Recreation & Sport Park Brixen

TYPE Public space, Landscape, Education,Masterplan
STATUS Competition, 2° prize
LOCATION Brixen, Italy
YEAR 2022
CLIENT Stadtgemeinde Brixen

DESIGN TEAM Agnese Alfonsi (M7 architecture), Andrea Bellentani, Eva Castro, Tina Cerpnjak, Ulla Hell, Holger Kehne, Alex Platon (M7 architecture) , Peter Pichler, Marco Sette (M7 architecture), Chuan Wang
COLLABORATORS M7 architecture+Design-Architetto Marco Sette, LA Britta Tscherteu , KTB engineering, DieModellbauer, Davide Lorenzato

The first objective was to develop the site as a new urban node. Across the river from the site are there pre-existing sports facilities, as well as schools and homes. Through the construction of a new bridge and the removal of obstacles, the physical and visual dialogue between the two banks is enabled, creating a single park. A network of cycle and pedestrian paths connect this new green lung to the city, allowing it to become an integral part of it.

Both river and mountain are pivots of a visual axis that the project enhances through shaping the new projected buildings, limiting their height and integrating them into the landscape. The intervention follows the slope by a concise cut-and-fill strategy, inserting the architecture into the ground, subsequently covering buildings with the excavated soil to create green roofs.

In this way the built environment is fully integrated into the natural landscape. What emerges are only the vertical facades which establish interaction between the outside and the inside through their generous glazed surfaces. In this way the landscape permeates the heart of the architecture and at the same time the sports activities are visible to the visitors of the park. The material choices also help to weld this bond with the territory: in addition to concrete the structures include the use of local porphyry and Dolomite stone, which characterize the city of Brixen.

The volumes open around a large permeable courtyard. This produces a central place as well as connection to the sports areas across the river. By choosing trees and flowers which animate the park in rotation throughout the year, the new park becomes both an "active" landscape for the presence of sporting activities, and a "contemplative" landscape in which the community can walk, rest, enjoy the greenery and the view of the mountain and the river.