Piazzetta Maurizio Cevenini

The project, developed as part of the PN Metro Plus and Medium-Sized Towns 2021–2027 programme – Green Footprint and Climate Neutrality – stems from a desire to restore quality to a space currently dominated by tarmac, traffic and predominantly transient use.

The project proposes a measured yet profound transformation: removing the impermeable surface, increasing soil permeability, improving the wellbeing of existing trees and making the small square more welcoming, legible and liveable.

The design draws inspiration from the history of the site. Here, the city preserves the memory of Porta San Mamolo and the ancient city walls, no longer visible today but still present as an urban fabric. The project works precisely on this layering: it does not simply add new elements, but seeks to reveal the hidden beauty of the place, bringing out the traces of the city and translating them into pathways, materials, light and greenery.

There are two main features of the new square. The ‘Percorso delle Mura’, which is straighter and faster, ideally echoes the ancient route of the city walls between Porta San Mamolo and Porta Saragozza. The ‘Percorso Cevenini’, which is more curved, slower and more welcoming, reflects the human and down-to-earth character of Maurizio Cevenini, evoking kindness, inclusion, community spirit and a focus on people. Arranged around these two routes are the new curved seating areas, designed to encourage conversation and socialising, and a lighting system that makes the space recognisable and safe even in the evening hours.

Greenery is at the heart of the project. The 63 existing lime trees, planted in the second half of the 1960s and arranged in four rows, form the defining structure of the square. The project protects and enhances them, freeing them from the constraints of the tarmac and flanking the trees with a new system of continuous flowerbeds, featuring ground-covering, shrubby and herbaceous species suited to shade. The small square thus becomes a mini urban ecosystem, capable of filtering dust and pollutants, improving the microclimate, reducing the heat island effect, promoting biodiversity and contributing to a more natural management of rainwater.

The new permeable paving, together with the expansion of deep green spaces, introduces a soft engineering approach: water is not repelled, but absorbed and guided into the ground. The light-coloured, porous surfaces will help reduce waterlogging, runoff and summer overheating, whilst the planting scheme and irrigation will be calibrated to support establishment and limit resource consumption over time.

Piazzetta Cevenini thus becomes a project of memory and the future: an urban threshold that is not merely a place to pass through, but one that invites you to pause. A place where the historic city meets the contemporary city, and where the care of public space becomes an opportunity to rediscover the fabric, beauty and civic spirit of Bologna.