The site is in a complex location within the mostly abandoned industrial areas of Ravenna city docks. 

Among these big scale landscapes, and within this framework of isolation and seclusion we can find the small scale grain of informal self-organized urban orchards. 

It is a place that acts as a living presence within the area, it is accessible and daily, or at least weekly, visited and maintained by the "owners" of the informal gardens.

The brief asks for a new green space within the framework of a massive regeneration plan that "should" invest the whole area of the city docks. But it's an old master plan,conceived before the economic crisis and still really far from being implemented. 

Instead of planning a whole new garden for an urbanity that will take too long to exist, we decide to embrace and value the present condition of informal vegetable gardens and intensify the character and the potential of the site itself.

The site already hosts precious active relationships and a whole natural ecosystem that we must not destroy or disrupt.

It's important to protect and boost the vital character of the place to prevent these gardens from being manneristically closed within their borders, generating additional isolation.

The site is one of the very few used and active areas within the city docks perimeter. 

A well functioning parcel in a turned off landscape

Fences, and perimeter walls rise a real barrier that prevents the connection from this part of the city to the water of the  Dock .The surrounding space is formed by industrial or big scale abandoned areas, while the project area lives of the small scale life of the urban orchards.

current walls and fences

The surrounding properties walls create insurmountable fences around the project area.

the connection to the dock is blocked

The connections between the project site and the dock are prevented because of the pens sprunged up in orchards area.

new access to the water

The context analysis underline the necessary connection between the project area and the paths' network that connect it to the city center.

The project area is divided into two deliberately unbalanced portions. 

The project chooses to preserve and intensify the value and vitality of the current condition of the vegetable gardens. 

So 90% of the site will be preserved in its current state.

While only the remaining 10% will be defined by strategies of intensification of the area's character. 

This 10% will become an intermediate landscape: a middle ground, where plants cultivation will open up to new coexistence and blend with new human activities. 

Orangerie 10% is a brand-new social and vegetal condenser in the city.

A new protected microclimate in which human activity and exotic vegetation can coexist and flourish together. 

It is a 10 m wide and 100 m long greenhouse, able to host cultural and artistic events, rooms for small crafts, creative activities and new services and workshops. In the background of this mix, that holds together different parts (the commercial part and the creative part)  room will be made for a wide nursery, specializing in high-value crops (especially spices, tea and citrus), intensifying cultivation and green production.

 Through the features of the site, as an element of the system "City Dock", is possible to create a new unpublished polarity, that should be an attractive for different users. The continuous hatchery admits, in the completion phase, rooms for artist's residencies, exhibition spaces, a dark room, conference spaces, outdoor cinema, co-working, meeting room, a yoga studio, a food court, craft and specialized activities (hairdresser, herbal, ice cream shop), canoes renting.

 The new activities are distributed considering, on one side, the West and the future recovery of the Ex-Shooting areas, and on the other side, the East and its tiny activities for the urban gardens, that will enjoy the visibility and the services offered by Orangerie 10%.Opening the gate on Via Page and making the project as a porous element in the urban level, is the free cost first settlement step to be implemented on site.

Concerning the intensification action in the 10% of the area, it plans to isolate and sample the place character to return a new space.

It is a greenhouse 10 m wide and 100 m long that runs through the project area, alongside the Ex-Shooting high wall, that preserve the "rural" vocation of the site, nevertheless distorting its values. The typology of the greenhouse offers the buildings' protection character, however maintaining a close dialogue with its surroundings.

Orangerie 10% is a greenhouse that allows to extend, in this part of the city, the warm six-month of late spring and summer to the cold months of autumn and winter. Through the greenhouse effect and the possibility to control its internal temperature, thanks to the opening and shading system, the building is potentially active from early March until the end of November.Solar radiations permeate inside the greenhouse thanks to the steel and polycarbonate/glass frame, and this effect allows to cultivate species that are usually prohibited in the typical climate of Ravenna.

Extend the period of activity of the orchards throughout the year: so extending the good season to the mid-seasons

Greenhouse specialized in tea, spices and citrus trees

New programs and leisure/cultural activity between the trees

New programs and the good location allow new and positive synergies with the cultural activities that take place in the Ex-shooting space, and offer a stronger relationship with the dock waterfront and the promenade towards the city center. There are all the ingredients necessary to create a new center, a micro urban system able to attract people and to dialog with the city scale.

New programs are located among the different planting. A new cultural, expositive, studing and concentrating, as well as about leisure and relaxation dimension, lives harmonically inside the controlled microclimate of the Orangerie.

Orangery 10 % is a phasing project. The greenhouse's modular structure and its dry technology allow following deployments. The first phase of settlement include: the hatchery, a bar, an outdoor cinema and cultural events such as exhibitions. In the second phase of expansion, when the place identity becomes established, the project will be 700 m long and should accommodate more services and commercial activities.

The second phase, over previous efforts, includes: co-working platform, gym for yoga, an artist residency with a dark room and a workshop. The third and final step involves the extension of the structure to Candiano Canal, where there will be a canoe rental for guided tours. So, the programs inside the hatchery are consolidate, creating a unique space, able to attract a wide audience of users.