The Volano riverbanks re-generation

The Volano river is not simply a landmark for the city of Ferrara: it is so much more. This stream is inexorably tied to the city’s identity, representing a major element of its memory and heritage. It was the early settlers who, centuries ago, understood the great value the river could have had in terms of sustenance, fluvial transportation, industrial production, and life.
Despite its historical relevance, in these past few decades the city has shifted away from the riversides, holding off from this important resource that was once the lively heart of the whole urban system. So the time has come for Ferrara to rediscover the value of this fundamental part of the city, including the Volano river as a key element within future strategical urban planning processes and projects.
The selected case-study could be split into 2 different areas:
Area1 : including the riverbanks' stripe between the railway bridge and Ippolito d’Este road (the so called “Bridge of Peace”); this first area will need new strategies in order to re-generate and revitalize the existing settlements along the river and their relationships with the surrounding neighborhoods.
Area2 : including the riverbanks' stripe between Ippolito d’Este road and Via Bologna; his second area will need new strategies mainly focusing on a specific intervention that would be able to re-generate and revitalize the abandoned marina and the existing paths along the river.
All over the world, water cities represent today a privileged scenario for the activation of important urban re-generation processes. Such dynamics, starting from interventions on waterfronts, disused port areas, docks and banks, have the aim not only to revitalize degraded or abandoned portions of the urban fabric, but also to redeem that ancestral and fundamental bond between the city and its waters.
The aquatic landscape -being rivers, seas, lakes or lagoons- contaminates the urban fabric