The project stems from the city of Rimini's need to create a pleasant and welcoming urban environment for visitors and citizens of all ages that can be enjoyed all year round. The basic idea is to create an urban park integrated with the naturalness of the beaches and the sea, aiming at the creation of a relaxed environment with sand dunes and native vegetation and where natural materials such as wood and ceramics are used for the floors.
Funding for the construction of the Parco del Mare infrastructure came in part from the European Regional Structural Funds (ERDF) earmarked for sustainable tourism redevelopment under Axis 5 of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Operational Programme (ROP) 2014-2020. The authority will therefore contribute EUR 2.8 million against a planned expenditure of EUR 4.5 million.
The task of drawing up the guidelines for the project as a whole has been assigned to a temporary group of professionals led by the Spanish studio Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), which won the international ideas competition ‘Urban challenge greening seaside’ promoted by Climate Kic, a large European public-private partnership on sustainable innovation and the fight against climate change, launched in 2017.
The strategies developed by the working group to make the waterfront a homogeneous connecting element in its entirety are the presence of greenery, of punctiform elements such as dunes, and the presence of paving stones that change surface and develop through sinuous lines. The latter follow one another harmoniously along the entire waterfront, connecting with the city through urban elements such as squares or streets, creating natural access points to the park, thus enhancing the city's identity and a rediscovered connection with the beach and the sea.
The waterfront is generally divided into three strips: a strip on the sea side, designed with wooden walkways; a central strip, dedicated to the variety of functions and nature, where the pavement develops a sinuous pathway that makes its way through the trees and dunes; a strip close to the city, characterised by a pavement mainly intended for bicycle and pedestrian transit, but which also allows vehicles with a permit to pass through.
On the eastern side, in the part closest to the sea, the lighting is entrusted to a special fixture with curved poles recalling the R of Rimini, produced by Neri, in a brown finish, on which are installed Agorà projectors reinterpreted in their optics. The three Agorà projectors are installed on the upper curve of the R; the outermost one is equipped with ST1 street optics and comes to illuminate a stretch of beach, following a specific request from the client for safety reasons. The two projectors going towards the inside of the curve both have asymmetrical optics, left and right, according to which the interdistance between pole and pole was defined. The tail of the R, on the other hand, houses a suitably modified iRound.
In the central band, Platea Pro pole-mounted spotlights, again with differentiated optics, an A60 and an ST1.2 optic, evenly illuminate the walkway, to provide maximum safety, but also green areas. Platea Pro features either a double pole top configuration or a single pole top installation and another projector at mid-pole height, in this case to specifically illuminate walkways. In some cases, where walkways are widened or there are trees below, Platea is mounted on an arm. The heights of the poles themselves were defined according to the location of the luminaires: on the upstream side, 7 m poles were used; in the centre, they are 5 m high, while the ‘Rimini poles’ are as high as 9 m.
The innermost strip, the one close to the city, the residential part proper, is lit entirely by Platea Pro on poles, with double floodlights and in some sections with single floodlights, when only the roadway is illuminated. We have also supplied the Master Pro Evo KNX control system, which allows switching and dimming. The end result is a soft, homogeneous, warm lighting - the colour temperature used is 3000 K - that contributes to creating the pleasant atmosphere of walking along the Parco del Mare.
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