Uncentered Reticular Structure

From this moment on, Leonardi felt the need to apply a systematic planning approach. An ordering principle was needed that might guide the hand of the planner, thus avoiding chance events and ambiguity. The positioning of the trees, just like the tracing of the pathways, could not be left to momentary or purely formal choices, nor could the drawing lend itself to misunderstandings during the construction phase.And so in 1983 Leonardi began to experiment with a modular system aimed at planning parks, which he called Struttura Reticolare Acentrata (SRA, Acentric Reticular Structure). The only actual application of SRA is the Parco di Bosco Albergati in Castelfranco Emilia. Leonardi’s 1988 project defined the expansion of the first garden next to the ancient Villa Albergati with a new park of some forty hectares, planted with a vast variety of tree and hedge species. The trees are placed on the nodes of the ‘network’, distanced in such a way as to allow for their growth under ideal conditions, without interferences and overlapping between the boughs.