Ghisellini Architetti's oak-lined public square in a town near Lodi, Italy

The starting point for Ghisellini Architetti's redesign of the square named after Madre Francesca Cabrini is a memory of landscape: the open clearings that once broke up the lowland forests around Lodi. In a small town in the lower Lodi area (the article doesn't name it), the practice has made the square read as one of those clearings, enclosed on three sides by planting and on the fourth by the existing town hall.

A single surface of Italian porphyry runs north to south, lined up with the town hall's facade. Around it, fifty oaks of three species stand in a seven-by-seven grid, giving shade and pockets of green. Paths wander between lawns, flowers, shrubs and shade-loving undergrowth, with wooden benches, drinking fountains and bike racks for everyday use. Concrete blocks keep cars out of the pedestrian areas, and after dark tall lighting poles work alongside fixtures set low in the ground.

The less visible part is the water. Permeable ground and lawns help recharge groundwater and cool the square in summer, while the paving channels rain into an underground tank that irrigates the trees and planting. The project reached designboom through its reader submissions, so it is essentially the architects' own account. It is a modest civic project, but a thoughtful one, and worth a look if you are exploring the countryside south of Milan.

Our summary of a story from designboom, published 13 October 2026. Read the original

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