Isabella Hampton

Project Description

Architecture of Systems: The Reintegration of Outsiders and ‘New’ Neapolitan Grounds

To the north-east of Piazza Garibaldi, the main national train station serving Naples, is the Centro Direzionale di Napoli (CDN), the Central Business District of Naples. Identified as a site in the 1960s, but ultimately designed by Kenzo Tange in 1982, the development took over a decade to build; it was completed in 1995. This redevelopment promised affluence, economic opportunity and the development of a disused industrial centre into the daily life the city. Since its construction, the changing climate of southern Italy (both environmental and economic) have changed the structure and expectations around the CDN. The glazed forms of many of the towers lead to environmental discomfort, and the large expanses of concrete contribute to urban overheating. The lack of activity at night increases crime rates and a sense of abandonment, and yet the area is attracting new occupants, with the construction of facilities for the University of Naples Parthenope and a new metro station. ‘Architecture of Systems’ explores strategies for how at a point of change this detached, distinct area of the city might invite marginalised communities into this part of the city to provide it with alternative forms of life. Through a series of adaptation projects aimed at occupying under utilised office blocks and improving environmental performance, it develops a series of approaches to fusing lightweight, flexible structures onto the concrete landscape of the CDN. Six urban and architectural systems are proposed: shelter, passages, pavilions, cores, facades, and fields. These systems offer a flexible solution to redeveloping or improving the performance of the current buildings. A test project, exploring the creation of spaces for migrant workers, sets out a working landscape for the production and preparation of food (sustaining migrant workers, serving the offices in the towers, creating employment) and community performance. It aims to foster a more symbiotic relationship between the users of the various buildings and the landscape. Through this strategy, it aims to ensure that the CDN does not become a stagnant part of the city, and instead continues to act as a living, developing project of civic and environmental, as much as economic, concern.