PORTFOLIO 12/2020 Alessia Valenti Junior Architect Bach. Architecture @PoliMi Mag. Arquitectura @UC 22 /12 /1995 Carpi (MO) | Italy contacts: (+39) 3313302849 (+56) 947760998 alessiavalenti@mail.polimi.it avalenti@uc.cl alessiavalenti22@gmail.com
Bio
Hi! I am Alessia Valenti. I am a junior architect, with a bachelor degree at Politecnico di Milano [2017] and a Master in Architecture at Pontificia Universidad Catรณlica de Chile [2020]. Enthusiast about trandisciplinarity in architecture field, during my early studies I have been focusing my interest in urban scale problems via a photographical approach. Starting from my 8 months Erasmus experience in Berlin, I have been working in collaboration with the Land Repair Laboratory at the Urbanism Department of Politecnico di Milano in Mantova to develop Orientamenti Urbani educational research. This path culminated with a book publication by Maggioli Editore. Through several collaborations with architecture studios for interior and urban scale projects, in Carpi, Mantova and Santiago de Chile, I could develop my design skills and specific technical knowledge. The Master in Architecture at PUC Chile allowed me to broaden my interest in architectural criticism, test my
design skills at different scales, culminating in a thesis research on alternative scenarios for overe-xploited and hydric crisis affected basins proposing humidity as suitable for especies coexistence. The research was developed through the study case of Copiapรณ river basin in Atacama Region, Chile, along with Taller Energรฌa + Territorio from October 2019 to October 2020 in the context of chilean estallido social [intense social mobilization] and pandemic spreading. The contingency affected the research in terms of political issues focus and communication tools improvement. Currently developing private projects, active as social media maker in Bologna XR [exctintion rebellion] movement and focusing my interest on studies about global hydric crisis as a wicked problem, I am highly motivated to apply for a Phd position in the same field. Since you have read this far, you may be interested in collaborate. If so, have a look on my complete Portfolio and feel free to contact me.
CURRICULUM VITAE Junior Architect Bach. Architecture @PoliMi Mag. Arquitectura @UC
EDUCATION 2019- 2020 2018 2014 - 2017 2009 - 2014
LANGUAGES Master Degree PUC de Chile | Marq Master Degree courses PoliMi | Land Landscape Heritage Bachelor Degree PoliMi| Progettazione dell’architettura High school diploma Liceo Scientifico Fanti
MASTER THESIS RESEARCH https://tierrahumeda.cargo.site/ AWARDS 2016
dist. máxima
110 L / 110 100 / 100
[pw:tihum]
Concorso di idee“Novellini 50 Anniversary” First Prize
WORK//COLLABORATIONS ongoing GÖTZ + BILCHEV ARCHITEKTEN interior design 2018 - 2020 DRAA ARQUITECTURA interior design, residential, gym 2019 AZERO STUDIO ARCHITETTI public space project 2017 - 2018 ARCHIPLAN STUDIO interior design, residential, museum PHOTO PUBLICATIONS 2019 Orientamenti Urbani EAN 9788891630681 2018 Raccagni Almatex 2018 Ever Life Design 2018 Onoya Sushi Restaurant
TECHNICAL SKILLS [MacOS] AutoCad Adobe InDesign Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop Adobe Premiere Sketch up Pro Cinema 4D [basic] Rhino Ceros 7 [basic] D3100 Reflex Nikon + equipment Canon QT analogic Canon 6D Mark II
Berlin Santiago (CL) Carpi (IT) Mantova (IT)
PoliMi Salone del Mobile Salone del Mobile AP Studio [MN]
ITALIAN ENGLISH GERMAN SPANISH
mother tongue C1 | Toeic Exam B1 | Goethe Zertifikat C1
LECTURES 2020 Tierra húmeda Species Coexistence Urban Model for Vulnerable Basins The Case of Tierra Amarilla, Chile [international symposium lecture] 2018 Berlino: città cantiere [academic lecture] WORKSHOPS + EXHIBITIONS + MEDIA 2020 Canzoni d’Appartamento [music interview serie] 2020 Recuperiamo la Fornace [self construction workshop] 2017 La rinascita di Pietole [exhibition] 2016 La casa del Poeta 2015 Fare memoria [public event] WORK + Digital content creator Social media maker Language tutor Waiter Farm worker
@Ecodemia Symposium Architecture and Urbanism in the age of planetary crisis @PoliMi for secondary schools
w//Godot Sound Culture w//Manifattura @Ghiare Berceto w//Polimi @Forte di Pietole [MN] w//Polimi Mantova @Casarola w//Museo al Deportato @Carpi
//Interviewer//photographer @Godot Sound Culture //Instagram @xrbologna //italian//english @Preply Platform @Pepperoni Pizzeria [RE] @TerreVive biodinamica
OTHER SKILLS Basketball//ex professional player Hiking, surfing, climbing Photography Organic Gardening//Basic Woodcraft
@Basket Cavezzo (IT) @Sergio Ceppi (CL)
Contents Pandemic global spread have increased our awareness of living in an era of deep uncertainity and constant need of adaptation. Current health crisis is just one of the socially unexpected extreme phenomena connected to anthropic intervention on our planet. Since we are probably facing just the initial phase of a complex terrestrian ecosystem crisis, we cannot ignore this perspective neither in personal nor in collective action. Scientific evidences show not only that a radical change is needed in the productive/consumption system, but also that anyway a shift in individual occupation of private and publlic space will necessarly occur. Resilience is needed to front increasing wicked problems. The loss of stable stat, connected to our progressive political institutions, religions, organizational systems and values erosion, involves both the domestic and territorial scale. In this trans-scale problem for human species survival, architecture and urban issues encompess global networks as well as single existence surrounding. According to this assumption, the capacity to become learning systems constitute a fundamental design task. As we need to prepare ourselves to live without a new stable state, without guides and influences and constantly adapting to ourselves to changes and new learnings. This trans-scale and fields problematic condition invite us to use trandipliscinarity as a paradigm for criticizing, communicate and design architecture and urbanism. Not aiming to express neither a specific scale design path nor to show particoular technological field expertise, this portfolio aims to question personal works as chances to front past material problems and give immediate responses or critical discussions. It does try to communicate an heuristic search for sense in day by day practice, within contingency and arising instability.
SELECTED PROJECTS 2020 2019 2019 2019 2017 2017
ACADEMIC TIHUM : tierra húmeda master degree thesis Phytodepurative agro-park for the hydric recharge of Copiapó river basin Mallacuìferabierta installation project Casa Inconclusa one week project Arquicuentos Irreverentes short stories Temporary practices in public space academic thesis A critical discussion on Berlin dynamics in the early 2000s within a design perspective No island is an island La rinascita del Forte di Pietole exhibition Rivellino island: wellness centre project
[PUC]
6
[PUC] [PUC] [PUC] [Fachhochschule Potsdam//PoliMi]
8 10 12 14
[PoliMi]
16 19
2019
PUBLICATIONS Orientamenti Urbani
book publication
2018 2018 2018
PHOTOSHOOTINGS EverLife Design Raccagni Almatex Onoya Sushi
Milano - Salone del Mobile Milano - Salone del Mobile Mantova - restaurant
24 25 26
2019 2019 2019 2019 2018 2018 2018 2017
COLLABORATIONS Becycle Düsseldorf Casa Delta//Azùl Una baranda Le piazze di Soliera Casa MG Terrazza M ArcheoMuseo del Forcello Inserti
gym spaces private house interior design element public space project house renovation private terrace public museum furniture design
28 29 30 32 33 35 36 37
2020
Who is I?
on going short film project
w//Land Repair Lab [PoliMi]
w// DRAA + Götz Bilchev Architekten w// DRAA Arquitectura w// DRAA Arquitectura w// Azero Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio
22
38
ACADEMIC
6
Tihum : Tierra Hùmeda 2020 Master Thesis PUC de Chile Proff. Ignacio García Partarrieu Arturo Scheidegger [UMWELT] Pilar García site
https://tierrahumeda.cargo.site/
Abstract “Water challenges us to consider ambiguity as a condition for accepting instead of erasing. Water builds an acute awareness of time through its absence and presence. It takes us into a sectional world, an appreciation of depth.” (Mathur & da Cunha, 2010)
[Satellite view of planet Earth, Antartic continent, from Puri: el camino del agua, documentary film, Fundación Meri, 2020]
Climate change and water overexploitation by agribusiness and mining make the Copiapó river basin subject to growing water scarcity. The already evident effect on the ecosystems and the cultivated fields calls for the regeneration of the so called mallacuífera, water network in surface and underground liquid form, moving from the plateau to the coast in the riverbed, in the irrigation channels and in streams, and vice versa moved upward as desalinated water in the aqueducts.
An anthropic occupation alternative scenario for this semi desert territory shows how liquid waste from productive activities can feed human and other species presence in the valley. In this sense, it is assumed that the reactivation with recovered water of the cultivation surfaces through an artificial aquifer mesh and according to sustainable principles can guarantee a fixed water supply to the basin.
Despite the semi-desert condition and the aforementioned drought, water continues to be a pervasive element of Copiapó river valley. It thus generates situations of humidity where plant, animal and human life are integrated into a balanced ecosystem. Where the ecological equilibrium is threatened, this research proposes strategies to recover contaminated water flow, regenerating the agro-productive surface now in crisis and contributing to the sustenance of the wetland located in the basin.
The study focuses on Tierra Amarilla, an agro-mining town in the river valley, where it is possible to contribute to the recharge of the aquifer through the recovery of water contaminated by mining processes. The Ti-hum agro-park is supplied and infiltrates the Copiapó with phyto-depurated water from the El Buitre tailings dam.
8
The installation proposal Mallacuíferabierta1 aims to represent water ubiquity in the Copiapó river basin. The water flow study as inputs/outputs from the main river course as well as the hydrogeological sections survey allow to understand the pervasiveness of humidity in an apparently dry landscape. Mainly constituted by underground aquifers, the so called mallacuífera (aquifer mesh) extends its ramifications beyond imposed Copiapó river limits. It does this not only in its liquid form, such as in the riverbed, in the canals, in the artificial basins, but also in the form of humidity hidden in living beings such as vegetal and animal communities. Between the concept of water, with its related liquid imaginary, and the ungraspable concept of humidity, the term mallacuífera allows an abstraction of hydric presence which does not impose strict limits, at the same time generating a visually intelligible form as the exposed artefacto.2
Mallacuìferabierta 2019 Installation project topic: Master thesis research PUC de Chile Visualizaciòn de Paisaje II Prof.
Alejandra Vasquez
Since the Copiapó river basin is currently suffering a severe hydric crisis, with human and other species supply at risk, as well as agricultural activities production strictly reduced, a synthetic physical model representing the hydric situation is needed. Hydrogeological sections show the permeable volume of basin morphology, where the rock basement assumes various configurations influencing the wells depth. The border between the valley’s rocky slopes and the alluvial deposits show the real river channel: during increasingly frequent flood events water expands till the limits of the valley.
“The ecological crisis we face is so obvious that it is easy - for some strangely or disturbingly easy - to connect the dots and see that everything is interconnected. That is the ecological thinking. The more we think about it, the more our world opens up.(...) The mesh doesn’t suggest a starting point, and those clusters are far from linear. Each point on the mesh is both the center and the edge of a point system, so there is no absolute center or edge.” (Morton, The Ecological Thought Editorial Paidos Ibérica, Barcelona, 2018)
COPIAPÓ RIVER BASIN: ALLUVIAL SOILS
HYDROGEOLOGICAL SECTIONS
WATER FLOWS SCHEME INPUTS/OUTPUTS
WATERFLOWS MAP
WATERFLOW SECTION
1 The term refers in the thesis to the water network in its multiple surface and underground liquid forms. It does try to shift the paradigm from the normalized perception that defines clear limits between river water, in motion, and the ground, solid and firm. 2 In latin arte factum, the term refers to a specific objet whose functioning and meaning are autonomous and reflect a specific purpose.
[01]
[02]
Extending water representation to its space occupation in section, as in reality to soil depth, we are invited to metaphorically participate to the search for lost water (búsqueda del agua perdida). Understanding Copiapó river basin landscape in its complex system of superficial and underground liquid form, we can be able to improve our place comprehension in terms of hydric system. The abstract model along with photo material allows us to generate analogies between visibile drought and the involved landscape stratas. The installation aims finally to contribute to the current paradigm shift from water to wetness being “everywhere before being water somewhere”.3 In the artefacto, the thin steel wires of mallacuífera visibilize water flow as an autonomous mesh in which over-exploitation of the resource, mainly in the central sectors, causes water flow decrease towards the sea, where only 1/4 of the through flow reaches the beginning of the river route. Black steels sheets expose rocky basement conformations, while five jars with soil samples submerged in water proportionally to each sector flow, materialize the different permeabilities that characterize the geological units of the basin.
[03]
[04]
[05]
[06]
[07]
[08]
Mathur, da Cunha (2014), Design in the Terrain of Water, Applied Research + Design Publishing, University of Pennsilvanya, School of Design.
2
[09]
[01] SECTOR I [02] SECTOR II [03] SECTOR II [04] SECTOR II [05] SECTOR III [06] SECTOR III [07] SECTOR IV [08] SECTOR IV [09] SECTOR IV [11] SECTOR VI [10] SECTOR V
RÍO JORQUERA ANTIGUO ACUEDUCTO AMOLANAS EMBALSE LAUTARO RÍO COPIAPÓ ESTANQUE DOMÈSTICO PLANTA AGUAS CHAÑAR -COPIAPÓ DIGA CANAL DE RIEGO ARTEFACTO DE MONITOREO ESTANQUE URBANO P. COLGADA ESTANQUE AGUA DE MAR - B.I. RÍO COPIAPÓ - CARRETERA 5
[10]
[11]
10 Fue sin embargo a lo largo de ese 4,4esimo día de los famosos 22, que el señor Viento estaba arriba de esa muy modesta llanura verdosa, un poco inclinada, y el charlar de ranas lo hizo confuso, pues irritado, siguiendo enojado, entonces así histéricamente golpeado, tal de empezar como loco a girar y girar y girar y girar...
Casa inconclusa
Un aburridìsimo cuento de unas ranas y un techo
2019 Project TES MARQ Proff. Patricio Mardones Emilio Marin Invited Prof. Salvador Macìas w//
Fue con esa inefable potencia, que tenía el abursonido tipico de quien sufre de soledad porque vive en una capa de mundo donde los amigos desaparecen a placer, justificando la prisa por irse con la excusa de la corriente contraria, que el marido gruñón de la señora Brisa se fue al los 8 continentes ( 5 limitados y 3 infinitos) para destruir todo los más firme posible y atrapar en su loco torbellino nuevos, forzados, hilarantes compañeros de charlas y llevarlos a ese aburridisimo lugar sin sentido...
2019 Arquicuento [short story] TES MARQ Proff
Patricio Mardones Emilio Marin
Natalia Moroni Conzuelo Segal Gonzalo Subiabre Tomas Perez Simon Frey Fue exactamente en el Abucientos, ese célebre instante durado siglos, bajo un techo conectado por escaleras sueltas, en un lugar arido el Lunes y lluvioso los días más Aburridos, que se podía encontrar de vez en cuando una familia de ranas, a la cuales gustaba enormemente llamar casa un pequeño charco de agua formado en la esquina más baja de la explanada terrosa… Fue allí que la alegre pandilla de anfibios llegó por primera vez el día Marburrido, cuando un gigantesco balón de mar caió sobre ese cubierta de deseos, así que entonces todas las gotas de los innumerables océanos que reposan sobre la piel del planeta pudieron lanzarse de lleno a la punta extrema norte de la superficie flotante de mil colores, y el refugio de las ranitas apareció de repente, como esos regalos inesperados típicos de los Marburridos… Fue también desafortunadamente un tiempo, esa semana muy larga de 22 días, que queda solitamente entre el verano y el otoño, cuando los brazos del sol no quieren regresar atrás de las nubes, en ese lugar muy tristo que está entre un corazón y una espada de humo, bueno, en esa larguísima parada de tiempo, decidió intervenir, cansado del graznar ranesco que venía de el muro tumbado de los sueños, un impertinente devorador de aire, a lo cual normalmente el aire tampoco gusta, tal de probar gusto en escupirlo a toda fuerza sobre lagunas y montañas…
Fue en la lista de posibles candidatos extraños que la mama Atmosfera le había sugerido agarrar fuerte en el tornado, que el caballero vaporoso alérgico al croar el- igió cinco de los más chismosos animales que habitan las ciudades de árboles de esa curva espacio-temporal que los hu- manos se divierten a llamar realidad, y así se encontraron juntos un mono, un ciervo, una jirafa, una garza y un conejo, sentados sobre bancos de niebla, cada uno de la mano con su amiga plantita, en un momento de fortísimo climax en lo cual, como en todos los cuentos aceptables se quiere más o menos que suceda, de verdad no pasó nada, justamente aburrido, dado que los nuevos amigos estaban girando a los 2467642 km/h y no se podía hablar de nada por los gritos lejanos de voces humanas... Fue lo inesperado por todos cuando, al atardecer del día veintiuno de esa aburridisima semana sin viento, la furiosa tormenta llegó finalmente al enigmatico tríptico del techo con escaleras sueltas, y esa llanura árida y muy trista, a la cual siempre dijeron aburrida, se convirtió en un lugar de fiesta, justo por la fecha del Dominjubiloso, a em- pezar el nuevo siglo Jubilocientos, lo que dicen un instante lar- guísimo de agua, vegetales y conversaciones bestiales...
I
II
III
12
“We have to mess up before ordering because, when the disorder is maxi- mum, it is easier (and creative) to bring order, while when the disorder is minimal we are reduced to re-ordering, that is to look for what is messy compared to a order already imposed [...] ” (A. Morello, Su Munari, p.19)
Free writing emerges as an autonomous project instrument. Interpretation or misunderstanding of design intentions lead to a creative interpretation of drawings, with the verbal language constituting the main representational support. Everything which should not occur according to project functional aims finds space of freedom in the narrative voice describing what is happening in new irreverent stories inside the projects.
Arquicuentos irreverentes 2019 short stories based on TES MARQ workshops Proff. Patricio Mardones Emilio Marin
Storytelling works as a design tool to the extent it explores the limits of the well-defined architectural object inhabiting parallel worlds, where reality rules are questioned. At the same time aiming to give new significance to design material and expanding the range of use scenarios, each arquicuento tries to emphasize the contradiction of the design product, allowing a critical perspective on project development.
Invited proff. Salvador Macìas Shingo Masuda Nicolas Norero
Abstract Arquicuentos irreverentes take architectural projects result of various academic workshops to stretch their conceptual dimension through paradox and ambiguity. This operation is considered as a useful game1 which allows to consider project constructed reality as clearly separated from real life, defined by autonomous rules but suitable for freedom of action. In its double balance between established rules and unpredicted results the game emerges as a method to manage latent contradictions of the project itself. Through a simple intellectual exercise as de-contextualization of the its bases, the project unmask its paradox: “the claim - mostly false - to state what the future will be like, by inscribing it in a form which though still needs to undergo exchanges and deviations. [...] It needs to present the future he wants to determine in the form of the past” 2
I La casa de los colores libres II Un aburridìsimo cuento de unas ranas y un techo III Los eventos del tiempo durmido IV Los pinos olvidados de Valparaìso
The intention to disrupt design rules arises from trusting the potential of the ludic approach to cultivate critical purposes. As long as reinventing situations allows the project to abandon its social-normalized aims, it “bypasses the simple search for approval from the subjects involved in the process, and aims further, to unhinge and undermine the very system within which the project fights for its legitimacy.”
Fragments of project reality allow to blur the rigid limits of descriptive geometry, so as to break that rigid sense of measure which constrains design possibilities in a detailed plan definition. In this way, a discussion can spread out about non-realized spaces as a potential framework for further testing of unexpected narratives, with the protagonist of architecture spaces being wild animals, plants and stylized human silhouettes. This characters no longer inhabit paper as common accepted representation of future reality, but as autonomous beings bringing a slightly provocative message. Putting spotlights on Non human imagined existences constitutes the starting point for an open critical discussion. Every arquicuento aims to be a moment of suspension, it comes from a naive interpretation of a single project element to reveal its related cliché and trace a path for alternative stories. Trying to re-interpretate Bruno Munari’s design research, surprise and fun are the key tools to restore discovery pleasure as non linear conceptual path in the definition of space through design. Here the game is considered as a “regulated activity which has its end in itself and which does not aim at a useful modification of reality”. (Benveniste, The Game as Structure,1947, Deucalion magazine). The game takes place in the world, but ignores the condition of the real since it abstract them. It is useless and has a formal, regulated character.
1
Armando and Durbiano, Teoria del progetto architettonico. Dai disegni agli effetti, Carocci Editore, Roma 2017, p. 221-2.
2
Felicioni, Arhcitectura ludens: Una fenomenologia del gioco dell’architettura e dell’architettura del gioco, tesi di laurea magistrale, PoliMi, 2019.
2
IV
14
Temporary practices in public space
Abstract
a critical discussion on Berlin dynamics in the early 2000s within a design perspective through the study case of Raumlabor Berlin
Focusing on temporary practices in public space implies a reflection on the dimension of time in relation to design. Time can be considered a concurrent factor in design practice, its fourth dimension. In a mutating reality characterized by instability and rapidity, the temporary object inserted in public space catalyzes urban transformations in the very time gap when a specific related event occurs. Mutating from micro-architecture to autonomous pavilion, from mobile house to fetish object, sometimes appearing as a parasite in a disused building, the temporary object is able at the same time to arise architectural questions and to express a political message.
2017 Bachelor Thesis PoliMi Prof.
Carlo Peraboni
The very short time gap between design and users feedbacks after construction allows a quick adaptation to the context where it intra -acts1. In metropolitan contexts, several are the examples when its physical presence, as long as it persists in collective memory, and its connected use welcomes political demands as a mutating challenge. This occurred in Berlin since the early 2000s, when the so publicized great urban development post Wall Fell had changed the city image via iconic project like Postdamer Platz but left a large amount of urban voids and disused buildings, as well as maintained unemployment at higher levels than in other European capitals. In this context of Berlin city politics unbalance between urban districts, the phenomenon of temporary occupation by individuals or free citizen associations in not clearly defined urban fragments gradually became more pervasive and economically relevant.2 [Public space scenario, Urban Catalyst, Berlin 2030 strategy, source: https:// www.urbancatalyst.de/de/projekte/berlinstrategie-2030.html.]
The beginning of the new century inaugurated the controversial involvement of this anarchical space occupation practices and connected symbolical architecture in the construction of the official political discourse on Berlin as a “creative city�3. The instrumental engagement of spontaneous and autonomous citizen use of public spaces in the promotion of Berlin as a new attractive pole for wealthy young professionals in Europe raised complex questions. In particular, a strong debate emerged about urban design role in this conflict of interests between gentrification phenomena and resilient appropriation of increasing discharged spaces. Several design studios in Berlin started focusing their research and design practice on how to negotiate topdown and bottom-up demands in the continuous use and transformation of residual spaces. The case of Raumlabor Berlin studio turns out to be a paradigm intent to visibilize urban conflicts in spaces with a heavy political charge. The thesis proposes therefor a critical review on Palats der Republik and Tempelhofer Feld examples as temporary use interventions aimed both to allow multiple scenarios in the redefinition of DDR historical symbols and to propose a long term plan for collective participation in urban design. The notion of intra-ction finds resonance in the work of Karen Barad, who contrasts it with the concept of interaction. The author describes a world that is somewhat unstable due to its inability to define moments and spaces, but full of precise phenomena produced through the mutual contamination between materials and biological entities.
1
2 Colomb (2011) Staging the new Berlin; Place marketing and the politics of urban reinvention post-1989, London, ed. Routledge. 3 Bader, Bialluch et al. (2008) Gentrification and the creative class in Berlin-Kreuzberg in Porter ,Shaw (2008), Whose urban renaissance? (pp. 93–102). London, ed. Routledge. [Next page: Berlin Schwarzplan, 2016, LandesArchieve Berlin; Urban Catalyst studio, Berlin temporary uses weather map, Urban Pioneers, 20042005 in Urban Catalyst website]
16
Explorare
No island is an island La rinascita dell’isola di Pietole
No island is an island
2017 Public Exhibition PoliMi Design Workshop III Proff. Paolo Citterio Chiara Lanzoni Carlo Togliani w//
Sanare
Filippo Nani Alessandro Peja
Other participants Sofia Dal Soglio Veronica Rigonat Francesco Papotti Phui Phoung Ngoc Alessia Tassi Cecilia Sacchetti Elisa Zanaglio
Exponere
Habitare
[Mantua e il Forte di Pietole, rappresentazione inchiostro su carta, ca 1850, Archivio Biblioteca Teresiana, Mantova, Italia]
The historical military complex of Forte di Pietole arises from a thick cover of vegetation in the border strip of Mantova urban area, in the recognized birthplace of famous classic author Virgilio1 . The hypogeum spaces which constitute the skeleton of this early XIX original brick structure have colonized in the last two centuries 22 hectares of Mincio river wetland. The site appears in the contemporary age as an abandoned island. Despite its location, not far from urban infrastructures, it is now sufficiently irrelevant as a military machine and hidden as a biodiversity reservoir to be forgotten by human community. If the concept of island has been historically normalized as a separate place, a microcosm with its own and distinct strength, Forte di Pietole’s complex cannot be reduced to this autonomous definition. To design the future of this cultural, technological and biological plural entity, thinking this island as the material representation of a new starting, a re-born and evoking the archetypical idea of the elsewhere, is useful. On the other hand, as long as No man is an island2, this landscape unite cannot be treated as a closed system. The project proposal starts with the consciousness that only within an open perspective on Forte di Pietole’s strata and meshes, multiples scenarios can emerge with this hybrid site becoming a wood cave, an ecological reservoir, an archeological park, a base camp for explorations, a wellness center for spiritual and physical regeneration or a virgilian island where to hang out the furniture for a continuous time voyage. The design for the Pietole island not island develops therefor a new environment where four main human activities take shape and evolve: explorare, sanare, exponere, habitare.
Publio Vergilius Maro was on of the most relevant poets of Roman Age for his high sense of art and for the influence he exerted during following centuries. It is considered the most complete and blunt interpreter of the historical moment which leads to the Augustus Empire foundation.
1
2 No man is an island is a essay from Thomas Merton, published in 1955. The title quotes a piece writing from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624) by poet John Donne (No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine…). The expression refers to the consciousness that every man is an integral component of humanity and cannot be considered if not in relationship with other human beings.
1
2
L’Isola di Pietole guided visits to the Fortress architectural exhibition w// PoliMi Polo di Mantova
1
Terra Bruciata 2 evocative dialogue by historian and author Carlo Lucarelli w//Teatro Minimo Mantova
La rinascita dell’isola di Pietole public event and lecture 2017 event site: https://www.parchiletterari.com/eventi-scheda.php?ID=01105 [Photos by Giuseppe Gradella]
19 A new access is proposed on the trace of the historic Austrian bridge, used in peacetime for a direct crossing of the system from the surrounding countryside. The external cycle path that runs alongside the cultivated fields directly serves the wellness area, even if the rest of the Virgilianeum3 is closed. The Visitor Centre consists not only in the amorphous building imposing its asymmetry as an invitation to the wellness program, but also in the soil cut which allows to expose the morphology of the land. From the core of Rivellino Island, paths are proposed to reach the pile-dwelling system occupying Fossato Secco. This ancient so called dry moat, now paradoxically extremely humid, appears suitable for grafting biopiscine as introduced hotspots for surrounding wetland. The light wooden boxes hosting showers, bathrooms and saunas are placed at the height of existing historical galleries in the adjacent thin brick walls.
Sanare 2017 Project PoliMi Design Workshop III Proff. Paolo Citterio Chiara Lanzoni Carlo Togliani w//
Elisa Zanaglio
Project
“Dicite, quandoquidem in molli consedimus herba: et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos, nunc frondent silvae, nunc formosissimus annus.” (Virgilio, Bucoliche, Ecloga III, 39 a.C.) “Sing, since you’ve sat on the soft grass, and now every field, now every tree sprouts, now the woods are covered with foliage, now the season is more beautiful.” (Virgilio, Bucoliche, Ecloga III, 39 BC)
The humid atmosphere of Rivellino Island in Forte di Pietole military complex calls for imaging an architectural skeleton for physical and spiritual well-being. Several characters make it an introverted and soundproofed corner of the landscape: the distance from the Fortress core and the difficulty to access due to Robinia pseudoacacia1 colonization and the extremely complex topography, exacerbated by an explosion in 1917. The Rivellino island, defined by the recurring structure of the bastion, rises between the dry moat, an expanse of undergrowth and locust which is now not totally practicable, and the wet moat, with a topography reshaped by the organic and structural material poured out after the explosion. The project solves the connection with the northern part of the Fort with a wooden-structure walkway inserted between the exploded Poterna2 and its bank.
The basement of the warehouses is used for the insertion of a long water mirror, so that Rivellino Tip can be perceived in its imposing volume. Here the wellness path, between the partially destroyed tunnel and the undergrowth, takes on the wild character typical of the Fort. The eastern section of Fossato Secco is similarly occupied by a pile-dwelling system, more open towards the bastion and dedicated to the care of the body through nutrition. The wellness path finally re-emerges through the existing vaulted gallery, above Rivellino Island’s land.
1 Robinia pseudoacacia is a plant of the Fabaceae family, also known as Leguminosae, native to North America and naturalized in Europe and other continents. It has colonized Mincio river ecosystem in the last century. It is used as construction material in extremely humid condition. 2 Poterna is the name used in Forte di Pietole’s XVIII representations for an architectural element with defensive function. It is formed by a door, often hidden or masked, which opens onto the outer wall as a defensive allowing sorties towards the enemy camp. 3 Virgilianeum is a collective neologism from the design laboratory to refer to a place far from any sort of celebration with which it was often abused, it is a sublimation or rather a potential estrangement of Virgil’s literary legacy (Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneid), geography of a possible garden of delight for man’s physical and mental refreshment.
PUBLICATIONS
22
Expanded lenses Urban project is not often able to lean on material city system easily. XXI century European metropolis appears than as a fragment patchwork of formally consolidated old ancient cores, peripheral fabric with predetermined uses and residual pieces, not defined cutouts. In the polycentric European territory characterized by continuously emerging of common needs in an extended urban pattern, uneven phenomena split arise seeking to solve small-scale urban problems shared by millions of citizens. 1
Orientamenti Urbani 2019 Book PoliMi as Land Repair Lab Coauth. Lucia Guaitoli Carlo Peraboni EAN 9788891630681 Maggioli Editore
Photography can play a key role in capturing unique situations which talk about much more large scale issues in the contemporary European city. The persisting question on how city make its inhabitants live better or worse pushes the need to observe closely its dynamics.
Abstract The text returns the results of a research activity aimed at investigating on how urban design, as a tool in the construction of the city and its transformation, changes in the light of the new needs emerging in the city. The aim of the text is to compare different European experiences, identifying how and if urban projects question the ways in which extended metropolis are inhabited and perceived in the early XXI century. Though the question might see ambitious, chosen research tools, such as problem association with lemmas and pictures, are elementary.
Navigating through the urban form complexity means to move in search of experiences, projects, interventions that have tried to question themselves on these issues. Seeking orientations in the intricate urban fabric also means striving to recognize the nature of the constitutive elements in fragmented and differentiated plots, searching for the values that the urban project expresses today. At the same time it means to recognize their potential and aptitudes in order to be able to act consciously within the processes of urban transformation.
The examination of the lexicon used by the project, of its syntax and its constitutive lemmas, made it possible to define new interpretative categories, highlighting the dense web of relationships the urban system expresses today. Reflecting on these issues means asking ourselves about the nature of the project and the profound meaning of its reference paradigm
The structure of the text is crossed by an ordered sequence of images illustrating ordinary urban situations. The organization of these images proposes a succession of shots aimed at showing how new, complex and more articulated are the conditions of everyday life, where the constitutive differences of the urban environment are manifested with increasing evidence.
Empirical discovery of surroundings through 35mm eye level lens allows, via capturing reality, a process of osmosis. The visual approach of photography leaves the explorer as a part of the world he is seeking to represent, with its events condensed in two dimensional material shaped by light.2 Photos become the evidence of a continuous wonder, an aimless stroll able to construct a new use habits for the city, recognizing its emerging identities and implied social demands in a new praxis. 3 Portraying the city through its scattered situations allows a personal interpretation which gives space to an infinity of imaginary worlds. 4At the same time its potential emerges for the viewer as a vehicle to still be aware of everything which occurs close but concerns larger systems. A recollection of rapid interactions with single events tends to introduce a larger conversation on European city as a common soil of conflictual desires. Venturi , In Between Cities, Ed. Mondadori, 2004. Valtorta , In Between Cities, Ed. Mondadori, 2004. 3 Jodice, Cartoline dagli altri spazi, Milano : Edizioni Motta, 1998. 4 Ghirri, Pensando a un’immagine necessaria, 1987 in Costantini, Chiaramonte, Niente di antico sotto il sole: scritti e immagini per un’autobiografia,Torino,1997. 1 2
PHOTOSHOOTINGS explication of why are u fucking doing this and what tell us THIS
24
Ever Life Design 2017 Stand @Salone del Mobile Milano [photoshooting + editing]
25
Raccagni Almatex 2017 Stand @Salone del Mobile Milano [photoshooting + editing]
26
Onoya Sushi 2017 Restaurant in Mantova city centre [photoshooting + editing] for//
Archiplan Studio
COLLABORATIONS [COMPLETE LIST] [ongoing] [realized] [preliminary draft] [realized] [preliminary draft] [realized] [realized] [construction phase] [realized] [realized] [realized] [realized] [realized] [realized] [production phase] [realized] [realized] [preliminary draft] [preliminary draft] [preliminary draft] [preliminary draft] [preliminary draft] [preliminary draft]
2020 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2018-2019 2018 2018 2018-2019 2018 2018 2018 2018 2018 2018 2018 2017 2017 2017 2017
TF Industrial offices Becycle Fitness Centre Garage L Casa Delta//Azùl Casa K Casa G Una baranda Le piazze di Soliera Depto Polonia Cubi Uolli Casa MG Terrazza M Inserti // Efelidi variations Arredo Ufficio Intertecnica Shop via Roma Via Bachelet Caseificio Nazza Camp ArcheoMuseo del Forcello Casa con piscina Casa LE Villa Bettanin o delle Trombe
@Brescia @Düsseldorf @Santiago @Frutillar @Frutillar @Santiago @Frutillar @Modena @Santiago @Carpi // @Mantova @Mantova // // @Mantova @Porto Mant. @Pieveottoville @Carpi @Bagnolo S.Vito @Busto Arsizio @Mantova @Mantova
[IT] [DE] [CL] [CL] [CL] [CL] [CL] [IT] [CL] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT] [IT]
offices renovation gym spaces small cycling box private house private house interior design interior design public space project apartment renovation small garage box desk lamps serie house renovation private terrace furniture design furniture design shop renovation house renovation office building renovation outdoor basketball field public museum house renovation house renovation ancient villa renovation
w// Studio Peli Architettura w// DRAA + Götz Bilchev Architekten w// DRAA Arquitectura w// DRAA Arquitectura w// DRAA Arquitectura w// DRAA Arquitectura w// DRAA Arquitectura w// Azero Studio w// DRAA Arquitectura w// Elisa Zanaglio w// Elisa Zanaglio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Assonometria Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio w// Archiplan Studio
28 30
29 32
35 36 37
33
28
An interior continuity: constructing transitions
BeCycle Düsseldorf 2019-2020 Fitness Center Interior renovation [working draw. + specifications] w//
DRAA Arquitectos Architecture Götz&Bilchev Jonas Hofmann Design
Ig site: https://www.instagram.com/becycledus/?hl=es
Becycle Düsseldorf Fitness studio absorbs design guidelines from Becycle Berlin project1 as a contemporary interpretation of wellness spaces. Seeking not to drastically oppose itself from surrounding urban environment, the gym receives decisive aethetics of urban facades to decline it in health, fitness and wellness function. “Whereas traditionally gyms have pursued a more neutral or even aseptic atmosphere, our proposal follows a contemporary spirit of uniqueness and simplicity by acknowledging the less pristine and natural side of things.” The atmosphere clients had in mind when imaging the first project served both sportive indoor activities and characteristic Berlin clubbing culture. Moving from the capital to Düsseldorf another opportunity arose to renovate an existing ground floor to host the mythical figure of urban nomad individual, aiming to find not only equipped rooms for sport, but also interstitial spaces for meeting other like-minded people. The project challenge was therefor both to define new consistent spaces for previously tested attractions, such as the Black Box,2 the yoga room, the bathrooms in dark materials and the vegan-friendly café, but also to mend the fragmented layout through transitional spaces. These aimed to blur the detachment from outwards facing Food and Drinks area to single rooms, defining a material continuity in which to feel welcomed. A part from the Black Box, existing ceiling is kept with visible air condition pipes and electric cables both to ensure higher interior space and to facilitate maintenance. The use of continuous wood and anthracite ceramic covered walls allowed to stimulate orientation maintaining the existing irregular layout. 1 Fitness centre project in Berlin (2016); online publication: https://www.archdaily. com/876529/becycle-gotz-plus-bilchev-architekten-plus-lien-tran-plus-draa 1 Architect interview, Ibidem. 3 The ride room, acoustically detached from its surrounding as to allow DJ sets to be played with deep base of Berlin nightclubs for ecstatic ride experiences. Its light show, sound and sophisticated displacement ventilation system were custom designed for BECYCLE to enhance the dynamics and feeling of movement on static spinning bikes.
29
Una baranda [riddle//choose one] 2019 railing for a private house Interior design [working draw. + specifications] w//
DRAA Arquitectos
Baranda means handrail in spanish. In this case it was the latest element to be designed in a private house in South of Chile sourrounded by ferny trees. The interiors surfaces as exposed concrete and pine beams seemed reluctant to receive another cachty material at their side. After various site visits the answer to the latest project question was still floating in studio’s conversations. The attempts to define its destiny keeping the virtual model as a reference were unsuccessful. When the house was to be completed with doors and windows, an answer was needed by maestros de obra ( craftmen and workers) to finally give to iron manufacturers the working drawings and the verdict on the color. As soon as the final idea was born after an exhausting project gestation and sent to the client for final approval, he had already sketchy on the house’s rough wall how the baranda was going to be. Final detailed drawings were produced in a while right after and sent to the obra (construction site).
[Photo by Nicolas Del Rio]
30
Casa Delta 2018-2019 Private house Realized [modeling + working drawings + site visiting + specifications] w//
DRAA Arquitectos
Delta House, which I like to call Casa Azul because of the brilliant tone of blu chosen by the future owner at a tipping point of building construction, is a single family dwelling in the surroundings of Frutillar, South of Chile. A couple of retired doctors from Santiago were willing to spent their retirement in the gentle hills in front of LLaquihue Lake and Volcano Osorno. Large spaces and additional rooms were needed to host grandkids from the Metropolis during holidays. The site was identified in an highly pendent parcel only accessible by a recent dirty road. The almost bare ground dedicated to grazing and the marked inclination made it consistent to focus the design on the visual relationship between the new volume, surrounding topography and the far presence of Mr Osorno vulcano. A concrete based sunk into the ground was designed both as the core of low level terraza and as the support for higher steel structure constructing the upper level and the roof. As both the form and inclination of cover surface was intended to face Northern prevailing winds, interior spaces consequently articulate in a L composition with the 90° angled triangle vertex opening the main room to external landscape.
32
Le piazze di Soliera 2019 Public competition + commission Construction site in progress [images makings for media campain] w//
Azero Studio
Between intra et extra moenia The small town of Soliera in the low Pianura Padana has in its historical centre the core of a urban texture mostly developed outside the medieval walls during the 50’s. For this reason a strident dichotomy appears between intra-moenia1 space, with its ancient materiality coherent with site clay production, and the unstructured road system linking the brick ancient walls with the surrounding single family house pattern. As a need emerges to mend the historical centre borders, the project seeks to express a new collective identity as a negotiation between ancient and recent public spaces. A multiple polos strategy has been proposed then to connect the extra-moenia accesses to central Piazza Sassi. Most ancient buildings such as Castello Campori, Chiesa di San Giovanni and the municipality has been treated as fulcra of an expanded pedestrian surface able to extend outside the ancient walls.New paving works as a continuous stretch of pebbles, with ramps and elevated seats of brick generating rest areas.
Long lines of endemic species plants evoke the surrounding rural landscape on the sides of the early XX century plastered facades. Starting from Piazza Sassi, the project tries to untangle the knots of the current road network, generating warm material voids with a homogeneous paving in Pietra di Luserna. The Piazze (plazas) appear as an extension of portico’s spaces, which traditionally served as protected corridors against the deeply wet and humid climate of Pianura Padana. Working deeply on the current blurred foreheads in the North ( via Nenni and via Grandi) and North-Ovest ( Via Grandi and Via IV Novembre) the strict limit between outside and inside stretches out in a gentle opening, questioning the normalized distinction between the notion of historical centre and suburbs. Intra moenia is a Latin phrase which means “between the walls”, that is “within the city walls”. It is usually used to indicate what happens inside a building, or more properly, what happens inside a community.
1
33
ArcheoMuseo del Forcello 2017 Territorial archeological park Preliminary project [site survey + preliminary project] w//
Archiplan Studio
Educational Archeo-museum The Archeological Park of Forcello, in the province of Mantova, Italia, was officially born in 2006 with contributions by European Union as a territorially extended system of ancient Etruscan sites, the largest discover in the Northern side of Po river. As the archeological excavation continues since 1983, the large scale project aim was to make visible the results of a research in constant evolution. Level 1
Level 0
In Bagnolo San Vito some archeological finds were discovered in private agricultural fields occupying soils between Andes and San Biagio, ancient villages which classical tradition relates to roman great poet Virgilio1. Mending the traces of pre-roman presence in the low Pianura Padana, the protected archeological site occupies nowadays a 14 hectares area. The complex cycle system connecting the river Mincio ecosystem to Mantova city and Po’ river served in the last two decades as a circulatory system, sustaining tourism and opening basso Mantovano rural landscape identity to urban community and foreign visitors.
Since the site for the Archeological Museum building was identified in the border between San Biagio residential pattern and the entrance to the Park, an architectural project was asked by the Municipality to work both as a entrance to the protected reserve and as a casket for archeological finds exhibition. The proposed composition answer therefore to the necessity of a large distributing space as visitor centre, an exhibition hall and educational spaces as primary school laboratories. Design choices are taken to emphazise the horizontal character of surrounding rural landscape: a transparent ground floor hosts congress and lectures rooms, tightening a visual connection with the outsides. A gloomy atmosphere is expected to permeate the second floor double height space, where the empty space will host finds and interactive panels. The roof appearance interprets the primitive house structure in its form, while recalling the emerging bronze teknĂŠ2 of IX B.C. in its metal grid coating. Ibidem [p.*] teknĂŠ is an ancient greek philosophical term referring to skill, professional expertise, mastery of rules of a trade, scientific knowledge of the causes thaht justify the rules of an art. (from Tullio de Mauro, 2016, Nuovo vocabolario di base della lingua italiana, ed. Internazionale) 1 2
35
Casa MG 2017 House renovation//furniture design Realized [site survey + working drawings + specifications + site visits] w//
Archiplan Studio
A recently built single family villa in Mantova surroundings is contaminated through interior design to aswer new owners’ sense of intimacy. The house belongs to a pointlike settlement system, spread in italian cities suburbs during the last 30 years. In this uniform urban pattern of real estate matrix, single buildings’ isolation makes it difficult to find site-specific characters and express it through external remodelation. The project focuses therefore in redyfining interior hierarchies and surfaces. This way a spatial simplification is sought to generate a continuous sense of familiarity in wood and stone use. At the ground floor, internal partitions have been demolished and furniture can construct new ritual dynamics of livings.The upper floor maintains the existing distribution layout except for the redefinition of the main bathroom. [Photos by Giuseppe Gradellla]
36
Terrazza M 2018 Terrace renovation Realized [site survey + working drawings + + site visit + help in construction] w//
Archiplan Studio
No peculiar desire was expressed by the client but to get the stricly precise number of pieces for a wooden removable pavement and bench for his apartment terrace in front of Mantova San Francesco Church and canal. As the budget was limited and the need very urgent, one small truck load of ash precut strips came to be the only available material. The simple request was the occasion to test relief accuracy in site survey. Designing pieces were accuratly combinated both to solve pre-existent floor irregularity and to exhalt longitudinal push of the outer surface.The assembly process was handmade together with the client. [Photos by Nicola Pianori]
37
Inserti
Efelidi // variazioni
2017 Office Furniture Interior design [site survey + working drawings + + specifications]
2018 Wooden tables and furniture Design
w//
w//
Archiplan Studio
Designers were committed by an office owner both to follow building renovation and to provide custom-made furniture to give a recognizable character to work anonymous spaces. Since existing walls renovation was not expected neither supported by the budget, single objects have been commissioned to express a sense of familiarity and warmth contrasting the necessary cold lights. Wood strips have been thus combined with glass, polycarbonates and steel to create formal continuity between partitions and tables. Every element is the result of a research process on the detail through craftman’s direct collaboration. [Photos by Jacopo Rettondini]
[working drawings + specifications] Archiplan Studio
Ephelides are the spots that arise as skin defects, but can give face elegance and beauty. Efelidi is therefor a table in white-plated poplar plywood with dry-jointed transverse planks, which give the top a great material and visual lightness. Designed by Archiplanstudio for Designmood, it has been constructed on the reverse side: the internal laminate is exposed, while the lamina is ribbed. Starting from Efelidi commercialized design piece, variations are proposed for various office elements not to impose the same construction peculiarity but to apply the same principle in unhinging the normalized way of using the wood pieces in furniture production. [Photos by Design Mood]
38
Who is I?1 challenging anthropocentric umwelt
1
on-going short film project
https://vimeo.com/491385741
11-2020 All not specified images have been directly produced or coproduced by the author. Š
Alessia Valenti Junior Architect Bach. Architecture @PoliMi Mag. Arquitectura @UC 22 /12 /1995 Carpi (MO) | Italy contacts: (+39) 3313302849 (+56) 947760998 alessiavalenti@mail.polimi.it avalenti@uc.cl alessiavalenti22@gmail.com