Student accommodation and a larger gymnasium in the tobacco factory

Trip to Rome on Wednesday 28 December for the Secretary General of the Municipality of Piacenza, Luca Canesa, and the Consultant and Director of Urban Planning, Adriana Fantini and Massimo Sandoni. The destination, the Ministry of Infrastructure, for a meeting aimed at defining the complex process of the plan to redevelop the former Manifattura Tabacchi site, and in particular to agree on changes that will allow the Pinqua project to adapt to the requirements set by Pnrr.

In fact, the Tarasconi Council intends to implement some changes in relation to the original project, first of all by providing for the distribution of new buildings along the perimeter of the intervention area, in order to allocate the central area to create a large and equipped public urban park of approximately 15,000 square meters. In addition, a portion of the social housing sector will be allocated to student housing, with the aim of responding to the growing need of university students to live in.

However, other changes relate to the Middle School project: not only will there be an additional focus of the built volume – thus increasing the free space that will be allocated to an area equipped for educational botanical gardens, sports activities and free play – but all gymnasium extensions are also planned within the new school complex to introduce A field of adequate size for competitive activity, in order to make it also usable for citizens to practice sports or other activities during outside school hours.

“Our proposals received positive feedback from the missions unit in the ministry,” confirms Counselor Fantini, who adds: “We now have extensive work ahead of us, to harmonize the procedures envisaged by the first loan with the strict rules introduced by Pnrr.”

The schedule envisions the contract being awarded by the end of August 2023, setting the end of the works in March 2026. The project is of a high standard, curated by the group led by architects Giancarlo Floridi and Angelo Lonati of Onsitestudio, educators at Politecnico di Milano and Harvard GSD, which was commissioned, In recent months, it has created Beic, the new European library of information and culture in the Porta Vittoria district, in Milan. The project is the result of a national invitation competition organized by Prelios spa.

In general, Chancellor Fantini adds, “The redevelopment of the former Manifatura Tapacci is an exceptional opportunity to promote and develop the architectural culture of Piacenza, with an emphasis on contemporary architecture in which Italy is the best forge of talent in the world, so that it can be a tool that not only gives a face new to the places we love, and even make them increasingly accessible.”