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Water Filtration Plant, Venice: an infrastructure becomes landscape design

Located in the Northern Lagoon Park, north of Venice, on the southeastern edge of Sant'Erasmo island, the new water filtration plant is part of the general urban and environmental upgrading of the island. The Magistrato alle Acque di Venezia is implementing environmental upgrading through the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, within the context of a programmatic agreement between the Magistrato alle Acque di Venezia, the Veneto Region, and the Municipality of Venice.

Folding and manipulating the ground and manipulating and unfolding the matter, infrastructure is turned into landscape design.This project aims to give shape to all that is marginal and unseen, such as systems and installations. Located in the Northern Lagoon Park, the new water filtration plant is part of general urban and environmental requalification. Four parallel walls, one metre thick, built in reinforced concrete, colored and pigmented with the soil of the island, were constructed as rough, untreated surfaces, and shape the space.

The process of concrete disactivation is used to merge architecture with landscape; instigating the process of the subtraction of materials as an investigation of how time interacts in the built environment. The spaces between the concrete structures are closed by full-height, wood-made panels to be opened in the areas used for unloading of dust. The red concrete walls also serve as basic structures for the design of the landscape. The building buries its roots deep into the ground, at the same time facing the land, with the void as a possible façade. The underground area with its roof-openings contributes to the design of a new land, forming a pattern with the vegetation: lavender and phlox, broom, lavender-cotton and rosemary follow and reflect the development of the building.