Scandicci Urban Biodiversity Park

Project details

The project aims to reveal and interpret the site’s potential by integrating its natural heritage with the historical and architectural significance of Acciaiolo Castle, the Podere del Pino farmhouse, and the traditional agricultural landscape. This includes historic features such as drainage ditches, field tree alignments, and the traditional cultivation system known as vite maritata (married vine cultivation). Alongside these historical values, the project also acknowledges the important twentieth-century legacy associated with the former CNR research center.
The design strategy enhances remnant vegetation communities and ongoing ecological succession processes, while strengthening agronomic, food-related, and natural biodiversity. The phased implementation of the park will make it possible to integrate and enhance the historic complex, preserve and increase agrobiodiversity, restore historical routes and pathways, provide the city with a new public space of environmental and social significance, contribute to the mitigation of the urban heat island effect, and improve stormwater management.
By building upon the scientific legacy of the CNR institute dedicated to fruit tree research and agrobiodiversity experimentation, PUBS will become a true “living laboratory” for ecological research and scientific data collection, supporting more effective urban biodiversity management. The park will offer educational spaces and learning pathways for citizens, schools, and universities, with the aim of raising awareness among younger generations about the value of agricultural and natural biodiversity and the importance of understanding, protecting, and conserving the environment.
Thanks to its strategic central location, PUBS naturally serves as the core node of an interconnected green infrastructure system, linking the surrounding hills, Poggio Valicaia Park, the Vingone Biodiversity Gardens, existing and future community gardens, waterways, and the urban fabric. Scandicci’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan includes a network of cycle routes—currently at an advanced stage of implementation—that will make the park easily accessible from across the municipality.
Through the Urban Biodiversity Park of Scandicci (PUBS), the project seeks to establish an innovative model for integrating nature, agriculture, community, and urban life. Its overarching goal is to preserve and enhance a habitat characterized by both natural and agricultural biodiversity while promoting collective well-being and environmental resilience.