Breaking Ground on Novicrom’s New Expansion in Pontedera: The Architecture of Urban Edges
- And Studio Architects
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
With the opening of the construction site in Pontedera, a new and significant chapter begins for Novicrom: the first tangible mark of an idea becoming space.The expansion of the production facility will materialize into an architecture that expresses, through its shapes and materials, the innovative and dynamic soul of the company.
The project—conceived and made possible through the collaboration with Studio Tecnico Lucchesi—is articulated into four distinct sections: three dedicated to production activities and one, facing the state road, designed as a representative space, a sort of built manifesto of Novicrom’s vision.
If you haven’t read the article about the design concept yet, click here.
The marginal zones between major road arteries and the built environment often remain overlooked in urban planning. These are transitional areas, born from the friction between fast-moving infrastructure and consolidated urban fabric, which now raise crucial questions about environmental quality, spatial continuity, and urban perception.
These liminal spaces, frequently assigned to residual functions or left in decay, can instead be reimagined as strategic devices for triggering regenerative processes. Their transformation through landscape mitigation and green infrastructure can not only enhance the interface between roads and inhabited areas but also improve microclimate, air quality, and the overall livability of surrounding neighborhoods.
The green mitigation is not merely an aesthetic gesture but it is a political, ecological, and ethical act. Introducing vegetation in these areas means stitching up wounds, slowing down the gaze, cooling the air, and restoring dignity to what lies at the margins. Nature, with its silent strength, turns barriers into thresholds, separations into connections.
Through sensitive and visionary design interventions, these zones can become new transitional landscapes: living filters between infrastructure and habitat, between motion and stillness, between the present and what could be.
This was the guiding philosophy behind Novicrom’s expansion project, where the thresholds between industry and city have been reinterpreted as spaces of breath, greenery, and new identity.
