Sites of Souvenir Production Venice, Italy
Through engaging with the souvenir as both a mnemonic and architectural device, the project proposes alternative tourist experiences in Venice within a suite of workshop spaces at the ends of popular cultural itineraries, framed by themes of production and consumption in the city.
Category Speculative, Cultural, Commercial In Venice, a suite of three proposed tourist workshops framed by themes of consumption and production cap the ends of popular itineraries (Pictured: Site map with interventions in brown, tourist destinations in blue and waste collection points in pink)
As a popular tourist destination for centuries, Venice has long been a site of production for commercialised viewpoints, itineraries and souvenirs (Pictured: Assorted postcards)
The Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio concludes the itinerary of the food tourist, and is
an ideal site for the collection and conversion of residents’ organic waste into produce for a communal cooking school
(Pictured: Tourist itinerary map and collage)
An urban frame is set in deliberate contrast to the rather oddly-shaped, leftover space bounded by existing buildings and the church at the campo’s centre
(Pictured: Site plan)
In the act of redefining the square, the walled Italian Medieval kitchen garden
– a typology typical of Venice
–
is inverted (Pictured: Floor plan)
Rather than close-off precious green space, the garden is made accessible by elevating the frame above head-height (Pictured: Section)
Made from repurposed Venetian terracotta roof tiles, the perforated facade filters daylight and invites further urban greening (Pictured: Perspective and detail section)
Behind Piazza San Marco’s Ala Napoleonica lies a string of shops leading tourists to the Ponte dell’Accademia and Dorsoduro district (Pictured: Tourist itinerary)
The Calle del Ridotto runs perpendicular to the city’s major shopping street, while also providing a necessary connection to the waterfront for waste collection (Pictured: Site plan)
Drawing upon a tradition of marbled paper production in Venice, a recycled paper workshop invites tourists to
mill, press and pattern their own paper (Pictured: Floor plan)
The proposal reconfigures spaces
from front to back and also from side to side, placing the passerby within the production process (Pictured: Elevation)Sections of repurposed timber mouldings are attached to the walls and suspended from the ceiling, creating shelves to display paper merchandise and conceal feature lighting (Pictured: Perspective and detail section)
Along the itinerary of the architecture enthusiast, Carlo Scarpa’s
Monumento alla Partigiana is sited at the intersection of the canal and lagoon basin (Pictured: Tourist itinerary
The siting of a new tourist intervention bridges the canal and waterfront along an axis that connects Scarpa’s monument (Pictured: Site plan)
Being a repository for post-consumer plastic debris, the waterfront site is an ideal location for a proposed recycled plastic workshop, where waste is washed, stored, shredded and converted into art, homewares, sculptures and jewellery by the Biennale tourist (Pictured: Floor plan)
Stairs to the canal serve as the tidal markers of the cyclical acqua alta, while stepped skylights highlight thresholds within the building’s interior (Pictured: Section)
As in Scarpa’s monument, concrete steps relate the building to the water and the garden behind (Pictured: Perspective)