July - November 2019

Through engaging with the souvenir as both a mnemonic and architectural device, the project proposes alternative tourist experiences in Venice within a suite of workshop spaces at the ends of popular cultural itineraries, framed by themes of production and consumption in the city.

The Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio concludes the itinerary of the food tourist. Large in scale and community atmosphere, though for the most part underused, it’s an ideal site for the collection and conversion of residents’ organic waste into produce. The harvest supplies a communal cooking school for an alternative tourist experience.

The design rescales the urban square in which the proposal is sited. An urban frame is set in deliberate contrast to the rather oddly-shaped, leftover space bounded by existing buildings and the church at the campo’s centre. In the act of redefining the square, the walled Italian Medieval kitchen garden, a typology typical of Venice, is reimagined.

Rather than close-off precious green space, the garden is made accessible by elevating the frame above head-height.

As a popular tourist destination for centuries, Venice has also long been a site of souvenir production. Many tourists to the city today seek items handmade by local artisans. Behind Piazza San Marco’s Ala Napoleonica lies a string of shops leading tourists to the Ponte dell’Accademia and Dorsoduro district. Following this trajectory, the tourist looks down laneways in search of the perfect souvenir.

The Calle del Ridotto runs perpendicular to this major shopping street. At it’s other end, waste is collected at the waterfront. Drawing upon a tradition of marbled paper production in Venice, here recycled paper is milled, pressed and patterned by the tourist.

The proposal reconfigures spaces along an alternative perpendicular street axis. Internal functions are sequenced in both directions—from front to back and also from side to side—placing the passerby within the production process. A back courtyard further extends the studio’s functionality.

This is the place where canal and lagoon basin intersect. The water here is a repository for ocean plastic debris and plastic consumer waste. At the proposed plastic workshop, this waste is washed, stored, shredded and converted into art, homewares, sculptures and jewellery by the Biennale tourist.

The design of the workshop takes the form of a third bridge. Rather than provide a literal crossing, the intervention bridges the canal and waterfront along an axis that connects Scarpa’s Monumento alla Partigiana. As in Scarpa’s monument, concrete steps relate the building to the water and the garden behind. Stairs serve as the tidal markers of the cyclical acqua alta, while stepped skylights highlight thresholds within the building’s interior.