The new Porta Genova neighborhood. A story about green and blue, old and new

Water has been a very important element during Milan history and as a natural element has had a very remarkable influence on shaping urban fabric. It also has important role as infrastructure to connect the city to the Lombardia region. Unfortunately, due to some deep transformation, the city has lost the importance of water as a productive public space and a potential infrastructure which could support the existing ones to some extent. In other words, Porta Genova is a forgotten connection hub which needs to be rethink and planned again to become a more effective one as it used to be. It is important to understand different values related to water presence in Porta Genova area. It has always been a productive element for public space. Naviglio Grande is an environment in which water and public space are co-related in Milanese urban life. Although Naviglio Grande is one of the most crowded places with bars and night life but it is highly restricted to specific part and people would face sort of abandoned area as they move along it. Another important issue in this area is about different barriers which restrict area regarding connectivity. Existing railway system, wall and canal are boundaries which could have a negative impact on fluent connectivity between Zona Tortona and other side of the canal. Last but not the least, green and public spaces have been turned to several separated patches in the neighborhood which lacks an effective connectivity between them. According to aforementioned scenario that area has been dealing, the main goal of this thesis is to redevelop the Porta Genova area based on some dominant features as they were already mentioned. One of the main important goal is to emphasize on the importance of the water as a public space generator in parallel with being a functional effective communication system. The other important strategy is to connect the separated green and public spaces and turned them to a unified system. Regarding the existing barriers, proposal scheme tries to cross or remove them and suggests new crossing nodes to have more accessible area for the public. In conclusion, the proposal tries to resolve the existing problems and replace the old with new situation, with projecting the new waterfront, new public spaces and so on, nevertheless, it also intends to keep some nostalgic elements of the area and the memory of the place at the same time.