The project is the beginning of a possible urban regeneration path, which sees for the first time the possibility of extending the city as far as the sea through the creation of a large public space, a linear park linking the heart of the city to the coast.

We have called it the Garden of Babylon because, terraced, it houses the new gardens and – inside – the new urban cultural, commercial, and service functions, as well as residential.

The project, conceived first and foremost as a new public space, envisages the creation of a wide pedestrian boulevard, a green rambla in the heart of the city which, tracing the route of the metro under construction below the project area, articulates its structure.

Around the boulevard, varied functions animate the project volumes that compose an articulated system of loggias and terraces without interruption with the public space: buildings and boulevard merge into a single large garden, designed to regenerate the surrounding urban fabric through the quality of its collective spaces.

This creates a permeable passing space that contributes to reconnecting the elegant baroque centre of the city with the railway station and the port.

The rambla ends in a square that is fundamental for Catania because it is the transport hub of the region.

In addition to the east-west axis between the centre and the sea, the intervention intercepts and enhances several roads that cut through the area from north to south, reconnecting a large section of the city and connecting to it through a series of public spaces of renewed quality.

The intervention develops mainly horizontally, preserving the scale of the urban fabric that hosts it. The buildings do not exceed the average height of the two urban fronts: three floors connected by a widespread system of ramps and staircases create a process of continuity rather than extraneousness. The decision to develop the required functions along interconnected slopes with sinuous aerial paths gives rise to a series of terraces and interstitial spaces to be allocated to green and socialisation areas, whose insertion stems from the desire to redevelop the intervention area and return an accessible and comfortable public space at the service of citizens.