The Masters of Landscape: Landscape Festival 2023 “Grow together Grow Green”

This year the thirteenth edition of this Festival entitled “Grow Together Grow Green” was held and included both Bergamo and Brescia, linked by being capitals of culture for 2023.

The Arketipos Association of Bergamo has been organizing the “Masters of the Landscape” Festival for years with the aim of promoting the culture of the landscape and the territory.

The way it proceeds is to delve deeper into one aspect of the approach to quality design every year by staging a representative production of the topic in Bergamo Alta.

Among the most anticipated events there is certainly the International Landscape Meeting. This year the conference was held on 22 and 23 September and landscapers and greenery professionals from all over the world were invited to speak.

“Grow Together means growing together with the landscape, as people, as a community, as humanity, but also growing together as a city. Taking care of the landscape means knowing how to create harmony between the presence of man, architecture and nature”

In the main square of Bergamo Alta the green pyramid of Martin Rein Cano was built (see the related article “Lectio Magistralis by Martin Rein Cano“) and the “Wellness Garden – Healing garden” while in Brescia the places were various and will be presented in future articles.

Mondo del Giardino brings conferences to designers

We always have little time to participate in conferences and meetings despite these allowing us to meet with our beloved colleagues with whom we can truly exchange experiences, information and impressions.

In fact, exchange has always brought improvement and speeded up evolutionary processes.

Mondo del Giardino tries to do its part: if designers cannot go to conferences, they will go to professionals.

This is the first article that will recount the interventions by the designers at the Bergamo International Landscape Meeting 2023.

Made Associati and Human Nature: how do they create?

The first intervention in a series to rub your hands with is with Made Associati: a Treviso-based studio established in Italy and abroad and an Italian flagship.

Their vision of and in projects was defined by them as Human Nature. In what sense?

They recognized a lexical Unity in the words Nature and Human: humans are nature.

In a project Ethics and practice are both important.

Human forces have always attempted to study nature in all ways, even from very close up. However, they have always looked at it from the outside, almost with a superior gaze. Well it’s not like that: we are nature. We wanted to control nature as well as language. And what do we mean by ecological transition? We use terms like we need to compensate someone. Maybe just ourselves.

So we decided to define or they defined themselves some fixed points.

Perhaps this path was born with The lawn-carpet which with the vacuum cleaner becomes: let’s take care of the greenery.

Made Associati: how do they think?

Then we decided to think about today. We humans are not capable of tomorrow.

Hence also the need to change communication. We have understood that if we want to involve people in change we need to involve them already at the initial communication level.

Roadworks are communicated like this: previously it was written “Work in progress” today “The gentleman with the orange bib is my dad: go slowly”

Then the work at the Port of Cendon – The raft immersed in the river of materials that do not age and embellish it.

The Project for a Naturalistic Path

In the Naturalistic Route project, I walk among the reeds and I understand it and allow the passage of the vehicles that manage it and it is also beautiful and osmotic.

Made Associati: Piazzale San Valentino

Piazzale San Valentino must become many things: parking, structure, promenade. We use loose materials that can be put on and taken off to facilitate becoming. The added value is the project itself which, if it is not complete or is in progress, is desired.

Mass conservation law project – Giacomini Motta di Livenza Park (TV)

The separate waste collection structure had to be demolished. We kept part of it and converted the pieces for park use. Cutting and sewing together concrete blocks to create places for playing, aggregating, resting, etc. Matter is used as a primary element but as if it were nature.

Project – Inconclusive – Caregaro Negrin Culture Park – Mogliano Veneto (TV)

Inside there was a house to be eliminated. We cut the structure in elevation keeping the lower part creating a sort of auditorium for the shows and some rooms became tubs for plants.

And now the park is experienced by the population: the best way to check that the project has been successful.

So far, so close – Cantina Pizzolato Villorba (TV)

Confused initial condition. The project does not refer to that place but also considers the history, the different places. It was the Serenissima’s beech warehouse for oars.

There is a controlled forest. The use of that material seemed right to us, contributing to the construction of the landscape. What is the cellar made of? A new interface. A filter made of heat-treated beech boards that have already been cut, joined even with very small pieces to avoid leaving any residue. So everything was redone: interiors, furnishings, floors, facade, etc. the garden is representative. It had to be a manifesto for this important company which is important for what it does and for how many people work there.

It is a place that is also visited by schools.

An ugly place that does a noble thing has been enhanced by the project.

Project – Sea Park – Rimini

Protect the city from storm surges and make it breathe, allowing it to live in all seasons

9 km road – think about the sardine. The group of sardines always stay together until they find an obstacle that divides the school. It becomes an environmental strategy. Permeable surfaces. Also important tree masses. It breaks the wind but allows it.

It extends the beach towards the city making it usable at different times of the day.

Even the vision of the sea remains but is permeabilized.

Now on horseback! Work awaits us! Our new wonderful outdoor space is about to be born!

GOOD WORK and … if you have any questions please write to info@mondodelgiardino.com

Image sources: thanks to Made Associati and Associazione Arketipos for the photos.