(Where not otherwise indicated, all photos in the service are BG/Tsport)

Go to the other articles in the Playground and Urban Landscape Special:

• Tactical Urbanism: Milan from open squares to open streets
• Isernia, the Urban Park of the railway station
• Street art colours playgrounds

The inauguration of the Garden took place, according to the wish of the mayor of Muggiò Maria Fiorito, on the 75th anniversary of the Republic, wishing to “represent the rebirth of the community after the ordeal of the pandemic“.

The area was occupied by a disused industrial plant – the Fillattice -, and it was not easy to get the acquisition by the public administration. The project was set up as a multifunctional garden of 6,000 square meters, organized in areas with various functions: from the square, to the basketball court, to the seats, to the games, to the dog area.

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The floorings

The unifying element of the intervention is the use of a draining concrete for all paths: a concrete with a high percentage of voids, which allows rainwater to penetrate into the ground. The main pedestrian areas, which delimit the multifunctional areas in front of the square with the columns, as well as the dorsal pedestrian area that runs along the park “games of yesteryear” and the dog walking area, are made of draining concrete colored in the factory. For the playground paths in the green, a red pigment was used, spread on site with cold laying.

For the surface of the multifunctional square, which will be able to host shows and various events, was chosen an architectural concrete with a good resistance to the effects of freeze/thaw cycles designed to resist over time better than any other flooring thanks to the high resistance to impact and cracking.

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For the sports and play areas, a concrete pavement with colored quartz dusting (6-7 mm) was created, with a graded mix foundation on a compacted soil base.

The product used is a powder formulation consisting of special hydraulic binders, domestic crystalline quartz and colored mineral oxides for surface protection and finishing, with good abrasion resistance, specific for the construction of outdoor yards with medium heavy traffic and wear.

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Construction site images (construction management photos).

The material is applied by the “dusting” method on fresh, cast and staged concrete, distributing 3 to 5 mm of anhydrous product, therefore free of water, in one or more passes.

Finishing is carried out by compacting and levelling after a few hours the hardening product deposited, while the second phase involves helicoptering with specific shovel machines that finish the industrial floor until the surface is perfectly smooth.

In particular, this is the material chosen for the flooring of the basketball court; the choice of red for the sports area, bordered by a green belt shaded by trees that will form the backdrop of the new square, makes it well defined but at the same time integrated into the surrounding environment.

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project renderings

The play area

For the games on the ground of the area “old times games” we wanted to overcome the setting that sees children relegated to the inside of conventional spaces, where the quality of the game solutions and the quality of the space itself is delegated to companies that produce outdoor games. instead of the typical artifacts of a playground, it is always the floor to play a leading role, bringing the imagination of children to the use of traditional popular games: a bell, a morra Chinese, a track for marbles, a chess set in the floor.

The same type of colored drainage concrete pavement is planned for this space.

Each board is a separate creation, with different shapes, structured to attract and engage children in the game, made with modular squares of Basaltina stone.

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The Morra Saltata is a game consisting of 7 squares, finished with tozzetti and bands of travertine depicting subjects that, appropriately studied, constitute the grid on which adults and children can play the traditional game of Morra Cinese.

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The Marble Track consists of 32 squares, straight or curved, carved on one face with suitable shapes to make a custom path to be inserted into the flooring and used to play with marbles, mats, or more.

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The Game of the Bell is composed of 8 square boxes and a semicircular starting box, to be placed according to local customs. All the squares are engraved, bushhammered, polished, numbered and decorated with simple but effective figures; finished with Travertine tozzetti.

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The Chessboard consists of 60 cm squares made of travertine, polished, embedded in the concrete floor.

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Other areas

The dog walking area is designed as a moment of meeting and socialization: it is enclosed in an elliptical space with an area of about 350 square meters, bordered by a concrete path draining and perfectly integrated into the green.

The area, inside, is equipped with a water intake and is divided into two parts to separate small dogs from the others. Both inside and along the elliptical path, are placed a series of seats that encourage the stop and the meeting.

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The garden is completed with seating made of reinforced concrete blocks with surface treatment, articulated in a labyrinth, and others aligned under a metal gazebo, made of brushed stainless steel.

Pathways are equipped with night lighting recessed into the floor with LED lamps.

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The vegetation, finally, has been set but will need time to consolidate, and at the moment does not yet stand out as the protagonist of the space except for the large pre-existing poplars that have been preserved.

As pointed out by Councillor Elisabetta Radaelli, who has been at the forefront in the realization of the work, the new public area is designed to accommodate everyone, with the most varied functions, promoting integration between generations.