2010 Building materials, energy and water-supply infrastructure.
Azienda Agricola Finotello, Sant’Erasmo Island, Venice Lagoon
Project by Marjetica Potrc and Marguerite Kahrl
Supported by the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice; Verlato+Zordan Architects, Vicenza; Termoidraulica Cabi, Vicenza; and project manager Gaston Ramirez Feltrin. Thanks to students who took part in the workshop Sustainable Venice, led at IUAV by Marjetica Potrč
The premise of ‘Rainwater Harvesting Project at a farm on St.Erasmo Island’ was to reach across disciplines of art and architecture to imagine the future of the Venetian lagoon as a sustainable environment.
A rainwater-harvesting system on a farm on Sant’Erasmo island in the Venice Lagoon (re)introduces rainwater as a valuable resource for the farm. Rainwater collected from greenhouse roofs is used to irrigate the crops inside. Like Venice itself, the farm’s very existence is dependent on water. But because the Lagoon is subsiding, the Venetian government plans to limit the use of water from underground aquifers, a measure that threatens local food production and farmers’ livelihoods. Water, once Venice’s closest ally, has become her enemy. The rainwater-harvesting project seeks to model an alternative paradigm to this adversarial relationship.
The farm considers the project a useful prototype to evaluate the benefit of rainwater harvesting for their particular needs. It will also allow for a comparison between the quality of vegetables irrigated by rainwater.
PRESS:
Water water Everywhere?
Lucy Lippard
Fondazione Bevilaqua la Masa
2010
Il Futuro della Laguna
Il Manifesto
Orsola Casagrande
2010
Rainwater Harvesting on a Farm in the Venice Lagoon
Abitare
Fabrizio Gallanti
2010