Ideas competition - Altamura

The project for the redevelopment of Piazza Santa Teresa and the surrounding urban areas has faced us with an in-depth analysis of the places in such a way as to detect the presence of episodes of landscape and environmental quality and of all those elements that constitute the historical and cultural identity of the city of Altamura.
The project idea, although preliminary, sees various facets come into play which strongly bring out the historical-cultural identities, determining the transformation of the city.
The motivations for the project arise from the intention to enhance the urban context, interpreting the social trends and attitudes of the contemporary place, recovering above all the historical memory of the places understood as a priority element.
Furthermore, the great challenge to which we submit ourselves is not only that of reconfiguring a public space, but also of understanding all the social needs, born from the active participation of citizens' committees who feel a strong bond with their territory, in order to allow and facilitate territoriality.
The main objective is to enhance a separation between vehicular and pedestrian traffic and returning the city of Altamura to its original urban centrality and at the same time pursuing the idea of a unique and completely livable space.
The project first of all pursues the idea of creating a unique but at the same time organic space within which various events follow one another dictated by the use of a few ordered elements coordinating the new space.
The historical documentation acquired has allowed us to take a journey into Greek mythology up to the times of Queen Althea, queen of the Myrmidons who apparently gave her name to Altamura and the subsequent reconstruction of the layout of the ancient medieval walls dating back to the 13th century.
The first very strong design step, in addition to the square design of the square which covers the entire available area, stimulated by the awareness that the route of the ancient city walls coincide with via Maggio 1648 (the border of the square), was to recreate in a current key the fortification of the city.
Represented by portals that rise up to 6 meters from street level, the "walls" invite citizens to cross them and discover the new meeting place to which we have given the name "the portals of Althea".
Different stories are told within the project, all in connection with each other but with their own functional identity which makes the square recognized as a place of meetings and relationships.
On the one hand, the access portals to the square with a raised viewpoint that defines the slopes present (glacis) under the fortifications as a sign of defense in which a garden develops which has been allowed to grow without modular and precise schemes, almost leaving it to the nature the possibility of following one's own course without impositions, in contrast with the modular texture of the flooring, the floor fountain, the lighting that highlights the underground road layout and the benches.
The modular element, in fact, at times takes on a volumetric consistency, sometimes becoming a seat, sometimes an accommodation for the planting of trees which allow a shaded pause in the flow of both spatial and fruitful relationships.