VENETIAN FLYING ARCHIPELAGO

Venetian Flying Archipelago: Soft eco-touristic infrastructures

1.The Venetian lagoon is composed by a complex ecosystem of animals and plants adapted to surviving in this environment, where the water body plays a master role in the finest equilibrium between natural biomes and the human activity, principally concentrated by the city of Venice. Cycles of continuous symbiotic exchange between them, define nowadays, a delicate and extremely fragile condition, in both ecological and architectural terms.

As well accentuated by Canaletto’s works, we prefer to pay attention to this additional layer always presents in the representation of the city landscape: the Venetian cloudy sky. As important as the water border and the urban body, the sky could offer to Venice such enormous potential, if understood in a proper and sustainable way.

The pedestrian bridge constructed each year for the “Festa del Redentore”, which historically was made using boats, represent a contemporary way of thinking.

Defining something like a Soft Infrastructure, which deployed ephemerally, is a clear example of which could be the Venetian way to use this “sky” potential.

2. Becoming a destination for millions of tourists, Venice remains one of the most fascinating cities. Deeply inspired by others mythical cities, like the flying city of Laputa, or the floating island appeared over Venice from the Andy Lane’s novel, the proposal consist to introduce a new aerial three-dimensional layer, becoming ephemeral public spaces while the main touristic and cultural events take place in Venice. Acting like a soft infrastructure, this flying network of vessels, like dirigibles, will support a wide range of uses and touristic facilities like hotels, restaurants and cruisers ships, fostering eco-touristic practices. Like flying gardens, it will also provide an important surface of green space, allowing the organic farming.