Learn how Studio Bazzini helped the City of Pisa communicate the city's new "green lung" in a stunning six-minute animation made with V-Ray and anima.
Summary:
- The city of Pisa is redeveloping Pungilupo Park as part of a more comprehensive urban renewal project.
- To communicate the project to the public, Studio Bazzini created 3D models and an animation of the park using V-Ray for Cinema 4D and anima.
- The video successfully demonstrated how the city's residents could enjoy its new park and how it will grow and change over the next 50 years.
- The animation received the Digital Landscape recommendation in the CITY’SCAPE Award for its effectiveness as an awareness-raising tool.
The Italian city of Pisa may be most famous for its 650-year-old leaning tower, but in 2024, the council started work on a new legacy that will serve the community for years to come. Thanks to funding from Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the city had the opportunity to redevelop abandoned farmland and an existing park to create an 11,000-square-meter "green lung" on its outskirts.
The new park is designed to serve residents, help with rainwater management, and reduce emissions. Once completed, it will boast 1,800 new trees, 2,500 new herbaceous perennials, accessible play areas, cycle paths, and walkways, as well as lighting, security, and even Wi-Fi hotspots. To demonstrate the impact of the new park, Studio Bazzini created a 3D model and six-minute animation using V-Ray for Cinema 4D and anima.
Problem: How do you showcase the long-term impact of the park?
As part of the Pisa T.H.I.S. (Tolerance, Hospitality, Inclusion, and Sustainability) initiative, the €4.6 million Pungilupo Park redevelopment aims to regenerate the Pisanova district.
“Improving people's quality of life and ensuring benefits to the ecosystem are the main objectives of this peri-urban forest that envisages sustainable rainwater management thanks to the principle of hydraulic invariance with socialization areas that function as accessible and inclusive equipped playgrounds,” explained Architect Fabio Daole, architect of the City of Pisa.
With over 18 months of work ahead, the city needed an effective way to showcase the project's long-term benefits to both the press and the public.
Photos of the current park were inadequate, 2D models were less than inspirational, and even static 3D renderings could only convey so much. The 1,800 trees, although small in 2024, will reach heights of up to 22 meters by 2074, significantly improving air quality. The park's hydraulic lamination basins are designed to prevent flooding by collecting rainwater during the rainy months. To highlight these dynamic changes, the City of Pisa turned to Studio Bazzini to create an animation that followed the park as it grew and changed.
Solution: Capturing the park’s dynamism with V-Ray and anima
Studio Bazzini has produced renderings and 3D animations for architectural, product, and film projects since 1997. Over the years, they have worked with companies, including Prada, Bulgari, and Ralot. For the Pungilupo Park project, the studio was tasked with creating an animation that would follow the park’s evolution over its first 50 years, capturing changes across different seasons.
To achieve this, Studio Bazzini used V-Ray for Cinema 4D. As V-Ray is optimized for large productions, it allowed the studio to create an incredibly realistic and detailed animation. “Chaos V-Ray proved to be an invaluable ally,” said Luca Bazzini, founder of Studio Bazzini. “It made it possible to easily and quickly manage an extremely large amount of polygons without sacrificing visual quality and performance.”
Using V-Ray tools like Chaos Scatter, enabled them to easily populate the scene with foliage and grass through duplication. This was crucial for creating the lush park scenes, and made it easy to depict autumnal scenes with fallen leaves. “It was also possible to manage internally the effect of sunlight to increase realism and depth of field so I could get the shots I wanted for the video,” Luca explained.
The City of Pisa also wanted to show how the local community could use and engage with the park. To save time, Studio Bazzini used anima to quickly add lifelike 4D moving characters and demonstrate how people could interact with the space. Using anima, the studio could select render-ready characters from the anima asset library and import them directly into the scene with a simple drag-and-drop.
Anima’s ease of use and seamless integration with V-Ray allowed the team to quickly incorporate it into their workflow and see immediate benefits. By dragging and dropping characters with looping animations, the studio created an animation with people running, walking, and playing in the park. This final step brought the park to life, highlighting how the space would physically look and become a vibrant community area.
Results: A journey through the park’s first 50 years
Presenting the new and improved Pungilupo Park in an animated video allowed the Pisa community to understand the full scale of the development clearly and effectively. The animation and press release about the redevelopment was picked up by several local publications and the news was received with overwhelming approval and support.
The animation’s success was further highlighted when it received the Digital Landscape recommendation in the CITY’SCAPE Award awarded at the Milan Triennale in July 2024. The judges said the recommendation came due to the “effectiveness and technology of the video used as an awareness-raising tool.” They also added that the animation had “been able to deal with a very complex issue such as the redevelopment of abandoned areas already perceived by the local population as an identity heritage.”
By illustrating what the park will look like throughout its first 50 years, residents could see how it will grow and help reduce Pisa’s emissions. Showcasing the park through the changing seasons and weather made the function of the lamination basins easy to understand for everyone, a point that was reaffirmed when the animation earned the Digital Landscape recommendation.
Thanks to the characters added via the anima plugin, viewers could easily imagine how they might use the park, whether as a neighborhood meeting place, a space for exercise, or a playground for children.
With the public informed and excited about the new investment, the Pungilupo Park redevelopment is now in full swing. The city of Pisa hopes the park will be ready for use in 2025—and continue to be cherished for many decades beyond.
