February 2018

Tuscan Hills is a new entry and piazza design for Piazza Brunelleschi in the historic city center of Florence. This entry point is for a new library design and renovation happening soon at the Universita di Firenze. Currently this piazza is used slowly for parking and some pedestrian circulation. While it is in the heart of Florence, just a few minutes walk from Piazza del Duomo, the piazza is relatively empty except for students walking to and from class. 

 

The primary goal of this project was to reintroduce green space into the urban city fabric of the city. As many who have lived in Florence can attest to, the city largely lacks green space. Reclaiming the piazza for green space and placing the programs underground would allow for students and tourists alike to rest for a while amongst the hills. 

 

The form was created with the assumption and understanding that a new piazza in the center of Florence would have similar issues as the existing ones: massive overcrowding. Tuscan Hills works to mitigate this overcrowding by separating the available walking planes so that there are three paths of travel at varying speeds. One is below ground, for students and faculty wishing to work and visit the programmatic spaces. The second is for those wishing to quickly cut through the piazza to the original building. And the third is much slower, one you take to sit, rest, chat, and potentially smoke. These three paths of travel create a variety of spaces, both indoor and out, for people in the city of Florence to rest and enjoy.