Team: Matteo Renna, Alberto Doncato
The east bank of the Amstel river is a residential neighbourhood of Amsterdam.
Its promenade is a popular area where locals, expats and tourists enjoy the river.
Even if the area is usually busy, there is almost nothing facilitating interaction between groups.
The crowd looks fragmented in its cultural and age diversity.
Our feeling is that we could enrich the riverside and the neighbourhood with a platform of aggregation and cultural integration.
Understanding and empathize with each other is key for tolerance and driver for a peaceful world. In recent years, intolerance in Europe is widely perceived as being on the rise: increased support for extremist or populist political parties, and intolerant attitudes in the behaviour of individuals.
We feel that cities need to be fortresses for cultural integration.
In particular, when Covid19 will be under control, there will be a need for people to empathize and reconnect physically in meaningful shared places.
Try to imagine: connect land with water, and connect people from various cultures with one single, strong gesture.
A platform that, like a paper sheet, gently lays on the edge of the river uniting everything and everybody.
The path through the platform imitates the river, symbol of connection, allowing walkers to access and cross it. Small and simple installations trigger the passers-by to connect human diversities and equalities, with the power of community, while enhancing different senses: look, play, share, feel.