Landscape and Agriculture 4.0: A Deep Farm in Italy in the Underground of a Public Historical Garden

Abstract

Each landscape is the result of an encounter with the culture of a community and the physical features of a territory. The conservation of the historical, artistic, and cultural heritage represents a priority for any society that wishes to draw on references for its civil progress. The aim of the present research is to combine the richness of the historical–cultural heritage with innovative forms of agriculture. It focuses on the recovery, in productive terms, of an air-raid shelter used during the Second World War, located in the center of Varese beneath the Estensi Historical Gardens. The project involves the construction of an underground Vertical Farm (Deep Farm) with the aim of restoring a place of memory, making it more accessible than it is today, and raising public awareness about a new cultivation model. A Deep Farm was designed with a cultivation area in the middle, an educational room, and two hygiene rooms, one at each end of the tunnel. A Vertical Farm was conceived to be shared with local stakeholders to produce vegetables and to foresee an innovative reality in the field of education and tourism. This project has the ambition of representing a model that could be used for similar Italian realities and enhancing meeting places between landscape and modern culture diversities.