Architecture Portfolio _ Alessio Giannini by alessiogiannini_

ALESSIO GIANNINI 2014-2020

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CURRICULUM VITAE

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WORKS AND COMPETITIONS

MEDIUM RISE LIVING Metropolitan building in Turin TU Munich - prof. Stephen Bates (Sergison Bates) and Bruno Krucker winter semester 2016-17 A SCHOOL IN THE PARK Civic center, park and school complex in Parma 2 phases competition - 2nd price - april 2020

BRIDGING COMMUNITIES Urban regeneration of a former military area in Bologna 2 phases competition - 2nd price - june 2020 CARRACCI SCHOOLS School complex in the hills of Bologna competition won - dec 2019

TOWARD AN ARCHITECTURE OF ENJOYMENT A“Social Condenser“ for the Metropolitan Area of Florence Master’s degree thesis - University of Florence - september 2019 prof. Fabrizio Rossi Prodi (RPA - Rossiprodi Associati)

BETWEEN THE STREET AND THE ROCKS Urban regeneration at the feet of Castelgrande in Bellinzona collaboration with Loris Lotti - EPFL Master Thesis with prof. Ortelli july 2020 CASA BELVEDERE Social housing in Florence UNIFI - prof. Fabrizio Rossi Prodi summer semester 2013-14

BIG FORM Large scale housing in Munich TU Munich - prof. Stephen Bates (Sergison Bates) and Bruno Krucker winter semester 2014-15

2013 - 2019

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI Masters in Architectu (5-year degree course Master Thesis in urban and architectural plan Final degree mark: 110 florence - italy

curriculum vitae

2015 - 2017

TECHNISCHE UNIVE 3 semesters - Erasmu Studio Krucker Bates, S munich - germany

ALESSIO GIANNINI GIANNINI ALESSIO DUCATION ION EEDUCAT

2013- 2019 - 2019 2013 UNIVERSITÀDEGLI DEGLISTUDI STUDIDIDIFIRENZE FIRENZE UNIVERSITÀ MastersininArchitecture Architecture Masters (5-yeardegree degreecourse) course) (5-year MasterThesis Thesisininurban urban Master andarchitectural architecturalplanning planning and Finaldegree degreemark: mark:110/110 110/110cum cumlaude laude Final florence- -italy italy florence

2015- 2017 - 2017 2015 TECHNISCHEUNIVERSITÄT UNIVERSITÄTMÜNCHEN MÜNCHEN TECHNISCHE semesters- Erasmus - Erasmusprogramme programme 3 3semesters StudioKrucker KruckerBates, Bates,Studio StudioHild. Hild. Studio munich- -germany germany munich 2013-2015 2013-2015 FACULTYCOUNSIL COUNSIL FACULTY Electedmember member Elected florence italy florence - italy

2005- 2010 - 2010 2005 SCIENTIFICBACCALAUREATE BACCALAUREATE SCIENTIFIC MajorininMaths, Maths,Physics Physics Major andInformation InformationTechnology. Technology. and Finalmark: mark:88/100 88/100 Final florence- -italy italy florence

OTHER ER OTH

EXPER IENCCES ES EX PERIEN MAR2021 2021- PRESENT - PRESENT MAR MORSCHERARCHITEKTEN ARCHITEKTEN MORSCHER

Architecturecompetition: competition:kindergarten kindergartenand and Architecture primaryschool schoolininOlten. Olten. primary bern- -switzerland switzerland bern SEP2020 2020- FEB - FEB2021 2021 SEP GUILLAUMEWICHT WICHTARCHITECTES ARCHITECTES GUILLAUME Architecturalsurveys surveysofofStStPrex PrexCastle. Castle. Architectural Preliminarydesign designstudies studieson ondwellings dwellingsinin Preliminary Lausanne,LaLaNeuveville Neuvevilleand andFribourg. Fribourg. Lausanne, neuveville , bern- -switzerland switzerland lalaneuveville , bern

NOV2019 2019- AUG - AUG2020 2020 NOV TIARSTUDIO TIARSTUDIO Architecturecompetitions: competitions:school schoolcomplexes complexes Architecture andpublic publicbuildings buildingsininBologna, Bologna,Parma, Parma, and Merano.Involvement Involvementininfinal finaldesign designprojects. projects. Merano. florence- -italy italy florence MAR- JUN - JUN2018 2018 MAR NUVOLABBARCHITETTI ARCHITETTIASSOCIATI ASSOCIATI NUVOLA internship internship Achitecturecompetition: competition:Barilla Barillaexhibition exhibition Achitecture pavilion.Preliminary Preliminarydesign designproject projectofofurban urban pavilion. publicspaces spacesininBernex Bernex(Geneva) (Geneva)and andfor fora a public meetinghall hallininFlorence. Florence. meeting florence- -italy italy florence

ANGUAGES LLANGUAGES

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SCIENTIFIC BACCAL Major in Maths, Physics and Information Techn Final mark: 88/100 florence - italy

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Observing Observing my hometown hometown of Florence Florence Observing my my hometown of of Florence inspired inspired and nurtured nurtured my my dream to to become inspired andand nurtured my dream dream to become become an an architect. My My studies and travels travels offered offered an architect. architect. My studies studies andand travels offered TIARSTUDIO TIARSTUDIO me the opportunity opportunity to to broaden my cultural cultural TIARSTUDIO me me the the opportunity to broaden broaden my my cultural knowledge and to to analyse the the distinctiveness knowledge andand to analyse analyse the distinctiveness distinctiveness Architecture Architecture competitions: competitions: school school complexes complexes knowledge Architecture competitions: school complexes of of European urban urban landscapes. landscapes. These These form of European European urban landscapes. These formform and public public buildings buildings in in Bologna, Parma, Parma, andand public buildings in Bologna, Bologna, Parma, the repertoire from which which II draw I draw my my creative the repertoire repertoire fromfrom which draw my creative creative Merano. Merano. Involvement Involvement in in final design design projects. projects. the Merano. Involvement in final final design projects. inspiration. inspiration. In In addition to to passion my passion for for my inspiration. In addition addition to my my passion for my my florence florence -- italy - italy florence italy florence italy profession profession II have I have aa keen a keen interest interest in in writing, art profession have keen interest in writing, writing, art art history, history, independent independent films as as well as as jazz and MAR -- JUN - JUN 2018 2018 history, independent filmsfilms as well well as jazz jazz andand MARMAR JUN 2018 rock music. music. II also I also regularly regularly follow follow the news, news, rockrock music. also regularly follow the the news, NUVOLA NUVOLA B B ARCHITETTI ASSOCIATI ASSOCIATI NUVOLA B ARCHITETTI ARCHITETTI ASSOCIATI international international current current events events and political political international current events andand political internship internship internship issues. issues. issues. Achitecture Achitecture competition: competition: Barilla Barilla exhibition exhibition Achitecture competition: Barilla exhibition pavilion. pavilion. Preliminary Preliminary design design project project of of urban pavilion. Preliminary design project of urban urban public public spaces spaces in in Bernex (Geneva) (Geneva) and for public spaces in Bernex Bernex (Geneva) andand for aafor a meeting meeting hall in in Florence. meeting hall hall in Florence. Florence. florence florence -- italy - italy florence italy florence italy NOV 2019 2019 -- AUG - AUG 2020 2020 NOVNOV 2019 AUG 2020

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SEP 2014 2014 -- APR - APR 2015 2015 SEPSEP 2014 APR 2015

GERMAN GERMAN COURSES COURSES A1-C1 A1-C1 GERMAN COURSES A1-C1 Ludwig Ludwig Maximilian Maximilian Universität Universität Ludwig Maximilian Universität munich munich -- germany - germany munich germany munich germany

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VECTORWORKS VECTORWORKS

Medium-rise living Metropolitan building in Turin

Winter semester 2017 Technische Universität München

Professors: Bruno Krucker, Stephen Bates Location: Turin, Italy Program: Residential 6

Piazza Sabotino in Turin is a crowded crossroad 4 km far from the touristic spots of the city centre. It is a dense residential area, called Borgo San Paolo with a strong urban character. The late 19th century plan of the city is clearly visible, when the area was transformed from rural to industrial. Around Piazza Sabotino the“borgo” has developed as a spider web, differing from the historical grid structure of Turin. Buildings from the early 20th century give a valuable character to this city area recognizable by some ornamental details, mixed together with more recent higher ones from the 50s to the 70s. However the area is not as generous as the city centre: no porches, narrow pavements, little space for pedestrians. This place meets practical demands: bars for a coffee to go, bus, taxi and tramway stops as well as discount shops. The slot itself for this project is today occupied by a low-cost clothes shop with a rough industrial appearance.

A tower has an obvious pro: it offers a panorama. Enjoying all the views possible was the strategy at the base of the project: different levels of building set peculiar relationships with the city through diverse privileged views. Apartments at the lower floors have an eye connection to the square, while the higher ones have a further look over the city and towards the Alps in distance. The lobbies - instead of being simple corridors with no character - are the first tool that allows the residents to benefit of living in a medium-rise building: they face every three/four floors different orientations, offering always different views, imposing a change to the plans too, but still with fixed elements that gives a rule: staircases, shafts, elevators.

Designing a tower can be misleading, thinking to something outstanding, made out of glass and steel with wide and big openings. Here the concern was to think how we can build tall in Europe, preserving a peculiar european quality. A domestic feeling is reached reflecting a module for windows that makes solids prevails on voids. The use of brick , not intended in a tectonic way, but as a device that allows integration in the city, through its natural colour and texture. Some ornamental elements like coloured ceramic tiles, concrete lintels and sills, allow a variety of material within an homogenous facade. Concrete thin stringcourses are used to scale the building and give tools to measure its proportions. The groundfloor is also a special occasion to connect the building with the city, with porches, commercial space, a sheltered public space that allows a gradual transition into a more private space.

Plan 1:50 3th ﬂoor apartament

16 Plan 1:50 14th ﬂoor apartment

A school in the park

Civic center, park and school complex in Parma May 2020 teamwork at Tiarstudio

Location: Parma, Italy Program: School and Civic Centre 2 phases competition _ 2nd prize 20

1_ Masterplan concept: the civic axis

2_ Pedestrian and cycle walkways in the park 22

6_ The frame structure become a playful and versatile object for park users

3_ Ordering axes defines internal-external relationships

4_ The green park finds its continuity climbing up the building

5_ A frame structure allows a light extension of the building in the nature

Culture for all: school and civic centre

The school gym as a city athletic club centre

Labs for advanced learning 26

The school lobby as an exhibition ga

allery 27

School canteen and cafe

Public library and open labs 28

Double oriented (inside-outside) thea

atre for students and the community 29

In architectural drawings the wall section lines, define a building, the net and clear boundary between inside and outside, external and internal environment. In this project visual axis are the most significant signs: they project paths from the building to the surroundings. These lines represent flows of people, ideas, actions, relationships, visual glimpses, a strong bond between school and city, between park and classroom, between theory in class and experience outside. These lines put in a symbiotic relationship nature and architecture, a gesture that must be reflected as a stimulus and model for the formation of individuals. These lines shape the living in landscape of learning, in continuity with the wider urban environment and community life, overcoming the rigid box of a traditional school complex. The building was designed as a group of pavilions. It allows the direct correspondence of each volume with a macro use (school gym, offices, laboratories, library, auditorium and learning clusters), held together by the space distribution. The ground floor provides the functions of a civic center oriented towards the park, while the administrative and directional ones are towards east.

Such distribution ensures a separation of the entrances to the school building, depending on the different times of the day and on the users. The aim is to practically divide the inner space in order to ensure an adequate autonomy and independence between functions. The main entrance to the secondary school for pupils, teachers, collaborators and employees on school time takes place on the north side, (via Sidoli). In the afternoon and during weekends citizens can enter the civic centre directly from the park.

The school is comfortable in the rediscovered relationship of contiguity with nature, ecological in respect of the environment, civic as a tool of training pupils in responsible citizens, but also a civic center that promotes “Culture for All”. The design of the secondary school establishes a continuous visual and physical relationship with the park. The park itself steps inside the inner courtyard, sculpts other niches along the entire outer perimeter of the building, reaches further terraced surfaces. In a lightened and dematerialized version, the school with its steel structure continues and immerses itself in the vegetation, offering shelter and shade, becoming an element of the landscape itself. Similarly, the open space is marked by the same rhythm, identifying natural spaces of meditation for relaxation, socialization, for the outdoor didactics and for cultural and recreational events of the civic center.

MONDAY | 09:00 am Students take daily lessons in the classrooms. The gathering area hosts dedicated activities for students with learning difficulties while the common area is always available for studying and sociality.

WEDNESDAY | 11:30 am Students and teachers can use the common area as a large classroom where they can carry out educational projects in common with all the students in the cluster.

FRIDAY | 12:00 pm The outdoor area becomes a classroom extension of the first class, the second takes ordinary lessons in the classroom while the common area extends the third classroom allowing three different learning groups. 40

TUESDAY | 10:30 am The cluster is an open, walkable, accessible, friendly area in its entirety to promote integration between students, confrontation and sociality.

THURSDAY | at 15:00 An expert from a volunteer association tells the students of all classes about his experience through an informal group lesson.

Bridging Communities

Urban regeneration of a former military area in Bologna June 2020 teamwork at Tiarstudio

Location: Bologna, Italy Program: Office and Archive

2 phases competition _ 2nd prize President of the jury: Dominique Perrault 44

ALLIGNMENTS AND DISTANCES

A CONTINUOUS GREEN INFRASTRACTURE

In the Fossolo district on the eastern edge of Bologna, the transformation of the Perotti Barracks into a Revenue Agencies branch and archive becomes a more important gesture than a rationalization of land use or the modernization of an institutional building. It is an opportunity to draw a crossroad, a meeting place for social exchange, in coherence and integrated connection with the immediate context, permeable for the continuity of public spaces, a venue accessible to all its users, sustainable and ecological. The project responds to a wide variety of uses, mostly functional, yet contemplative, playful and open to all manifestations of a new will for a welcoming urbanity. The park, a green central spine, an area with a limit of unedifiability, expresses a clear and legible ordering rule. Around it, the architectural volumes align with the surrounding buildings, generating visual and physical connections in continuity with the existing public space. A single element seamlessly, extended parallel at via C. Marx, characterizes the project by redefining the road front. Its bridge-like configuration guarantees the permeability of the urban fabric and represents a link towards a renewed and rediscovered place. The building encloses in a single volume four different functions identifiable in the archive, offices, the square and the park entrance portal. The perspective of the project is to mend and reshape a fragment of the city giving new value to its original character and identity. Even a working-class district built with no particular aesthetics, but with clever and generous public spaces can be rediscovered as a quality to be preserved, as it was researched in this competition.

OPEN COURTS AND HEIGHT DIFFERENCES

A SAFE CAR-FREE URBAN ISLAND

2 50

1_ GROUND FLOOR 2_ TIPICAL PLAN 3_ EAST FACADE - REVENUE AGENCY 4_ SECTION - REVENUE AGENCY 51

1 _ Building structure

2 _ Braced steel frame structure with a reinforced concrete stiffening core 3 _ Steel frame structure made of two pairs of trusses 4 _ Simple steel frame structure

1 _ Exploded axonometry of the office

2 _ Exploded axonometry of the archive 3 _ Cross section - bridge/archive

Carracci schools

School complex in the Bolognese hills December 2019 teamwork at Tiarstudio

Location: Bologna, Italy Program: School

2 phases competition _ 1st prize

At the basis of the building concept there is the strong will to shape a volume that fits into the surrounding landscape with discretion and respect of the natural context, exploiting the natural slope of the land so to reduce the visual impact of the new building. The project site, situated in a protected landscape area, offers the occasion to keep the natural character of the area defining a school complex completely surrounded by greenery.

A simple, compact ,recognizable and proportionate volume composed by a U-shaped single element, fits inside the natural green slope.

The school is developed in three levels. The lowest level houses the spaces for physical education and that represents the base, partly counter-ground. Placing the shool gym at this level allows the extension of athletic activities to the outside, using the sports fields currently existing. The first floor, at the parking space, will host the elementary school, the agorà, the library, the canteen, administrative offices and teaching facilities.

The upper floor is able to accommodate the secondary school. Here, the central space is identified in the green courtyard that in the warmer seasons allows the extension of activities outdoor school. The organization of open spaces was a key element of the project. A “continuous walk” traces a circular path that connects flat spaces at different altitudes given by the existing morphology. These spaces are the outdoor classrooms, the vegetable gardens and the external agora.

The facades are designed in language that expresses a character that reflects the surrounding context both through the compositional choices and in the materiality. The school presents on the upper floors a lining in larch wood slats applied with a dry system and spaced horizontally by strips of gypsum. On the ground floor the façades are plastered to give remark to the base.

The school gym It is composed of a regulated basketball court with grandstands. It is closely connected through the large windows and the porch to the garden outside which can be regarded as its extension. The gym is directly accessible for students from the school and offers the possibility of its use in off-school hours thanks to the access on the northern front of the building.

the agora The two parallel wings of the U-shaped body are also connected via the agora. This wide distributive space is a double-height room where interdisciplinary activities can be carried out, such as extraordinary lessons, workshops or to expose the students’works. It is characterized by the presence of terraces that

connect the two upper levels of the building, lending themselves to be used as an auditorium, a space for school performances, open to the creativity of all students. Thanks to the large glass window the agora can be the stage of a natural arena created in the green slope equipped with blocks that act as seats and steps.

Construction system The will to achieve a porch on the ground floor and the presence of walls against the ground, led to the need to use at the ground and the first floors punctual frame structures in reinforced concrete. With the exception of the walls against the ground that will be in brick, the other infill walls of the reinforced concrete structure frame will be made with a lightweight frame system in non-structural wood. The second floor, totally above ground, is designed with wooden supporting X-lam panel system;

some perimeter walls with large windows will be realized with with beams and pillars in glued laminated wood and light frame infill in nonstructural wood. A foundation system is planned with a girder mat floor. This foundation mat will be equipped with an aerated crawl space through formwork; such system ensures dry conditions for the building. A bituminous foil will be placed on the entire surface of the concrete work in order to ensure against moisture, rising dump and any harmful gases from the ground.

Toward an architecture of Enjoyment

Master Thesis: A Social Condenser for the Metropolitan City of Florence September 2019 supervisor : prof Fabrizio Rossi Prodi co-supervisor : arch. Silvia Viviani Location: Firenze, Italy Program: Civic centre

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14 Projects of public spaces to reactivate the city outskirts

market square with a public canopy new playground for children safer railway underpass

square for the old“ borgo” outdoor sport facilities

railway overpass as a“pedestrian highway”connecting the two neighbourhoods replacement of a wide crossroad with a square new railway station

revamping an existing small square

pocket parks in the dense urban fabric the social condenser students square

new design for an existing unkempt public garden playful and illuminated footpath to the station

Aim of the project was to create a new centrality at the outskirts of the city of Florence. Transforming the urban physical space in a landscape meant to become a common good for the local community has as a trickle down effect the involvement of all the inhabitants in a collective experience of civil, cultural and social growth. This process rooted at the urban scale influences positively the social sphere. The result of such transformation is an uninterropted system of public spaces which enriches the neighbourhoods of site-specific smaller projects all connected to each other.

groundfloor

The social condenser itself is a built volume, yet it is a system of flows, of pedestrian paths that run all along the building: a place of encounters, of promenades, a lively place 24/7 in the neighbourhood. Like a public living room, where residents can read a book, see a performance, where they can play with their children. An architecture of the enjoyment, of leisure and free time, which condenses and stores inside social energy, and it spreads it back to the city. Game, sport, culture, conviviality are tools to develop a safer, more cohesive, living community. The social condenser plays the role of a massive infrastracture which hosts inside various functions: bars and restaurants, coworking stations, a gym, a library, a toy library, a theatre. It is a hinge around which the entire redevelopment turns and it is structured. The neighbourhoods interested by this intervention are “Il Neto” and “Padule”, two residential areas with a high concentration of social housings, mainly built following functionalist criteria between the 70s and the 90s. Altough the area has plenty of open, public and green spaces, their quality and liveliness are well below their real potential.

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first floor

The building becomes a playful object itself, offering roof gardens, sports grounds, climbing walls, panoramic terraces. It is a place constantly in flux and flexible, that lends itself to host multiple events at the same time and diverse opportunities for interaction during the whole year: exhibitions, concerts, workshops, public lectures, festivals, markets, etc. The building, moreover, is in close connection with “Il Neto”railway station: from its walkable roof a pedestrian bridge joins the social condenser to the station, overpasses the train tracks, that today are a caesura in the city.

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first floor

The pedestrian flyover together with the redevelopment of the entire station, give a second chance to a place until now considered unsafe and rundown, furthermore, it represents a faster pedestrian connection between the two neighbourhoods. This part of the city leaves the car traffic at its edges, offering opportunities for the flaneur to rediscover it while strolling, stopping under the shade of a tree, reaching by foot his workplace, the supermarket or picking the kids up from school. Beyond the basic public pedestrian space, a good city should have at least one, and ideally several, “grand” public spaces. That is to say, spaces of such quality that even the wealthiest members of society cannot avoid frequenting them. A luxury from which no one was excluded, spaces conceived not according to their smallest common denominator but on the contrary, according to a shared aspiration. Henri Lefebvre’s philosophical pamphlet “ Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment”has been a clear theoretical inspiration of the whole project concept.

It represented a shift of emphasis from urban thinking to a philosophy of dwelling, focusing on a clear political architecture: an architecture of jouissance. The goal of the building of a city should be the production of urban life, the ideal of good architecture should be the opportunities it offers to a happier development of the body and its craving for pleasure and joy. Architecture is a‘mode of imagination’ and not a disciplinary restriction, grounded in the definition of the notion of habitation. An architecture situated in an everyday, nonproductive leisure time is one intended as an opportunity in which society achieves real time for creativity and improvisation.

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the social condenser

“Enjoyment”considered not simply in a mere sense of pleasure either in the aesthetically grounded version or in the functionalist sense. A new use that is actualised and would then allow a more embodied reading of jouissance that affords‘room for the living, breathing subject to engage with the word fully and completely’ and the uses of the body that allows for a sensory experience of space. Lefebvre’s book strongly criticises the planning and design approach of an urbanism of leisure where the true possibility of enjoyment, personal and collective, is drained out of everyday sociality and its situations and surrendered to an increasingly abstract and authoritarian state and its knowledge institutions.

“Jouissance”, then, refers more to an appropriation of space, an excess of use as it is related to ‘right to use’ ‘the , right to benefit from, to use, and to enjoy something which belongs to somebody else or is held in common ownership, as long as it is not damaged or destroyed’.In this sense, Lefebvre opposes enjoyment and consumption away from a functionalist understanding of use as ‘a saturation of an isolated need’, where use is understood as‘a range of practices that assemble senses, forms bodies and images’. This seems to continue the current reflection and critique of‘use’and‘to use’as terms that modernity has invested with a strong ‘utilitarian’connotation, with a more socially inspired reflection on ‘re-use’ explored by recent debates on vacancy, temporary reuse and alternative architectural and urban practices.

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At last though, the key to Lefebvre’s architecture of enjoyment is that‘the space of enjoyment cannot consist of a building, an assembly of rooms, places determined by their functions. […] Rather it will be […] moments, encounters, friendships, festivals, […] play’. Therefore, only collective gestures and actions can create spaces of enjoyment, primarily through an‘economy of joy’where use-value and egalitarian appropriations prevail over commoditisation. A new use of architecture is described as:‘there is no thought without a project, no project without exploration – through the imagination – of a possible, a future […] there is no plan without utopia. […] There is no social space without an equally distributed stock of possibles.’ The social condenser was among the most powerful architectural concepts and typologies produced in the Soviet Union: deploying architecture as a way to forge radical new kinds of human collectivities. It has exerted a profound impact on the imaginations, and on the theoretical and design work of artists, architects and others for the duration of the last century. The challenge of today is trying to un-anchoring the social condenser from an exclusive association with the Soviet avantgarde, and re-activating its definition, adapting it to our current society, but at the same time keeping the ambition of improving it, through the means of the social condenser itself.

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THE WINTER GARDEN

Between the street and the rock

An urban regeneration at the feet of Castelgrande in Bellinzona, Ticino June 2020 graphic support to Loris Lotti’s Master project

Location: Bellinzona, Switzerland Program: Residential 108

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TThe heSan San Michele hillinrises in the heart the city Michele hill rises the heart of the city ofofBellinzona, aofreal rocky pedestala on which standspedestal one of the three castles Bellinzona, real rocky on which of the cityone as well its three impressive wall (Castelgrande stands of as the castles of the city and as Murataas Sforzesca). At the foot wall of the (Castelgrande northern face of theand hill, well its impressive aMurata long straight avenue ensures but of alsothe regional traffic Sforzesca). At thecity, foot northern (Viale Portone). Between thestraight street and the rock, a long face of the hill, a long avenue ensures and narrow plot of land is currently occupied by disparate city, but also regional traffic (Viale Portone). and degraded constructions which take no advantage of Between the street and the rock, a long and their proximity to the promontory and its fortifications. narrow plot of land is currently occupied This project proposes to completely redevelop this area by by disparate and degraded constructions which installing a large complex containing housing, administrative

take no advantage of their proximity to the promontory and its fortifications. This project proposes to completely redevelop this area by installing a large complex containing housing, administrative and commercial areas

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as as new The spaces. complex and well commercial areaspublic as well spaces. as new public The is designed in order direct most the complex is designed in order to to direct most of theofactivity of its occupants sunlight,towards the natural context ofthe the activity of its towards occupants sunlight, hill and the superb of viewthe overhill theand castle its walls.view The natural context theandsuperb architecture developed this context its forms over the castle andwithin its walls. The takes architecture from the confrontation local traditions and forms a more developed within between this context takes its modernthe andconfrontation global culture. Thus, characteristic elements of from between local traditions territorial architecture such as the passageway, the portico, and a more modern and global culture. the branded coating and the shutter combined with forms, Thus, characteristic elements of territorial housing typologies and constructive systems allow the architecture as from the a passageway, the whole project to such stand out more generic culture. portico, the branded coating and the shutter combined with forms, housing typologies and constructive systems allow the whole project to stand out from a more generic culture.

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Casa Belvedere

A social housing in Florence

July 2014 Design Lab prof. Rossi Prodi Università degli Studi di Firenze Location: Firenze, Italy Program: Residential

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A continous building complex with a“snakelike”plan, plastically and visually draws a zip between the two areas: the park and the urban neighbourhood San Jacopino. Apartments are divided in two types: apartments with accesses from galleries and traditional ones with access from stairwells. It‘s a „super

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building“ for many different types of families, students, single workers or elderly people. The apartments with gallery are facing the south side paved squares: a device to create occasions to encounter the neighbours. Living is the act of creating a community.

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Already in 1860 Leopolda Station was closed and needed to be rethought for others destinations. Part of the building was used as an exhibition hall and the residual part used as a railway mechanical workshop. The latest city planning regulations of Florence has decided to turn the railway workshop of the old station into a new neighbourhood, primarily for collective dwellings purposes. On the northern border of the slot a dense urban area, mainly developed during the 50’s defines a urban tissue - the neighbourhood of San Jacopino - while on the other southern side “le Cascine”, a city park, stretches along the river Arno. Within the area the project task was to save part of the old abandoned factories, converting them for public uses, while designing a residential area around it. The main goal was to sew up an urban place between the park and a poor-of-publicspaces neighbourhood of the suburban city.

Rosselli Pistoiese road San Jacopino

Railway mechanical workshop Opera House

Parco delle Cascine

Leopolda Station

Macinante creek

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The project establishes a relationship with the heights of the surrounding buildings

Roof terraces and yards open the building to the city and the park around it

the gradually growing up height of the building allows the residents to walk directly on the top of the building from the park, with a non stop path on the roof: a High Line in Florence

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The complex grows in height in relation to the two pre-existing buildings: from three floors, slightly higher than the near factory building until seven floors, in direction to the Florence Opera House, that signs the city skyline with its flytower of 35 metres high. The facade facing southwest prefers the use of wood, natural element that recalls the dialogue with nature Balconies and terraces

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enjoy the view to the park and a good exposure to sunlight. The facade to northeast has a mainly glassed skin. Glasses are also slightly darkened and coloured with nuances inspired by the natural tuscanian landscape. Exposed to the coolest side, reduces the warming effect of glassed ambients and at the same time allows to catch as more light as possible.

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Sociality follows shape: the“zipper”or“snakelike” plan sets up four semi-courtyards: two facing the city and arranged as paved squares and other two aiming the park, green and quiet. This complex has at the end a very privileged position, bordering the grey dense city to the north and the big green open space to the south represented by the “Cascine”

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Big form

Large scale housing in Munich

February 2015 Studio Krucker Bates Technische Universität München Location: Munich, Germany Program: Residential 134

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Project area Aim of the project was to plan a big scale residential complex , thought as an answer to the constantly growing demand of accomodation in Munich. The project site, today an industrial area near to the northern edge of Westpark, is a slice of land between the s-bahn railway tracks and the high traffic road Hansastraße. The proximity to the park offers to this plot the opportunity to have a direct link to this great precious green area of the city, rich of attractions and entertainment for families. Taking inspiration from the massive residential complexes realized during the golden twenties, age of experimentation of the Modern Times, such as the Borstei in Munich, the “Big Form” project had the ambition to rethink in a contemporary way those urban models thought for the early twentieth century emerging middle class. Today we are called to think new solutions of living collectively without neglecting the values of comfort, privacy and individual expression. So the courtyard is meant to play an important role as a frame and shelter for a big residential community accomodated in one uninterrupted building.

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