiction, but pay attention to specify the right details of the fiction you’re writing XD.
