Evoluzione (Public House)

Fall 2022

Genoa, Italy design allows for free external circulation without violating the privacy of building interiors, while also creating serene spaces for users to step out and view the garden.The wood symbolizes the relationship between the public house and the garden as it resembles the trees that fill the garden. The journey is evident through these thresholds from the outside carapace to the lush interior, the loggia to the indoors, and from building to building.

The Public House orchestrates a journey by harmonizing the private and public realm, the palazzo and villa typology, as well as the garden and streetscape of Genoa. To continue the evolution of the palazzo and villa, we took the function of the palazzo and expanded it horizontally to be absorbed by the garden and tranformed the singular palazzo into compartmentalized buildings with dedicated programs.

The layout consists of five buildings surrounding a centralized plazza, designed to transition between Genoa’s garden chain and the urban grid of plazza Colombo. the expanded organization of the site invites users to journey throughout each compartmentalized building through the central plazza.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE PALAZZO + VILLA

By combining elements of the palazzo + villa such as the form of the palazzo (a block with a central void, usually a quadrilateral) in an urban grid and the garden of the villa, a new evolved palazzo + villa is designed; bringing on a new typology for urban design in Genoa, Italy.

THE URBAN GRID

The form of the design came from existing urban grid. The irregular shape of the design is a response of the combining of three different grids in the surrounding area, in which the design becomes an intersection of all surrounding programs and thus becomes the hub for public gathering, community conversation and integration.

Above are the precedents that went into inspiring the understanding of a palazzo and a villa and how they are used in the design of the Public House. On the top left is Palazzo Doria Tursi with Villa Zerbino on the bottom left. On the right shows the design of the Public House, highlighting what was taken from each precedent. MASTERPLAN