Headquarters

PIN University center city of Prato

 

Piazza dell'Università, 1 - 59100 Prato (PO) - Italy

tel. +39 0574 602 500

e-mail: didactic(AT)pin.unifi.it

 

The three-year and master's degree courses in Territorial Planning of the University of Florence are based at the PIN - University Center of the city of Prato. The PIN is located in a beautiful industrial archeology building located a stone's throw from the historic center of the city, near the "Prato Porta al Serraglio" railway station - an important intermodal hub that connects it to Florence in less than 30 minutes.

The city of Prato is located in the center of the "metropolitan area" between Florence and Pistoia and in the heart of the agricultural park of the plain. Crossed by the Bisenzio river, with its monuments and buildings it bears witness to an important historical stratification dating back to the Etruscan era .

In recent centuries it has experienced notable productive and commercial development which has made it the second Tuscan city in terms of population and wealth with the problems and attractiveness typical of a large city with many cultural and recreational services suitable for welcoming university students. These characteristics together with a rich and varied surrounding territory (from the woods of the upper Bisenzio, to the archaeological area of ​​Gonfienti, to the agricultural territory of the plain and the hill slopes, to the Medici villas, to the productive fabric, etc.) and the vast melting ethnic pot of the residents (in Prato there is the largest Chinese community in Italy), have allowed the community of Prato to invest in multiple activities in the artistic, social and territorial fields as well as to be one of the most advanced European realities in the urban planning and territorial planning.

The cities of Prato and its important territorial system offer the suitable context for the design research of alternative polycentric models to the crisis of the central-peripheral metropolitan areas, measuring them directly with the problems of a concrete community. The intersection between scientific innovation, density of historical stratification, good governance practices and culture of good living allows us to learn and locally verify planning and project models that can be exported to various parts of the world.