INSIDEOUT

The case-study area has been affected by many changing realities troughout the years: from a past strictly linked to the monastic life of the cloister with its gardens, then faced the effects of a political enemies invasion, and now the Certosa Island finally has became a tourist attraction for the leasure time, thanks to the closeness to Venice. In this constantly mutuating reality, that caused the loss of the identity of spaces, our aim is to recreate them throught the use of its most characterising elements: the wind, water and ground moulds.

The direction of prevailing winds (NW and SE) creates a grid which has become the mark of the design project. It redifines the whole inland of the Isle, creating depressions and earthwork features, matched in a geometric pattern that controls the waterways flow, and leads them to the natural wetland of the island, redesigned as a regular tank. Another purpouse is the redefinition of the edges of the island: we decided to tear down the wall in the south side, to open up the borders to the lagoon and its fluctuations. Sometimes with the high tide, the water takes over and reshapes new landscapes, each time a new one.