Fendi Factory- Capannuccia, Florence

When we entered the design competition for the new Fendi specialised production hub in Capannuccia, with Studio Piuarch, despite its location in the picturesque Chianti region near Florence, the project site was in total disrepair and neglect, bearing the marks of exploitation from the bricks manufacturing facility and quarry that were there before. For this reason, we focused on healing its wounds and restoring consistency in a place that had been badly pilfered for years. In the first design, the planned construction of a new production hub became a driver to trigger virtuous land management endeavours: from governing water, that characterises this clayey landscape, to strategically transforming the site’s major natural engineering works into eco-corridors that successfully patched the environment back together. All materials were recycled after reclamation, ground and processed to form draining surfaces on walkways and other outdoor surfaces; also, this complex landscaping project includes a huge walk-on green roof, that we designed as a greenery topography. At the centre of the roofing, we placed a large dry garden, enclosed by a raised walkway, to accommodate spontaneous pioneer flora. Inside the factory, we designed several enclosed patios, where a protected environment allows unique, extremely scenic gardens to grow, that express the clayey landscape and its specific flora: willows, canes, rushes, waterlilies, mint and even moss. The large stretch of land around the factory includes two macro design systems: decorative thematic gardens and the large extensive park. Even though they have different levels of maintenance, aesthetic reinterpretation and uses, all outdoor spaces follow the same design ratio, defined by ecological principles. In particular, the large extensive park connects and promotes the merger between the wild forests on the hill and the riverside environment of river Ema, that had been separated for years without any possible connection by the sharp cut of the bricks factory. Architecture is designed by PIUARCH.