Increasing use of the car has resulted, in the urban expansion on the Adriatic coast, with a growing separation between pedestrian and vehicular flows, creating an urban landscape characterized by isolated buildings connected by wide streets that create an image of a fragmented and dispersed city. In this type of development, which has also affected Cesenatico, public spaces are often absent; places where a mix of functions are combined (residential, occupational, recreational) and connect, seamlessly, the built landscape and the natural landscape, are missing.
This fragmentation and dispersion calls for a mending of the landscape through the design of open space, intensifying the pedestrian use and introducing new points of interest and opportunities for the use of the city.
The project pursues the following objectives: create a new centrality able to extend its benefits beyond the limits of intervention; set up a tourist attraction that fits synergistically in the system of the waterfront, for the redevelopment of the existing accommodation facilities; create a structure of services for the city open all year round, able to counter the summer seasonality; allow the maximum physical and visual transparency to the sea; increase the space for public enjoyment of the city.
A physical modelling of the plan of the city defines the surface of the roof garden and becomes the roof of shops and boutiques. This configuration creates a new public square for the city with a wide panoramic garden facing the sea that can accommodate large city events.
The shopping area, refreshed by the roof garden, is fragmented by internal pedestrian paths leading to the sea.
At city level there are public amenities (the square, the internal paths, the lobby and shops), at roof garden level there are semi-public functions (the conference hall, spa, restaurants, swimming pool) and on the upper levels there are functions that need more privacy (hotel rooms).
The public and semi-public functions are distributed and connected to the city through dedicated paths. The private functions are at least two levels detached from the public road, providing excellent environmental comfort parameters.
All the rooms, totally transparent towards the sea, are equipped with a bioclimatic loggia with a mobile system of vertical ceramic rods that filters the sun and gives the facade the changing colour of the natural light.nected to the city through dedicated paths. The private functions are at least two levels detached from the public road, providing excellent environmental comfort parameters.