Amina Chouairi
Flowscapes
The Operating Venetian Lagoon: The Agency of Barene
A resilient landscape infrastructure towards ecological, cultural, and productive heritage preservation.
Transitional territories such as lagoons are among the most impacted and delicate environments, threatened by the combined effects of climate change and human action. The project addresses the hydromorphological sufferance of the Venetian Lagoon (Italy), the neglect of its secondary islands, and the over-engineered flood defence as crucial issues. It reveals the need for redefining the role of the entire lagoon for the future, necessarily active, resiliently sustaining the surrounding territory. To achieve it, the main strategy is to reinforce the barene landscape, the brackish marshlands, through building-with-nature design principles.
The research-by-design seeks to mitigate the threats of relative sea level rise by providing a nature-based flood defence, recreate barene habitat for ecosystem restoration, invest on alternative slow-tourisms, and enrich local economical vibrancy. Moreover, the project wishes to consolidate and enhance the cultural image of the Venetian Lagoon: the diffuse sense of horizontality, reflection and visibility conveyed by the unceasing water surface.
More information
- Master thesis 'The Operating Venetian Lagoon: The Agency of Barene'