Cagliari finalist for European Green Capital Award

As we await the final of the European Green Capital Award, which will be held on Thursday, October 27, where Cagliari will compete with Valencia for the prestigious “European green capital 2024” award, what better occasion to look back on the 30-year relationship between LAND and Cagliari?

Cagliari, the ancient fortress city on the southern coast of Sardinia, wanted to become a “green city on the sea” as early as 1996 when it developed with us at LAND the first Green Plan to double green public spaces. A network made up of city parks, the establishment and protection of nature parks (in and around the lagoons), conversion of industrial sites into productive natural areas, and cultivation of woodlands as well as scattered green areas.

A dialectic between art, culture and nature. Cagliari is just pure representation of this mixture between the sea and the land, between a long and ancient history and the contemporary.  – Andreas Kipar

In 2006, LAND presented an update of the master plan that received Sardinia’s landscape award two years later. The basic idea was to create a ring of green infrastructure running from the waterfront around Cagliari and begin cultivating fallow land. In three strategic areas within the ring, the potential of green and undeveloped areas, both old and new, would be developed. Strategic connections (pedestrian and bike paths, etc.) between the respective installations would be connected to lagoons and natural coastal areas through the ring. Sustainable concepts were also reflected in plans for a new football stadium for the Cagliari football team. Various thematic greenways would be connected through a 16.5 km long landscape boulevard (Boulevard dei Paesaggi). An important building block in developing a complex landscaping system for the Gulf of Cagliari and its diverse environmental conditions.

Cagliari. Green Metropolis.

Today, years after the first green plan, it is time to make a difference through Natural Capital Accounting in developing green and blue infrastructure capable of breathing new life into our cities in the fight against climate change. The new green plan aims to initiate a significant process of urban transformation based on the enhancement of the existing natural capital and landscape through the re-functionalization of underutilized areas: uncultivated land, interstitial and waste spaces, in a state of abandonment, to be destined for urban parks, community spaces and the free enjoyment of green. A wide range of ecosystem services, from the transition to green energy sources to increasing accessibility and fruition of the great cultural heritage of natural areas also through Digital Landscape elements (apps, software, websites) to multiply communication opportunities and make Cagliari the green metropolis by the sea.

Team: Andreas Kipar, Matteo Pedaso, Ilaria Congia, Beatrice Magagnoli, Chiara Stucchi, Alessia Canneddu, Lorenzo Pirosa, Luca Passoni, Ilario Chirulli, Raimondo Congiu.