Design all'aperto

Detail from the Hotel In&Out display.

Eschewing the traditional exhibitor/product approach, Bologna Fiere held a landscape show with a difference - one showcasing just four projects.

Nobody needs an excuse to visit a country as beautiful as Italy, but if they did then the recent Progetti&Paesaggi [Projects and Landscape] show would be a good one - at least for an outdoor design professional.

Taking place in Bologna, the capital of the Emilia Romagna region, the show took an unusual approach to landscape architecture, presenting products via projects rather than through the usual exhibitor/product approach, with the idea being to demonstrate how products and services work in relation to one another, rather than as separate elements.

"Progetti e Paesaggi is a new format. It does not present products in booths, but has product placement - four designers telling stories about projects so the product is presented in real scale," said Jacopo Papp, press consultant for Bologna Fiere, organiser of the show.

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The exhibition, which took place alongside Design on Board, a show specialising in interior products for boats, and SaieSpring, a fair specialised in doors and windows, showcased four projects: Hotel - In&Out by architect and designer Giulio Cappellini; The Vegetable Garden City: Rural Landscapes by Cibic Workshop; The Vertical Forest by Boeri Studio; and Places and Non-places by Topotek1.

The highlight of the show, or at least the project that appeared to attract the most attention, was The Vertical Forest by Boeri Studio.

The project presents a new prototype for a high-rise building, one that appears almost covered in greenery due to the inclusion of multiple trees or plants protruding from its balconies.

The first realisation of the project will be in Milan. Composed of two towers of 110m² and 76m², it will contain around 1,000 trees as well as numerous shrubs and plants, and will have approximately 1.300m² of green walls.

The advantage of the model is that it helps to temper the microclimate, filter fine dust, increase humidity, protect against the sun, and reduce noise pollution, according to the designers.

Hotel In&Out, another of thefour projects displayed in the Progetti&Paesaggi area, drew attention to the blurring of lines between the interior and exterior space of hotels though the use of greenery, water and light.

Hotels are no longer simply a place for hospitality, but also a destination, said architect Capellini in a presentation.

"It is important to try to 'contextualise' the hotel in its city and to improve its relationship with the outside world," he said. "To achieve this, I imagine a structure where the difference between inside and outside is almost imperceptible, where one is the natural continuation of the other.

City of Gardens, another of the projects, showcased a sustainable village consisting of a 900m² area, which included vegetable gardens as well as a live and workspace.

Places and non-places, meanwhile, experimented with visitors' perceptions of space by playing with the effect of light on a dark space.

The unusual approach appeared to work with more than 20,000 visitors attending the show, the inaugural edition of the event, according to the organisers.
 

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