Baukuh 2012 17projects by Architectuurbibliotheek Sint-Lucas

baukuh

17 projects

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chronology of works and projects

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prizes, exhibitions and publications partners' cv baukuh resources

CASSIUS EVA XEZHMY DELLI FOUCAULT ROMAN HOLIDAY NOVISSIMISSIME NUMA 50,000 HOUSES AUGUSTINUS TOBIA PALLAVICINO BOTTINI, STARDI, FRANTI CARSO 2014 + NHM CASA DELLA MEMORIA BAB AL BAHRAIN PASSAGENWERK 900 KM NILE CITY

baukuh produces architecture. Designs are independent of personal taste. No member of baukuh is ever individually responsible for any single project, each of which s the product of the ofďŹ ce as a whole. Working without a hierarchical structure or a stylistic dogma, baukuh produces architecture out of a rational and explicit design process. This process is based on a critical understanding of the architecture of the past. The knowledge encoded in the architecture of the past is public, and starting from this public knowledge, any architectural problem can be solved. baukuh was founded in 2004 by Paolo Carpi, Lorenzo Laura, Silvia Lupi, Vittorio Pizzigoni, Giacomo Summa, Francesca Torzo and Andrea Zanderigo.

17 projects

CASSIUS Amsterdam, Bakemabuurt housing, 2003-09

Competition: Status: Task: Place: Program: Surface: Client: In collaboration with: Costs: Period:

Bakema's slabs are beautiful. They provided a clever solution to a real problem. We have to transform and adapt them to a program that is completely alien compared to that for which they were intended, adapting them to a new constellation of desires. Yet, notwithstanding the wish for transformation, it is not possible to believe that these houses could transmute into something other from what they are now, that social housing could be converted into up-market suburban neighbourhoods, magically altering the assets of the residents as well. The requested housing density leaves no space for trees, hillocks, or gently meandering roads, and there will be no rise in property prices. Here, operation aurum ex stercore will not work. It is impossible to suppose a radical transformation of the area without presupposing a concurrent reworking of the entire city in which the area is inserted. Ultimately, it is simply a case of moving apartment residents into the most autonomous houses, and believing that this will be enough to improve the overall conditions of the residents. We ask ourselves what sense our work can have under these conditions. Can we propose a subdivision of lots capable of producing a city setting? Can we somehow defend Bakema’s building? And, what are the margins to search for beauty? The need for individual housing units with gardens can be satisﬁed in a very direct way, by entrusting in the self-evident mechanics of the grid. The grid is applied in a most rigorous fashion in order to insure greater clarity and adaptability. We put forth a design-plan for a rational subdivision and study possible residential typologies to insert within the grid. We deﬁne credible dimensions for vacant lots and offer an abacus of possible homes to insert there. We demolish the minor buildings to increase the distance between the main buildings, creating a new disposition and arrangement. We go back to the distances of the CIAM's city: the distances that CIAM cities had always claimed without ever truly possessing them.

2003 (ﬁrst prize) masterplan approved 2007 masterplan (whole area) and initial design (ﬁrst sector) Bakemabuurt, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 50,000 sqm houses, 5,000 sqm retail and services 65,000 sqm Far West, City of Amsterdam Guezenveld submunicipality, ABR Rotterdam 60,000,000 € 2003 - 2009

concept

model, scale 1:500

patio house #5, model, scale 1:20

competition panels

demolition (yellow) / re-construction (red), scale 1:2000

4 bedrooms

3 bedrooms

2 bedrooms glh social housing 85sqm lenght 24m total 18hu

glh lower-middle class 95sqm lenght 24m total 110hu+24hu*

maisonette lower-middle class 95sqm total 29hu

glh social housing 105sqm lenght 30m total 40hu

patio types, scale 1:1000

glh upper-middle class 85sqm lenght 30m total 13hu

patio types, scale 1:250

EVA Estonian National Museum, Tartu, 2005

Competition: Place: Program: Competition promoter: In collaboration with: Structures:

2005 Tartu, Estonia Museum. 15,000 sqm City of Tartu Marco Brega Fabiano Continanza S.C.E.

1. The new Estonian National Museum (ENM) lands in the Estonian landscape like a silent Neoclassical spaceship. The building is a large silver ring (internal diameter of 140 m) suspended on top of diamond-like silver pavilions. The new ENM is simple like a Neolithic sanctuary and alien like a Zeppelin. It follows the lunar geometry of a Renaissance exercise on perspective and is as gentle as Biedermeier pottery. In winter, the silver skin of the new ENM reflects the pale light over the snow; in the summer, the polished building disappears in the metallic sky. 2. The new ENM acts as a machine to frame and observe the Estonian landscape. From the lawn inside the ring, the fields appear through large, flat openings that underline the horizon line. By encircling an enchanted hole in the landscape, the new ENM displaces and concentrates metropolitan life in the middle of nature. The new ENM provides a centre for the whole area; it establishes a new geography, connecting the lake, the pond, the paths, the Baltic manor and the Soviet military airfield in a new constellation. 3. The new ENM is divided into three levels: the underground storage areas, the ground-level facilities and the second-floor exhibition spaces. The circular enfilade provides a quiet path through the collections. The visitor moves along the ring, slowly returning to his or her starting point, where the main entrance and the main exit are located. The auditoria, main entrance with its lobby, offices, workshops, library, restaurant and bar are organized within the six pavilions that connect the ring to the ground. The six pavilions are easily accessible from the outside and activate the open space delineated by the ring. 4. The ring is made of a very thin elliptic pipe, with small steel stiffeners that are welded onto the internal face to prevent any local instabilities in the shell. The ring exploits the innate resistance of the closed hollow section. The closed shape gives great capacity, though with low structural self-weight, thus enabling the system to bridge the long spans between the pillars, which are more than 60 metres in length. 13

plans: ground level (left), ďŹ rst level (right), scale 1:1000

winter landscape

event in the summer

exhibition space

section

XEZHMY DELLI apartment building, Tirana, 2005-09

Status: Task:

Place: Program: Surface: Client: Costs: Local Architect: Period:

In 2004, the mayor of Tirana, after having aggressively painted the old socialist housing blocks, decided to open a new phase in the urban development of Tirana. In order to transform the city, the mayor tried to pair local developers with foreign architects. In this context, as unpredictable as it was promising, baukuh developed a proposal for an apartments building in Xezhmy Delli for ABG Construction. The area lacked any clear order: there were villas (mainly embassies) and gardens and low buildings from the ’50s mixed with recently constructed apartment blocks. Still, the gardens were beautiful and, given the scale of most of the buildings, the area looked green and strangely natural. The new building we proposed did not attempt to transform the place into a crowded, metropolitan area; rather, it simply contained the required volume, somehow suggesting yet not going ahead with further interventions. The Xezhmy Delli building does not hide its excessive mass. Its appearance is voluntarily unfamiliar, almost rude. It deliberately tries to produce (and to protect) a void around itself. The building is a prism that has been excavated in order to follow building regulations; it is almost a mould that crystallizes the abstract rules of its (quite inscrutable) legal apparatus within the city, thereby revealing how alien these rules are within the concrete fabric of the city. The stubborn digging process produces an archaic animal form that becomes gentler only where it is in direct contact with the city (e.g., the entrance and loggias). The project grew among endless twists and unexpected possibilities; fake measurements, cadastral disputes, changes in land ownership, and unforeseeable shifts in the mood of the local administration provided the opportunity to test new architectural solutions that would have been difﬁcult to imagine outside of Albania. Beyond every transformation, the building evolves with great consistency, fulﬁlling on its rigid body all of the contradictory requirements imposed upon it.

under construction initial design, deﬁnitive design, construction design (consultant) Xezhmy Delli street, Tirana, Albania 27 apartments, 2 levels of parking 3,500 sqm ABG construction 1,750,000 € Marin Bicoku 2005 - 2009

+ elephant

May 21, 2010 (photo by Giovanna Silva)

FOUCAULT Foucault’s Pendulum at Palazzo della Ragione, Padova, 2005-06

Status: Task:

Place: Program: Surface: Client: Costs: Period:

The Foucault’s pendulum is the third object inside of the Salone, together with the pietra del vituperio (stone of shame), where insolvent debtors where exposed before being banned from the city, and the wooden horse, realized for a tournament in 1466. The Foucault’s pendulum has two major technical requirements: to set up an elevated oscillation level that can house the electronic equipment, and to establish a boundary so that the public cannot interfere with the experiment. The large, dodecagonal tank solves both problems. The machinery is placed inside the tank; its borders keep visitors at distance. The tank is made of a lasercut aluminum frame, of a steel plate, and of twelve slices of steel-plate, connected through metallic joints. The diameter of the tank is 4,5m. The pendulum is made of a 20 m long steel wire and of a 13kg iron sphere. The width of the oscillation is 2m.

built initial design, deﬁnitive design, construction design, supervision of realization Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy permanent installation of a Foucault’s pendulum 9 sqm City of Padua 40,000 euro 2005 - 2006

Palazzo della Ragione, plan and section

plan and section, scale 1:33

July 14, 2006 (photo by Valentina Gugole)

ROMAN HOLIDAY Rome, Archaeological Park, 2007

Task: Place: Program: Client: In collaboration with:

Photos: Model: Period: Exhibitions:

Publication:

research (honourable mention) Rome, Italy archaeological park International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam Romolo Ottaviani, Martin Sobota, Beatrice De Carli, Ettore Donadoni Francesco Jodice, Giovanna Silva Dario Sarzo (D.S.G.), Antonio Venti (Plastigraf) 2007 - 2007 3rd International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam - 2008 Roman Holiday, Casa dell’Architettura, Rome Christine De Baan, Joachim Declerck, Veronique Patteeuw (editors), Visionary Power. Producing the Contemporary City (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2007)

1. In 2005, more than eight million tourists visited Rome. Tourism means consumption of the major monuments, congestion in the centre and the transformation of the baroque city into a monofunctional shopping district. Roman citizens tolerate the evils of tourism because of the economic beneﬁts it brings. Yet tourism can be more than a nuisance: it presents an opportunity to reorganize the city in a way that will beneﬁt both visitors and residents. 2. Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) and Domenico Fontana were able to imagine a project for Rome stemming from the needs of contemporary religious tourism. They used a very basic concept: establishing connections among the seven major churches. These links would clarify the structure of the city and reactivate the richness of the Roman ruins inside of a new ideological frame. The success of the extremely empiric, thrifty and fast enterprise of Sixtus and Domenico is the practical demonstration that tourism does not necessarily destroy the city; on the contrary, tourism can produce the city. 3. There are three main attractions in Rome: the Vatican, the shopping district distributed throughout the baroque city and the Roman ruins. The Vatican was reorganized for Jubilee 2000; the baroque city evolves through the actions of its many inhabitants; the Roman ruins remain more or less unchanged since the fascist interventions. The realization of the new C metro line, passing below the Fora, offers a concrete opportunity to rethink the entire area. 4. The area from Piazza Venezia to the Coliseum is slowly developing into an informal, self-organized theme park. Provisional solutions spontaneously grow in response to the touristic demand: kiosks market drinks and souvenirs, gladiators enliven family photos, multimedia productions show Brutus Plotting to Kill Caesar – in your language.

January 20, 2006 (photo by Giovanna Silva)

a grammar of the urban experience, as a code that enables one to understand the city in all of its richness.

5. Compared to Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Rome’s central archaeological area – from the Fora to Caracalla baths – is five times larger, four times less attractive in terms of visitors, and twenty times less profitable. Yet Rome is not a theme park, and profit is not the only reason to keep the Rome business going. Ruins are more complicated to keep than cardboard castles; property is split among multiple owners, both private and public. Management is correspondingly intricate: various administrations are involved in heritage protection, events promotion, gardening and safety. Customers are different as well.

8. Rome is made of projects. Rome has been a project (and a re-foundation) from the beginning. Romulus had a project for Rome; it was an urban and an international one; and it was a re-foundation. He chose to build the city on the Palatine hill, transforming the very heart of the previous settlement. Remus, on the contrary, proposed to start a new city on the deserted site of the Aventinus hill, and his project failed because it was not metropolitan. All of the projects that followed were, again, re-foundations; it was repeatedly the sheer amazement with the city of the past that inspired visions of the new city. The main business of Alberti and Bramante was to show to their clients the impressive beauty of the ancient city.

6. Contrary to a theme park or a museum, Rome has no clear border: as one moves outward from the centre, the tourist attractions gradually diminish; they do not disappear abruptly. In the campagna there are plenty of minor buildings, amazing landscapes, lovely coasts. Rome is not Venice; it is not delimited by an 8-km2 island. Rome is not the Magic Kingdom. To think of Rome as such is both cynical and unrealistic. In Rome, the business of tourism can grow to involve a broader territory. The reorganization of the touristic city enacts the reorganization of the entire post-bureaucratic city.

9. Rome is made of universal projects, one on top of the other. And being, from the beginning, a universal project translated into urban space (Rome is a civilization project that is mainly encoded into laws and urban artefacts, a civilization project whose main tool is the city), it is a universal project in the form of a stage. The stage is there. The problem is: a stage for what? A stage to rent for signing treatises, just as a Palladian villa is rented for a wedding party?

7. In a global market of cities competing as providers of space, facilities, environment, it is not difﬁcult to recognize Rome’s qualities. As the only global city already complete in its collection of spaces, Rome only needs to rediscover its metropolitan assets. Rome needs no major changes to its public spaces or its architecture collection; it can avoid the blind search for masterpieces that occupies the painful last chapter in the history of post-industrial cities. Rome as a spectacle city is nothing new; its identity as a spectacle city was already re-established after the return of the Popes from Avignon. Spaces in Rome are ready for contemporary uses. What still needs work in Rome is infrastructure, not only as sheer network – roads, tunnels, cables – but as

10. Rome, as a ready-made global platform for metropolitan events, only needs to discover which event to locate in its various spots in order to reactivate them. The ancient city has demonstrated its suitability for contemporary events. The Jubilee 2000, the strikes and manifestations against the Iraqi war, the celebrations for the World Cup 2006, have all inhabited the ancient city, revealing territories that are surprisingly aligned with contemporary rituals. The contemporary multitude used the immense, indeterminate, yet precise and contained space of the Circus Maximus to identify itself as a political body. As pure space, by

January 20, 2006 (photo by Giovanna Silva)

now completely deprived of any meaning, the Circus allows its occupants absolute freedom. As a room with precise dimensions and with no intentions, the Circus embraces events without suggesting any stable deﬁnition for the mutating contemporary multitude, simply allowing half a million people to recognize each other inside of a large hole in the ground with a glorious, somehow exotic, ancient name. The events that invade the contemporary city in increasing numbers require spaces to be enacted: public spaces, but different from the nineteenth-century and modernist ones. Rome provides them: spaces for individuals and for the multitude, colossal and indeterminate, abstract and popular. Rome is the contemporary public space, that Shanghai is lacking.

without compromising its richness; it has to allow the coexistence of organized, fast, plebeian visits and reﬁned, slow, random promenades. It has to communicate with both Goethe and Goethe’s maid, and to accommodate visits of two years or two days. 13. To restore clarity to the Roman spaces, the most important step is to reintroduce the crowds for which they were conceived. Mass tourism, in this respect, could be a tool with which to re-establish the urban organization of the ancient city. The opening of the Sacra Via in the Roman Forum gave back clarity to the organization of the Forum by reactivating an easy and logical path and establishing the proper hierarchy between a main road and the related spaces. Tourism can be the unexpected promoter of urbanity, colonizing the ruins and thereby expanding the collection of spaces at the citizens’ disposal.

11. There is nothing to build in Rome. Architects must be humble. The city only needs a framework by which to understand what is already there (and this may accidentally require a bit of architecture). It is only necessary to build the infrastructure that enables the existing spaces to perform within their global context. After all, Rome’s most inﬂuential architects during the last couple of centuries were painters and writers – Piranesi, Goethe, Stendhal – who produced the software through which to understand the ancient city. Now the infrastructure with which to decode the ancient city must be built for the contemporary multitude.

14. The reactivation of the ruins is a rediscovery of the urban potential of the ancient plan. In order to perform, the city needs a pavement on which to move without excessive preoccupations (according to Raymond Hood’s formula: the plan is of primary importance, because on the ﬂoor are performed all the activities of the human occupants.) Ruins can be part of the contemporary city only if the pavement of the contemporary city is at the level of the Roman city. Gestures have to happen in the Roman scene. The present (Fascist) organization of the Fora only allows one to pass by the buildings and look without entering. Ancient buildings are pure background. Everything is distant, ﬂat, impossible to touch. The city is empty; citizens do not deserve the city.

12. Roman relics must ﬁnd their place within a culture that is becoming increasingly visual. Ruins should be exposed; spaces should be evident. If ruins do not produce spatial experiences, they are lost for an increasing majority of (not necessarily uneducated) visitors. And without an initial spatial experience of the ruins, no further intellectual experience is possible. There can be no understanding of what goes unnoticed. The archaeological park has to be spectacular enough to attract the masses; it has to be straightforward

15. In a 1994 advertisement of the Barilla company, some of the main Italian public spaces appear to have been invaded by large corn ﬁelds. The Barilla commercial describes a lite city, one that is able to couple history and quality of life, moderate urbanity and pas-

toral isolation, nature and spectacle. It is easy to dismiss Barilla urbanism as cheap, populist and philistine, yet the Barilla campaign not only recognizes desires that are part of the contemporary city, but also discovers tools for its transformation. Surrendering to nature seems to be the last resource of urbanity; green matter, the ultimate tool with which to build the city. Green matter can make ruins understandable and usable. Green matter is tolerant and precise, robust and comfortable. It can evolve, allowing spaces to be experienced and allowing archaeological areas to mutate according to changing interpretation paradigms. Green matter deﬁnes a group of recognizable activities for the places where it appears and immediately provides a name – park – for whatever it touches. Green matter protects architecture with its intimate moral legitimization. It gives the system a touch of realistic unrealism: the ancient city is gone, and the ﬁrst reason not to rebuild it, is not to erase the fact that Rome was really there.

mus will eliminate from the city a performing urban tool, leaving an entire category of events without a place in which to happen. Solve problems the Roman way: be conﬁdent. Use the tremendous openness of architecture to ﬁnd a possibility for the coexistence of tourism, heritage and the contemporary city. Rely on a given, shared architectural knowledge. Beauty can be easy. Erase traces. When asked to restore Diocletian baths and to transform the building into a church, Michelangelo decided not to do anything. He simply determined where to put the door, and thus how to move within the Roman spaces. Then he suggested painting the vaults white. Erase traces. The city does not need authors.

16. Be more conﬁdent. The contemporary city must be nothing less than the best possible city. Reject the obsession with layering both as desire for protagonism (the stupid idea: we have to invent something just because we are here) and as complete lack of responsibility (the cowardly idea: nothing in the history of the city is worth a decision). Think of the city in terms of spaces and rediscover their differences. Remove the nineteenth-century cellars in the middle of Trajan’s Forum because they compromise the space of the Forum; remove them because Imperial spaces are better, not because Imperial times were better. Architecture is a judgement of urban resources, a commitment not to waste. A project is just something for the city to gain or to lose in terms of space. Excavations in the Imperial Fora will be sheer gain, yet excavations in the Circus Maximus will be pure loss for the city. To excavate in the Fora will add an extraordinary system of spaces to the city. To excavate in the Circus Maxi-

Trajan's Forum with proposed interventions

axonometric with proposed interventions (from piazza Venezia to Baths of Caracalla)

axonometric with proposed interventions (Appia Park)

37 37

axonometric with proposed interventions: detail (Trajan's Forum)

model (detail: Fora, Palatine and Coliseum) , scale 1:2000

NOVISSIMISSIME Venice, Lagoon Park, 2007

Competition: Place: Competition promoter: In collaboration with: Publication:

2007 (special mention) Lagoon of Venice, Italy 2G Gustavo Gili Maria Chiara Pastore, Davide Rapp Concurso 2G Parque de la Laguna de Venecia / 2G Competition Venice Lagoon Park, 2G Dossier (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2008)

Venice hardly needs changes. Venice is ok. It can stay as it is: a lovely, decadent hamlet where to retire if you are a well-educated, melancholic billionaire. Venice does not consider changing since centuries: if it ďŹ nally wants to transform, there is no reason for little plans. * The lagoon is an abandoned artiďŹ cial landscape. It lacks population and activities (population in XV century was four times as big as now). The lagoon park needs a metropolitan addition. The species to be re-inserted in the lagoon is citizens. The lagoon park has to be a lagoon city. * We propose to build a 20 km loop, encircling the northern part of the lagoon park. The loop connects the northern side of the main island (Fondamenta Nuove and Arsenale), some minor and new islands (Certosa, S. Erasmo, Burano, Stadium) and the Tessera airport (with a new high speed train station and a new business district). Electric trains run the loop. * The lagoon city is activated through transformations happening at the seven stops of the loop: 1. Tessera airport (new high speed train station and new business district and exchange terminal west of the airport) 2. Burano (new hotels in the nearby Mazzorbo island) 3. S. Erasmo (implementation of the agricultural park) 4. Certosa (new colleges and new dockyards) 5. Arsenale (new terminal for goods and an light industrial park) 6. Fondamenta Nuove (no intervention) 7. New Stadium island The lagoon city re-uses the areas left free by the transformations related to the realization of the new infrastructure: 8. Tronchetto, after the removal of the cruise terminal to the mainland (new housing) 9. Former railway station (public garden inside of the new facilities of the Biblioteca Marciana) |

10. Sacca San Mattia (artificial platform for exhibitions, happenings and mass events) 11. Former stadium area in Sant’Elena (sport park) * Starting from the XVII century, Venice is no more able to find a place inside of a global scenario. Reduction of international activities reflects in a poorer understanding of the local context. In 1846 the Austrians build the railway bridge. A brutal infrastructural update transforms Venice in an awkward bi-polar city, defining the entire lagoon as a surreal periphery. As such, Venice is nothing but the redundant cul de sac attached to the most generic and absolute periphery. The problem of Venice as a bi-polar city is that Mestre is just a heap of houses and factories. Mestre lacks form, lacks activities, and lacks reasons to get there.The insignificance of Mestre forces Venice to be a theme park. * The secret of Venice, both the secret of its perfection and of its immobility, is that it is a closed city. Venice does not grow; it cannot grow. Yet transformation cannot be without growth. And of course growth cannot happen on the main island. No doubt, Venice has to be preserved. * Venice is a city for the elite. It is too delicate. It is too expensive to live in. Workers come every day from outside. Sooner or later Venice will eliminate mass tourism. Venice will surrender to V.I.P. Yet an elite enclave is not necessarily unreachable and useless. It can work inside of a larger productive landscape as a mechanism of preservation and as an instrument of research. * If we are innocent enough to consider the lagoon as a landscape with assets (and to forget about Venice as a city with problems), it is possible to recognize the impressive metropolitan potential of the lagoon: an amazing natural condition close to an international airport and close to a new high speed train station and close to an efficient industrial district and close to Venice. The lagoon can be a city, a metropolitan constellation in which Venice is just an episode. Finally Venice relates with something else, a new city with a clear form, with a new population, with a new program. As such, the lagoon city is the unexpected tool that allows the preservation of the natural equilibrium of the lagoon, the conservation of the artistic heritage of the main island and the final transformation of Mestre into a city. 40

* The new lagoon city, faster, larger, better connected with the airport and with the productive region of Mestre, Treviso and Padua, allows to imagine an entirely new, international population for Venice. The lagoon city combines leisure and production, technology and aura inside of a new complex landscape, both natural and artificial. The lagoon city is a city of complementary differences: the islands allow different natural and urban conditions inside of a common metropolitan field. The lagoon city imagines a new relation between Venice and the mainland. By radically forgetting about the existing Mestre, the lagoon city finally imagines Mestre as a city, defining a new centre for it close to the Tessera airport and developing there a new metropolitan core. The loop does not erase the slow motions of Venice. It does not substitute the existing city, it simply adds a new speed and shows the possibility of a new life in the lagoon. Landscape stays hybrid and multiple, yet a new figure appears. * In order to imagine a new city made of islands, it is necessary a first radical act of restoration: to transform Venice into an island again, removing the existing bridge. The removal of the bridge allows the circulation of boats around the main island, re-activating the traffic in the lagoon, removing heavy traffic from the Canal Grande. * The lagoon needs to recognize itself and it can do it only by defining its form. As ridiculous as it may seem, the lagoon needs architecture to become a city. For this reason infrastructure should not be hidden: no underground transportation system. Infrastructure has to be visible and define a way to experience the lagoon landscape. * The lagoon city does not need to look natural. The understanding of the natural equilibrium of the lagoon does not involve any imitation of its forms.

competition panels

detail (Basin of San Marco)

NUMA Italian Pavilion at Expo 2010, Shanghai, 2008

Competition: Place: Program: Competition promoter: Structures: Video:

1. The main element that the pavilion exhibits at the Expo is the pavilion itself. As such, more than a building, the pavilion is a model, an example of the culture to which it belongs. A pavilion does not host functions, or satisfy needs. Rather, it is merely a model for other possible buildings: a building that embodies an entire set of other potential buildings.

2008 Shanghai, China pavilion Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs S.C.E. Maki Gherzi and Nicola Gotti

2. The Italian pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai Expo is a spectacular building. The Expo, in fact, is a fair or a festival, and the pavilion therefore has to be a festive building. Yet the compulsion to amaze that contemporary architecture cannot escape cannot be the reason for vulgar, nonsensical solutions. The pavilion has to amaze and to remain inside of a rigorous idea of architecture. The spectacle produced in the pavilion has to be a spectacle of space. 3. The pavilion is a squarish box (68 x 68 x 20 m). It contains a single room. This room functions as a square. A simple border defines a precise architectural condition for a field that will mutate, accepting different activities. The complexity of the program coincides with the simplicity of the space. The largeness and neutrality of the room allow that staging of all kinds of events, including exhibitions, parties, fashion shows, concerts, theatrical performances and ballets. A 5-metre-wide strip encircles the room, which contains conference rooms, restaurants, offices, washrooms and storage areas. A door has been placed in the middle of each side of the room. The pavilion has only one level, allowing maximum access for handicapped visitors and permitting the easy movement of the machines required to lay out the materials exhibited. The ceiling of the room is 15 m deep and floats 5 m above the ground. The ceiling is made of white soundabsorbent tissue wrapped around a metal structure.

A sequence of vaulted spaces are carved out of the ceiling. 4. The voids dug into the ceiling float above the ground. In the roof remain the traces of an invisible building, lost to another time, whether that time be in the past or the future. The roof floats as a sort of ruin whose foundations (rather than the vaults) have been lost. The large room is entirely white and is covered in sound-absorbent material. The spaces trapped in the ceiling are not reachable, but are merely displayed as possibilities of an architecture that the pavilion simply anticipates (or remembers). The building suggests spaces without fully realizing them; it remains a catalogue of spaces, an ephemeral landscape of vaults, a cast of an entire set of invisible and absent buildings. The pavilion is as simple as a storage space, as silent as a snowy desert, as monumental as the wedding cake of a tyrant, as innocent as a toy and as fake as all the things just listed. 5. The Italian pavilion functions as an oasis of silence inside of the noise of the Expo. The ceiling is entirely created from sound-absorbent material, and thus produces a muffled, relaxed atmosphere, suspending the exhibited materials in a slightly displacing state. The articulation of the ceiling produces different acoustic conditions inside of the large room. In fact, the higher spaces allow better acoustic conditions, whereas the lower ones create a state of almost complete silence. A complex, immaterial, acoustic geography thus organizes the different areas within the room. 6. The classical spaces accumulated in the ceiling are realized through the use of a simple and light-weight technology. Cables connect a subordinate aluminum frame with the main spatial reticular truss. The aluminum frame allows the placement of the fabric surfaces that define the vaults. Experimental types of fabric will be applied during the pavilion’s construction, thereby exhibiting the excellence of the products of the Italian textile industry. All components of the building will be recycled, from the steel trusses and aluminum frames to the soundabsorbent fabrics.

axonometric from below

plan and section, scale 1:500

conceptual sections

April 08, 2008

April 14, 2008

April 14, 2008 (photo by Massimiliano Gherzi)

video stills (directed by Maki Gherzi and Nicola Gotti)

50.000 HOUSES Milan, 2008

Task: Place: Program: Client: Sponsored by:

Period: Exhibition:

Publication:

1. Milan does not lack houses. From 2000 to 2004 31,000,000 cubic metres of dwellings have been realized. These would be enough to house 200,000 inhabitants. Only houses for the poorest part of the population are lacking. Social houses in Milan were 100,000 at the end of the ’70s, now they are no more than 40,000. The residential demand we can estimate for the territory of the municipality is roughly 50,000 dwellings. Considering an average composition (1/3 social housing, 1/3 social lease, 1/3 free market sale) able to provide the desirable economical solidity and social mixture, in order to realize the needed 50,000 units, it is necessary to produce 75,000 dwellings. We do not address the (crucial) questions involving the economical promoters, the financial tools, the contracts that regulate leases and assignations. We reduce the problem to a sheer matter of quantities and places: where to build such dwellings? And what will be the consequences for the city? 2. In the last 50 years, Milan consumed 37% of the available agricultural soils. There are no reasons for further expansions. The space to realize the new houses has to be found inside the existing city. Inside the city it is possible to recognize empty lots, buildings that can be demolished and substituted and buildings that accept additions on top. If these areas are public, are subject to certain planning restrictions (areas for public services that have never been realized) and enjoy a favourable position inside the city, it is possible to imagine using these areas in order to make new housing. So it is possible to compose something as a land register of these areas, collecting different descriptions, enabling a precise judgement about the resources available in the city and suggesting where to realize new dwellings. This housing strategy, definitely not radical, except for quantities, allows to observe the city with renewed innocence and to discover unknown possibilities. The project matches a necessarily modest program (social housing) with forgotten, so possibly not amazing, spots. Next to the new houses appear gardens, squares for district markets, kindergartens, a couple of schools, parks with barbecue installations for the people who cannot leave the city in the week end. Nothing special, solid, reasonable pieces of city, moderately generous. 3. We test our hypothesis on a surface equivalent to 10% of the municipal area (a 2.5 x 7.5 km rectangle west of the cathedral), where we try to locate 10% of the requested dwellings (7,500). This part of the city is efficient from an infrastructural point of view (it is crossed by Line 1 of the metro) and it is not involved in the major transformation planned for Milan in the next years.

research Milan, Italy 50,000 social housing units XI Venice Architecture Biennale City of Milan, Assessorato allo Sviluppo del Territorio; Fondazione Housing Sociale 2008 2008 "L’italia cerca casa", Italian Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice L’Italia cerca casa (Milan: Electa, 2008)

Italian Pavilion, September 7, 2008 (photo by A. Sarti)

Italian Pavilion, September 1, 2008

revolving cylinder with axonometric drawing (background) and plots table (foreground), Sept. 7, 2008 (photo by A. Sarti)

west-Milan, 2.5x7.5 km, axonometric, original scale 1:1000

west-Milan, axonometric with projects, detail 3

detail, intervention 13, original scale 1:1000

Area

Assonometria del progetto scala 1:10.000 (1)

Indirizzo

Superﬁcie (2)

Previsione P.R.G. (3)

Proprietà (4)

Descrizione area

Documentazione fotograﬁca

via San Calimero / piazza Cardinal Andrea Ferrari

1900

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio interrato in fase di realizzazione

P1050331- P1050340

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio a raso con alcuni alberi. L’attuale parcheggio corrisponde al tombamento della conca (Tumbun de San Marc) che consentiva il collegamento tra la Martesana e la fossa interna

via Ancona/ via San Marco / via Eugenio Balzan

Note / bibliograﬁa

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigli_(Milano), http:// it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naviglio_Martesana

Programma

Numero alloggi

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sette livelli sul sedime del parcheggio interrato, al centro dello spiazzo

Descrizione intervento

Descrizione interventi sul paesaggio e sullo spazio pubblico

Descrizione demolizioni

600 mq spazi commerciali, 3500 mq residenze

Ediﬁcio a due livelli su pilotis, lascia spazio per alcuni posti auto a terra. I pilotis consentono di fondare l’ediﬁcio tenendo conto della presenza della darsena

3000 mq residenze

via Torino / via della Palla

1800

Ambiti assoggettati a pianiﬁcazione esecutiva

Demanio comunale

Area occupata da parcheggio a raso e da rovine, forse dovute a demolizioni belliche. L’area affaccia sulla chiesa di San Sebastiano di Pellegrino Tibaldi

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a cinque livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

Sistemazione dello slargo su via Torino

Rimozione delle rovine

600 mq spazi commerciali, 4300 mq residenze

via Fosse Ardeatine / via Zecca Vecchia / via Valpetrosa

2100

Ambiti assoggettati a pianiﬁcazione esecutiva

Demanio comunale

Garage privato a un livello (garage San Remo Srl)

P1050408 - P1050418

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sei livelli con spazi commerciali a piano terra

Realizzazione di una piccola piazza affacciata su via Zecca Vecchia

Demolizione del capannone meridionale del garage

400 mq spazi commerciali, 2000 mq residenze

via Calataﬁmi

3400

R zone residenziali Zona omogenea A

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio a raso

P1050355 - P1050378

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a due livelli su pilotis, con ampie terrazze sul tetto, lascia spazio per alcuni posti auto a terra

2800 mq residenze

via Stampa / via San Vito / via Papa Gregorio XIV

600

R zone residenziali

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio a raso

P1050398 - P1050406

Ediﬁcio per appartamenti a sette livelli con spazi commerciali a piano terra

200 mq spazi commerciali, 1000 mq residenze

via Vetere

1300

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio a raso e campo da gioco. Affaccia sul Parco delle Basiliche

P1050384 - P1050397

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parco_delle_Basiliche, http:// www.comune.milano.it/portale/wps/portal/CDM?WCM_ GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/contentlibrary/ Ho%20bisogno%20di/Ho%20bisogno%20di/AreeVerdi_ParchieGiardini_Parco%20Papa%20Giovanni%2 0Paolo%20II&categId=com.ibm.workplace.wcm.api. WCM_Category/IT_CAT_Bisogni_01_01/d2aaad80446 e0187b8f1bbd36d110d8a/false&categ=IT_CAT_Bisogni_01_01&type=content

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sei livelli con spazi commerciali a piano terra. L’ediﬁcio è a corte aperta ed è affacciato sul Parco delle Basiliche

600 mq garages, 1000 mq spazi commerciali, 4000 mq residenze

P1050422, P1050423

Progetto per la sede della Fondazione Gian Giacomo Feltrinelli (Gregotti Associati 1974) (M. Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti, Milano, 1982)

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a quattro livelli, con corte interna, leggermente arretrata rispetto al ﬁlo stradale

500 mq spazi commerciali, 1500 mq residenze

100 mq spazi commerciali, 200 mq residenze

Sistemazione a verde dell’area compresa tra via Brisa e via Gorani, con scavi e restauri dei ruderi romani e sistemazione della torre medievale

via Santa Maria alla Porta

700

Ambiti assoggettati a pianiﬁcazione esecutiva

Privata

Vuoto all’interno di un isolato urbano, forse dovuto a demolizioni belliche. L’area affaccia su via Santa Maria alla Porta interrompendo la cortina edilizia

via Santa Maria alla Porta

200

Ambiti assoggettati a pianiﬁcazione esecutiva

Privata

Vuoto su cortina edilizia uniforme, altezza quattro piani, attualmente gli ediﬁci ai lati sono puntellati

010

via Brisa / via Vigna / via Gorani

4000

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Vuoto all’interno di un isolato urbano, forse dovuto a demolizioni belliche. L’area accoglie un parcheggio a raso

P1050424 - P1050431

111

largo Ansperto

1800

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Area parzialmente occupata da un parcheggio a raso, due aiuole, tre alberi all’estremità orientale. Affaccia sulle rovine romane visibili lungo via Brisa

P1050431- P1050449

212

via Sant’Agnese

300

SI zone per attrezzature pubbliche di interesse generale a livello intercomunale / Università

Privata

Parcheggio a raso a ﬁanco di ediﬁcio a quattro livelli con fronte cieco affacciato sul parcheggio

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a cinque livelli con spazi commerciali a piano terra

313

viale Gorizia

2000

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Area non utilizzata compresa tra via Gorizia e la Darsena, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Porta Genova (Linea 2)

Ediﬁcio a destinazione mista, composto da due torri alle estremità settentrionale e meridionale. Tra le torri trova posto una serie di terrazze digradanti

Realizzazione di una serie di terrazze accessibili al pubblico, affacciate sulla darsena, che potranno ospitare bar, ristoranti, ecc.

414

viale Emilio Zola / viale Pietro e Maria Curie

14500

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Area compresa tra parco ferroviario delle Ferrovie Nord e i bordi del Parco Sempione, ottima accessibilità alla stazione di piazza Cadorna (Linea1, Linea 2, Ferrovie Nord Milano)

6 ediﬁci residenziali di 7 piani. Le terrarre sui tetti sono attrezzate con diversi servizi (giardini pensili, piscine ecc.)

Sistemazione dello spazio tra i sei ediﬁci, in continuità con il giardino della Triennale e con parco Sempione

Progetto per la sede della Fondazione Gian Giacomo Feltrinelli (Gregotti Associati 1974) (M. Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti, Milano, 1982)

P8210010, P8210012, P8210022 - P8210030

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a quattro livelli, con corte interna, incorpora ediﬁcio esistente; spazi commerciali e asilo al piano terra

Sistemazione a verde dell’area compresa tra via Brisa e via Gorani, con scavi e restauri dei ruderi romani e sistemazione della torre medievale

300 mq scuola materna, 3000 mq spazi commerciali, 1800 mq residenze

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sei livelli

Trasformazione di largo Ansperto con nuove piantumazioni

500 mq spazi commerciali, 2700 mq residenze

100 mq spazi commerciali, 300 mq residenze

1500 mq garages, 1100 mq spazi commerciali, 3600 mq residenze

2.400 mq garages, 16.800 mq residenze

217

515

via Olona 1-3

400

CC zone per centri commerciali

Privata

Supermercato Pam, con parcheggio in copertura, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Sant’Ambrogio (Linea 2)

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a cinque livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

Demolizione e ricostruzione del supermercato al piano terreno

600 mq spazi commerciali, 1100 mq residenze

616

viale Papiniano 53-2 / via Fabio Mangone

700

1.8 Area di salvaguardia ambientale

Privata

Stazione di servizio Q8, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Sant’Agostino (Linea 2)

Ricostruzione della cortina edilizia lungo viale Papiniano con ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sette livelli con spazi commerciali a doppia altezza al piano terra

Demolizione e ricostruzione della stazione di servizio al piano terra

300 mq spazi commerciali, 3300 mq residenze

717

via Olona

1000

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio a raso in prossimità dei capannoni del Museo della Scienza, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Sant’Ambrogio (Linea 2)

Case a schiera a due livelli con giardino privato

818

piazza Sant’Agostino

2900

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Piazza pressoché interamente adibita a parcheggio a raso. La piazza ospita un mercato settimanale che si estende anche a viale Papiniano. Ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Sant’Agostino (Linea 2)

Ediﬁcio a corte sopraelevato

919

via Mario Pagano

6900

IF zone per impianti ferroviari

Demanio comunale

Area triangolare a parcheggio compresa tra il parco ferroviario delle Ferrovie Nord e l’ediﬁcato attestato lungo via Giuseppe Revere

Torre residenziale a sedici livelli

020

via Pietro Azario / via Tullo Ostilio / via Numa Pompilio

3000

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio interrato e giardini pubblici in copertura, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Sant’Agostino (Linea 2)

121

largo Quinto Alpini

800

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale e viabilità urbana primaria e secondaria

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio interrato in corso di realizzazione

222

viale Papiniano 27

900

CC zone per centri commerciali

Demanio comunale

Supermercato Esselunga, con parcheggio in copertura, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Sant’Agostino (Linea 2)

323

viale Papiniano / viale via Giovan Battista Vico / via degli Olivetani

52700

SC zone per spazi pubblici o riservati alle attività collettive a livello comunale

Demanio del Ministero della Giustizia

Carcere panottico realizzato dal 1872 al 1879 dall’ingegner Francesco Lucca. Vi sono stati imprigionati, tra gli altri, Gaetano Bresci, Renato Vallanzasca e Mike Bongiorno

via Leone XIII / via Vincenzo Monti / via Reggimento Savoia Cavalleria

7300

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale e viabilità urbana primaria e secondaria

Demanio comunale

Area a prato compresa tra l’isolato occupato dall’istituto Leone XIII e via Vicenzo Monti. Il giardino è realizzato come copertura di un parcheggio interrato. L’area affaccia sul parco immediatamente a nord.

24 4

25 5

Coppia di ediﬁci di appartamenti a sette livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra adeguatamente adattati al parcheggio sottostante P8210021

Nuova pavimentazione della piazza, anche in funzione dello svolgimento del mercato

Trasformazione dei giardini pubblici

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a cinque livelli su pilotis adeguatamente adattato al parcheggio sottostante

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sette livelli realizzato al di sopra del supermercato e del parcheggio in copertura

P8210041- P8210047

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcere_di_San_Vittore, http://www.ildue.it/, http://home.rifondazione.it/dettaglio_dip.php?id=1779&d=63

Torri residenziali (6) all’estremità dei bracci del carcere esistente. Trasformazione del carcere in centro commerciale e servizi

http://www.leonexiii.it/

Due ediﬁci di appartamenti a nove livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

Realizzazione di giardini nei settori compresi tra i bracci del carcere, eliminazione del muro di cinta

1800 mq residenze

2400 mq residenze

800 mq spazi commerciali, 11000 mq residenze

165

400 mq spazi commerciali, 1800 mq residenze

900 mq garages, 1400 mq residenze

Demolizione e ricostruzione del supermercato al piano terreno

1300 mq parcheggio, 2700 mq spazi commerciali, 2000 mq residenze

Restauro della struttura carceraria

30000 mq spazio commerciale , 6000 mq servizi (biblioteca, palestra, piscina), 18000 mq residenze

230

1800 mq spazio commerciale, 8500 mq residenze

130

via Reggimento Savoia Cavalleria

2600

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale e viabilità urbana primaria e secondaria

Demanio comunale

Prato

P8210048 - P8210052

Ediﬁcio in linea lungo il perimetro dell’isolato, a sei livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

800 mq servizi, 4000 mq residenze

via Gabriele Rossetti / via Reggimento Savoia Cavalleria

2000

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale e viabilità urbana primaria e secondaria

Demanio comunale

Giardino in copertura di parcheggio interrato

P8210054 - P8210057

Ediﬁcio in linea lungo il perimetro dell’isolato, a sei livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

500 mq spazi commerciali, 2500 mq residenze

727

via Andrea Solari / piazza del Rosario / via Ambrogio da Fossano Bergognone

2800

I zone industriali e artigianali

Privata

Parcheggio a raso davanti al supermercato Esselunga di via Solari 31

P8190032 - P81900039

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a sette livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

1600 mq parcheggio interrato, 800 mq spazi commerciali, 4800 mq residenze

828

via Gabriele Rossetti / via Ippolito Nievo / via Leone XIII

500

R zone residenziali

Demanio comunale

Aiuola / parcheggio a raso

P8210063 - P8210065

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a otto livelli

200 mq spazi commerciali, 1600 mq residenze

929

via del Burchiello / via Mario Pagano / via Giotto

10200

TA zone terziario-amministrative / VC Zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale / area per Edilizia Residenziale Pubblica / Programmi Comunali per l’Edilizia Residenziale Pubblica 16/05/2005

Demanio comunale

Parcheggio a raso ed interrato, affaccia sul Parco Pallavicino, ottima accessibilità alla stazione della metropolitana Pagano (Linea 1)

P8190060 - P8190067

Tre ediﬁci di appartamenti in linea ed ediﬁcio a torre di quindici livelli. Piano terra commerciale.

2300 mq spazio commerciale, 21700 mq residenze

290

030

via Giovanni de Alessandri / via Domenico Cimarosa

1000

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Aiuola

P8190056 - P8190059

Ediﬁcio di appartamenti a nove livelli con spazi commerciali al piano terra

300 mq spazi commerciali, 2000 mq residenze

131

piazza Po

3000

VC zone per spazi pubblici a parco, per il gioco e lo sport a livello comunale

Demanio comunale

Aiuola ai margini di piazza Po

5000 mq residenze

26 6

Tre ediﬁci di appartamenti a nove livelli

plots table, part 1

Sostituzione del parcheggio interrato e a raso a servizio del supermercato con parcheggio interrato

Realizzazione di giardini pubblici nei patii dell’area commerciale

Sistemazione dei giardini compresi tra i tre ediﬁci alti preservando gli alberi esistenti

AUGUSTINUS Hatlehol, church, 2009

Competition: Place: Competition promoter: Landscape architects: Structures: Art project: Photos:

2009 Hatlehol, Alesund, Norway Hatlehol Parish YellowOfﬁce Riccardo Antoniazzi Amedeo Martegani Stefano Graziani

1.3.1 The dome of the church gives form to this inclusive gesture. As an oversize bowl, the dome collects and protects all of the community’s small fragments of experience (according to Ingeborg Bachmann’s request for form: Wenn alle Krüge zerspringen / was bleibt von den Tränen im Krug?).

1 The new Hatlehol church is a machine to relate to God. 1.1 The church works as a chamber ﬁlled with void. 1.1.1 Void detaches gestures from their obvious context. Gestures ﬂoat into the void in search of new possible relations. The unquestioned development of everyday life is suspended and there is thus space for the appearance of God.

2. The church avoids establishing a direct link with the content of the religious experience. 2.1 The church is not a representation of faith; it is a place in which faith can happen.

1.2 The church produces quiet. Agite otium et agnoscetis quia ego sum Dominus (Ps. 45:11).

2.2 The church is simple and clear, both inside and outside. The church collects human experiences inside of a unique shape. The main room is clearly evident from outside the building, as the shape of the dome emerges from among the ﬁrs.

1.3 The church operates as a machine that collects experiences. Space takes care of gestures, without predicting, without excluding. This is, in the end, the only reason for form: to collect human experiences and to provide actions with dignity, regardless to their immediate goal. 60

2.2.1 The church appears – and re-appears in memory – as a single object. |

2.2.1.1 The church follows a simple and rigorous proportional rule. The overall shape is contained within a 39-by-39metre square. The upper part of the church is a hemisphere; the lower part is an inverted, truncated cone. The porch in front of the church is contained within a 13-by-13-metre square.

4 All of the functions of the church are gathered within a single building. The lower level hosts everyday activities; the upper one houses the ceremonial area. The gathering of all functions within a single building allows for better connections among the different functions to be established and reduces costs.

2.2.2 The church is clearly recognizable as a holy building. It has a dome and a classical porch. It is simple, silent and monumental.

4.1 All architectural effort is concentrated in the main room. It is a large circular room that is 39 metres wide and is capped by a dome.

2.2.2.1 However, the building is not completely familiar: the dome is somehow too big, and the porch seems to be too delicate. The church is calm and gentle, yet it is not easy.

4.1.1 The church has no bell tower. The dome (instead of the bell tower) is what marks the landscape and act as a recognizable sign for the community.

2.2.2.1.1 The church is a fragile monument. The church needs to be populated by the community. Only the gestures of the parish prevent the monumentality of the church from becoming empty. Only the silent approval comprised of the gestures that occur within the church prevents the weakness of the church from becoming unbearable.

4.1.1.1 It is not possible to add a bell tower to a rotunda. Bernini’s failure (!) with the bell towers of the Pantheon testiﬁes to the fact that it is not possible. 4.2 The main hall receives light from the windows at the gallery level and from the secondary rooms around it. All of the minor spaces and the gallery are open to the woods. A 360°-view of the landscape is provided by 550 windows.

2.2.3 The simple, large form of the church establishes a relationship with the surrounding geographical elements. The dome ﬂoats in the woods, abstract and respectful, as silent as a K. D. Friedrich character staring at the monumental landscape of the Hjørundfjord.

4.2.1 The atmosphere in the room is mild and soft, and the shadows within it are not too sharp.

3 The geometry of the dome and the details of the porch refer to a deﬁned architectural tradition. Gestures inside of the church establish a relationship with ancient gestures happening into ancient buildings.

4.2.1.1 On the internal dome there is a large graphite drawing. The drawing represents clouds.

3.1 The outspoken neoclassicism of the church coincides with its naive futurism. The church is both ancestral and utopian; it is both Pantheon and U. F. O.

4.3 The main entrance to the upper level is on the northwestern side of the room. A stairway leads to a platform in front of the delicate classical pronaos. The stairs and pronaos deﬁne a ritual sequence for the parish entering the church.

3.2 The church does not lack sense of humour. It appears like an oversized mushroom that is somehow growing in the woods of the Hjørundfjord.

4.3.1 Couples stand on the platform when exiting the church after marriages. The classical façade of the church behind them in their wedding photos.

in the Hjørundfjord (drawing by YellowOfﬁce)

elevations and plans

section, scale 1:200

January 11, 2009 (photo by Stefano Graziani)

TOBIA PALLAVICINO Library of the Chamber of Commerce, Genoa, 2009

Competition: Place: Competition promoter: In collaboration with:

2009 (ďŹ rst prize) Palazzo Tobia Pallavicino, via Garibaldi, Genoa, Italy Genoa Chamber of Commerce Sp10studio

1. The new library of the Genoa Chamber of Commerce is located inside of palazzo Tobia Pallavicino, adding up to the system of cultural institutions aligned along Strada Nuova. The library joins the musea of palazzo Bianco, palazzo Rosso and palazzo Doria Tursi, and the city hall at palazzo Tursi. As such, the new library -even if entirely enclosed in the existing building- has to be a public building. The post-war re-organization of the institutions along strada nuova, such as the one by Franco Albini and Franca Helg at palazzo Bianco and palazzo Rosso, suggest a possible strategy of intervention. Albini and Helg did not change so much, yet they introduced new elements inside of the Renaissance spaces, underlining relations, suggesting possibilities, discovering potentials. 2. We propose to remove the ceiling that covers the central room of the lower level. By removing the ceiling, a new, open-air room appears below the present level of the courtyard. This room will contain the collection (the courtyard is, in fact, covered by a glass roof since XIX century). The room of the books is immediately accessible from the back entrance of the building (one level lower than the main entrance on the opposite side) and gets light from the top. The room of the books has a simple, monumental geometry, immediately establishing a relation with the tradition of neoclassical reading rooms. It is a 7,50 m cube, entirely covered with books. Coming from strada nuova, it is possible to enter into the building, cross the main hall, and to lean over onto the room of the books. In a surprising inversion, an abyss of books lies below the rococo courtyard. The courtyard appears literally founded on the collection of books of the Chamber of Trade.

Palazzo Tobia Pallavicino, via Garibaldi

perspective section of Palazzo Tobia Pallavicino

views of the room of the books

Turin is a city in a special geographic position, at the end of mountains and at the confluence of the rivers Dora and Stura and Po. The city reacts to this context with clarity and simplicity. The quiet and uniform city becomes an extraordinary device for the observation of the territory. The grid opens to the Alps and to the rivers. The new Turin needs to start –once again- from a subtle reading of the territory in which the city is located, deciphering the geography and discovering new possible constellations inside of the landscape. Turin has been able for centuries to translate in its extremely simple urban structure all the specificities of an exceptional geographic context. Every time the city has been able to discover that its own rule was unpredictably adequate. Turin needs to learn from Turin, from its capacity to digest and register transformation by systematically understating, yet not by removing. The transformations enacted by the 1995 regulatory plan (and in particular the realization of the new railway tunnel) defines a precise intention for the contemporary urban strategies. Inside of the region surrounding the city a system of rivers, parks, ancient royal residences and potential green spaces appear. A new equilibrium might be defined among places that do not need to be separated anymore. A new urban policy needs to involve all three competition areas, defining a common strategy. Yet this conceptual connection does not need to be translated into a physical one. The new metro line will be the main link among the three competition areas, so it will not be necessary any connection on surface. On the contrary, a new urban equilibrium can appear, by discovering unnoticed figures inside of the city. A new trident appears at Rebaudengo square, linking this part of the city with the centre, and with the parks past the cemetery and on the other side of the river Po. This new road infrastructure establishes relations among the three competition areas: at Spina 4 three new buildings with mixed program appear around a colossal roundabout containing an excavated, metropolitan public space. The Vanchiglia area is occupied by a grid filled with urban blocks, enclosing gardens and kitchen-gardens into the courtyard. The former railway track of corso Sempione/Gottardo is filled with little urban blocks saturating the gap in between the two sides of the Barriera di Milano quarter.

BOTTINI, STARDI, FRANTI Urban plan competition, Turin, 2010

Competition: Place: Competition area:

Competition promoter: In collaboration with:

video by:

2010 (two special mentions) Turin - Vanchiglia - Trincerone - Spina 4 municipality of Turin MARC ofﬁce YellowOfﬁce M.P.I. group studio T.T.A. Emanuele Bobbio Ooby major

A. Vanchiglia area In order to build a multiple city, where the different parts compose a system of complementary episodes, it is necessary to imagine new mechanisms of production of the city. In fact, contemporary cities are made of the endless repetition of very similar pieces, all made in the illusion of uniqueness. Urban design needs to 72

define a new urban rule, that could help citizens producing an open and shared city. A rule has to be established to allow single proprietors, small business, co-housing programs, social housing programs as well as larger companies to play a role in the production of urban tissue. In the Vanchiglia area, it is possible to define a grid coinciding with the axes of the cemetery and of the main existing roads. The grid is occupied by closed blocks, rectangular in plan, adapting to the measurements of the existing roads. The area is filled by 15 new blocks. 2 new squares appear along via Ponchielli, which crosses the grid diagonally, meeting via Cimarosa and via Regaldi. The blocks are regulated by very few rules: maximum height is 25 m, maximum thickness is 13 m, it is necessary to build immediately next to the neighbours. The blocks are very big (in average 120 x 80 m) and leave a lot of space for gardens, glass houses and small semi-public facilities inside the courtyard. 20% of the apartments are associated with a kitchen garden, that might contribute to the economy of the families, particularly the poorest ones. The inside of the blocks is completely green (the aggregate green surface of the quarter is 170,000 sqm, 46% of the competition area). The grid allows maximum freedom. The blocks include housing and production, agriculture and leisure. The blocks work as an urban device, able to produce urban pressure by preserving large amount of green space inside the city. The block protects its green heart by producing city along its borders. Each block is a miniature of the city. The city is multiple, hybrid and intricate starting from its smallest component. The envelope of the block is extremely simple. The block prefers to produce complexity than to exhibit complexity; it prefers to accept differences than to showcase extravaganzas. The banal series of blocks accepts to host unpredictable events. The transformation of the city is a truly collective endeavour; the authors of the city are explicitly many. The blocks can include townhouses, row houses, apartment blocks, public buildings. Maximum programmatic flexibility coincides with maximum regularity. The blocks can include different functions and different populations: commercial spaces, public buildings, gardens, apartments, offices, social housing and workshops mix and produce a lively urban environment.

density, producing an intense, metropolitan node, immediately at the border among the historical city centre and the periphery. The contradictions that populate this place should not be hidden. The city of the future needs metropolitan, artificial, hectic places, together with peaceful, slow, idyllic ones. It is not possible to reconnect the different urban tissues around Spina 4. Neither it is possible to reconcile a pedestrian square with a highway crossing by. A “pedestrian” square can be discovered in the most unpredictable spot. By expanding the crossing of via Cigna, via Breglio and via Fossata into a colossal, 200 m diameter roundabout, a new, completely pedestrian and perfectly geometric square appears at the centre of the traffic node. The roundabout solves all traffic and urban problems, by defining an intense metropolitan centre for a complex and contradictory urban location. The big circular square is slightly excavated; the centre is 2.5 m lower than the border. The exceptional dimension of the hollow and the big tube with installations along the border reduce the traffic noise inside of the roundabout. Unsuspected silence is at the centre of the traffic storm. The circular square collects all pedestrian fluxes coming from the train station, the metro station, the underground parking and the three buildings around. A new, somehow monumental, city appears at Spina 4, a city made of solid, dense objects, clustered around a traffic node. The three buildings repeat the geometries of the urban fragments attached to them and appear on the roundabout as simple and silent volumes. All requested volume is concentrated in the three buildings, leaving a large amount of surface for the park. The big volumes float as icebergs in oceans of metropolitan greenery. The circular square works as large metropolitan spaces such as the Circus Maximus in Rome or the Jama’a elFnaa in Marrakesh. As a huge metropolitan pan, the circular square is open and generous, somehow undefined, ready to host all sorts of metropolitan programs. The events that invade the contemporary city in increasing numbers require spaces to be enacted: public spaces, but different from the nineteenth-century and modernist ones. Spaces for individuals and for the multitude, colossal and indeterminate, abstract and popular. Turin already posses enough closed, “Italian” squares, with which it would be impossible to compete. What is lacking in Turin is a metropolitan field where to host contemporary rituals and events, a place for mass demonstrations and for rock concerts, a place to celebrate sport victories or to host religious festivals of the many minorities that inhabit the city.

B. Spina 4 Spina 4 is one of the places that will define the identity of Turin in the future. In Spina 4 different urban fragments meet along an urban highway. Relevant traffic flows clash with urban 73

panorama of new Turin

Vanchiglia: general plan

Vanchiglia: perspective section

Vanchiglia: views

CARSO 2014+ open air museum, Gorizia, 2010

Invited competition: Place:

Competition promoter: Construction cost: In collaboration with: Landscape architects: Structures:

The specific geologic condition and the particular history of the Carso region produce a unique landscape, combining the memory of the 1st World War with a surprising, mutating vegetation. Carso, as a landscape, is extremely quiet. Large and peaceful fields hide the traces of the war. In spring, grass covers everything, somehow softening the drama of the place. Inside of this landscape are distributed different monuments (the Redipuglia memorial, the different musea, the trenches). We propose to connect all of this in a visible way. Large flags in bright colours appear in the plateu, marking the different points of the park and building up, using icons and colours, a new geography for the place. The flags, as something that is both military and festive, try to establish a link with the tragedy of the past without recurring to a pre-established rhetoric. The Redipuglia memorial is expanded and connected with the new park by creating a new entrance for the park, immediately next to the monument. A new, large open air room appears at the back off the memorial, producing a suspension in between the monument and the park. The open air rooms acts as an antechamber. Its large dimensions and its emptiness operates as a tool to record the changing seasons.

2010 (2nd prize) Redipuglia, San Michele al Carso, Doberdò del lago, Gorizia, Italy Gorizia provincial administration 4 mln € Stefano Pelluso Steven Geeraert YellowOfﬁce D'Appolonia s.p.a.

new extension of the Redipuglia memorial

new extension of the Redipuglia memorial in the 4 seasons

NATIONAL HISTORY MUSEUM

Period: Place: Competition promoter: Surface: Construction cost: Video:

2010 imaginary dutch city NHM 5,000 sqm (museum) 1 ha (square) 70 mln € Ezio Siciliano

Notes for a Museum without a Collection 1. NHM is a museum without a permanent collection. This condition needs to be understood as an opportunity, not as a want. 2. A Museum without a permanent collection is something intimately empty. The hollowness of the Museum immediately suggests its possible urbanity. NHM is an open empty box waiting for aggressive metropolitan appropriation. Visitors can use NHM as a platform to explore Dutch history. 3. So far, the most precise urban version of a “metropolitan empty box” is a Roman forum. A forum is a large urban void protected by walls and porticoes, with minor elements plugged in (temples, basilicas, and so on). The forum in itself is just a precinct. It has no function, it simply provides a precise frame formalizing the whatsoever happening inside. A forum is the formal infrastructure for the activities happening inside. It produces metropolitan intensity by deﬁning a precise formal condition. It is nothing more than architecture. 4. We propose to organize NHM as a collection of rooms grouped along a major open-air room. The rooms offer different conditions and dimensions: a huge open air enclosure, a wide covered arcade (public zone), six large rooms for the different thematic areas introducing to small rooms related to the same theme (exhibition zone), and spaces for the conference, restaurants, shops and the administration. The different spaces deﬁne precise formal conditions that can react with the programs and the curatorial projects of the NHM.

This set of spaces is entirely public and deliberately monumental. The architecture of NHM gives access to the media infrastructure that allows a private exploration of the Dutch history, and still will try to define a figure for the collective memory. If interactive media will multiply, fragment and sometimes dissolve Dutch history, architecture will take the risk to collect and compose a comprehensive figure and experience for the NHM. 5. The chronology of NHM is displayed along the walls of the forum, in a large, four-sided, interactive murales. Objects are accumulated in the open-air room, in the arcade and in the six large thematic rooms in mutating combinations. An hopper car moves along the walls over the open air room, helping moving big objects inside the space and allowing staging concerts and spectacles. Installations in the floor in between the arcade and the main museum level allow continuous re-programming of the spaces below and above. The possibility to re-program the building and the exhibition almost on a daily bases provides the NHM with a festive atmosphere. The monumentality of the forum is complemented by the playful machinery that allows to populate the forum with a multitude of objects and events. Kids will stare at cranes moving around the colossal head of Spinoza and the first Dutch combined harvester. 6. NHM needs to be in the city. The museum can perform its multiple tasks only if it works as a metropolitan stage, repeatedly invaded by populations, crowded with events, confronted with contemporary public life. NHM needs to be a stage for contemporary Dutch public life. As a forum, NHM will be able to be square, market, fair, concert hall, museum.

Market in the NHM (model scale 1:500)

the NHM in an imaginary dutch city

A Multitude of Memories / The Memory of the Multitude

CASA DELLA MEMORIA

Competition: Status:

Place: Competition promoter: Program: Surface: Construction cost: Interaction design: Photos:

The relationship between memory and the House of Memory is not one of simple translation. Contemporary Milan does not possess a fixed, entirely shared memory that is ready to be carved in stone. Rather than considering the House of Memory as an expression of a shared memory, it would be better to consider it as a tool for discussing the different elements that coexist within the collective memory of the city. The House of Memory being proposed here tries to provide a shelter for the various and varied memories that are woven not only into contemporary society, but also in the minds of individuals. Firm, long-term and habitually public memories thus coexist inside all of us with our own fleeting, delicate, personal memories. The collective memory, which is both abstract and impersonal, intermingles with the more personal dimension of memory made of humble gestures, anecdotes, and private rituals. Different styles of memory coincide in an object that is ready to establish a dialogue with different audiences without renouncing the possibility of constructing a unified picture. Thus a fixed stage set appears alongside changing scenery, thereby producing a machine of memory that is both complex and surprising, both slow and mutating, and both multiple and immovable. As an open and continuously updated archive, as a terrace open towards the city, the House of Memory is ready to play host to a multitude of informal and unforeseen uses. As a heavy, compact volume, the House of Memory also displays its inertia, choosing to remain a stumbling block left to hinder and repeat its own testimony. The House of Memory is a very simple building: it is a box with a rectangular base (20 x 35 m) that is 17.5 m high. The building is divided into three parts that are connected to one another by an entirely open ground floor. Two thin strips along the building’s shorter ends—which house the archive (South), the restrooms (North), and the vertical passages that allow the different parts of the building to be accessed independently—are connected to a large (20 x 30 m) central area, one third of which stretches the full height of the building and hosts a large circular staircase and two thirds of which are occupied by offices disposed on three levels. This internal organization, with the large stairwell inserted between the three levels of offices and exhibition spaces and the five levels of the archive, introduces a grander sense of scale into the building. Juxtaposed with the tight levels of the archive, the staircase and the offices acquire greater spaciousness; the visitor perceives a vaster, more solemn space.

2011 (1st prize) ongoing preliminary project: May 2012 deﬁnitive project: Sept. 2012 Porta Nuova, Milan, Italy Hines Italia Ofﬁces, archive, exhibition space, conference hall 2,000 sqm 3.6 mln € dotdotdot Stefano Graziani

Piazza Duomo, Milano (photo by Stefano Graziani)

competition elevations

competition plans

mock-up of the elevation

TWO ROOMS

BAB AL BAHRAIN

Competition: Place: Competition promoter: Program: Surface: With:

2012 (2nd prize) Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain Ministry of Culture square 3ha Guido Tesio

1. As of today, the Bab Al Barhain square is not a square: it is a series of parking lots surrounded by major traffic roads. This condition needs to be understood as an opportunity, not as a want. 2. Bab Al Bahrain lies in between the market to the south and the Bahrain Financial Harbor to the north. The hollowness of the site and its strategic location suggests a possible urbanity. The Bab Al Barhain area is an urban void waiting for aggressive metropolitan appropriation. Its emptiness is ready to host metropolitan activities. A new design simply needs to protect the emptiness and let it blossom. 3. The Bab Al Barhain square has no program, no content. Its complete programmatic indeterminacy allows a multitude of uses to take place in the square. Bab Al Barhain just needs a precise definition of its borders to allow a complex metropolitan program to appear. Formal precision will allow for free appropriation of space. 4. Two new open air rooms appears at Bab Al Barhain, following the geography of the context: a large room to the north and a smaller one to the south. The two rooms are defined by a 10 m high wall following the perimeter of the competition site. The two rooms offer different conditions and dimensions: a huge open air venue for public events and festivals, a forest of palm trees, a smaller square fitting to the historical part of the city. This set of spaces is entirely public and deliberately monumental. As in a Roman Forum the external wall allows for the easy incorporation of subsidiary elements with different programs and the insertion of a multitude of "exceptions" that provide the rooms with a lively atmosphere. 95

As interior spaces the two rooms will grow accumulating the traces of the life of their visitors. The simplicity of the spaces and the purity of the walls will be transformed in time by everyday rituals, both private and public, old and new.

7. In the bigger room, a forest of palms provides shadow while separating car trafﬁc from pedestrian circulation. The monumentality of the two rooms is complemented by a playful multitude of objects and events: a fountain in front of the Bab Al Barhain building, three "islands” ﬂoating in the area non occupied by trees, some pavilions immersed into the palms. The large scale precision of the perimeter of the rooms allow to introduce a multiplicity of minor objects, trees, fountains, soft landscaping elements.

5. The “metropolitan empty box” needs a frame. The new squares operate as a Forum: a precinct with no function, a precise border deﬁning accesses and formalizing the whatsoever happening inside. The Forum is the formal infrastructure for the activities happening inside. It produces metropolitan intensity by deﬁning a precise formal condition. It is nothing more than architecture. As a Forum, Bab Al Barhain will be able to be square, market, fair, concert hall, museum. All sorts of different programs and populations will alternate in the various areas of the rooms along the day and along the year: market in the morning, skating in south eastern corner, sleeping under the palms at noon, concert in the wide empty space in the evening, lonely staring at the moon at night.

8. The two rooms are plural from the very beginning. The rooms do not represent anything; they just let things appear. Like decompression chambers, they realize a clean, rarefied condition, where the different desires of the city can come to the surface. While calling for private exploration and appropriation, the two rooms try to define a shared figure where the traces of all populations of contemporary Barhain can be recorded.

6. The northern room is pierced by a street giving access to the entire area. The parking lots have been re-located on the northern side of the bigger room, along the King Faisal Highway. The parking, on three levels, will be the basement for a new building. The new building (which we leave for others to design) will protect the two rooms from the traffic noise and will include the new Post office, the Children's museum, the National Archives and other public as well as private facilities. The insertion of this private program into the new building along King Faisal Highway will secure the financial means necessary to realize the public spaces and facilities of Bab Al Barhain. The southern room encircles the Bab Al Barhain building, directly connecting the project with the Manama Suq.

gereral plan

conceptual model

competition panel

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view of the two rooms

PASSAGENWERK

Invited competition: Task:

Place: Competition promoter:

Program: Surface:

2012 (Open Call for Tender 22 01) Conversion of a former monastery of the Dominican order and appurtenances into a meeting place and a centre for social economy, poverty reduction, diversity and social community work QVIT Monastery, Antwerp Province of Antwerp Department of Logistics – Services for Infrastructure ofﬁces, multifunctional hall, restaurant, apartements 5.800 sqm urban assets. In fact, the potential of the QVIT is great: the centre, the station, the new HS station, the Stadspark are all very close. Yet, the presence of these large scale urban infrastructures corresponds to the lack of mid-size public spaces and public buildings. The realization of the new community centre will be crucial in this respect, contributing to the creation of a diverse, multilayered urban landscape in which bigger elements are intertwined with smaller ones. It is possible to imagine a new urban sequence at the scale of QVIT/ Borgerhout connecting the city centre, the station, the zoo, the new community centre and (along Milisstraat- Oedenkovenstraat) the Districtshuis Borgerhout.This new urban sequence will pass through the zoo (or the public park, in the case of the dismission of the zoo) and through the new community centre, so generating a new urban passage.

1. The Dominican Monastery was a closed system: it engaged the world by taking a distance. The Dominican Order was not afraid of a harsh confrontation with the reality of the 19th century industrialized city, still the monastery was a walled, separated realm. We are now asked to turn the – by deﬁnition isolated – monastery into an accessible, multifunctional meeting place aimed at innovation and production of knowledge. The walled, closed architecture of the complex needs to become transparent, open. This transformation cannot be without consequences. We propose to realize the minimum amount of transformations that are necessary to modify the organization and the atmosphere of the Monastery, without hesitating if a few radical decisions are necessary. 2. The QVIT area is a residential zone just outside the medieval centre of the city. The area is separated from the centre by a classic set of XIX century infrastructures (the train station, the zoo), located just outside the former city walls. As of today, the QVIT area is a relatively anonymous, that does not entirely exploits its 101

3. The introverted nature of the monastery is a quality: it promises a relief from the chaos of the contemporary city. At the same time the isolation of the complex constitutes a serious obstacle to the desired public character of the new community centre. The complex needs |

to be opened up without losing its qualities. We propose to open the Dominican Monastery to the city by literally showing its interior to the outside: a new urban passage connects the different parts of the complex, linking the entrance on the Ploegstraat to the entrance on the Provinciestraat and creating a public street servicing all the functions of the community centre. The inside of the plot is politely revealed and made public by the appearance of the passage. The passage is built in a very classical fashion, with light structure and glazed roof. The passage snakes through the plot generating a sequence of greenhouses and gardens that follow the existing layout of the monastery and are populated by a multitude of plants, ﬂowers and fruit, creating a pleasant and unexpectedly exotic environment with sunlight ﬁltering from the roof.

greenhouses wrapping the church in an envelope of glass and vegetation. The porch allows the inside of the church to appear on the street and invades the space with abundance of light. The porch is a light structure, hosting a variety of plants growing from hanging pots. From the outside, the neo-gothic interior of the church appears through a new light screen populated by a multitude of plants. The removal of the heavy, sombre façade and of the disproportionate bell tower weighing on the street allows the appearance of a new porch, operating as a protected buffer zone among the space of the street and the community centre. The public space in front of the church is indeed too small to host the amount of people expected in case of concerts, lectures or public meetings. The new porch will provide a larger, covered public space in front of the entrance. Compared to the old one, the new façade is more similar to the adjacent houses with respect to rhythm, size and shape and more different with respect to construction materials. The new, transparent porch literally exposes the accessibility and openness of the new facilities to all categories of users. The disappearance of the heavy, clumsy neo-gothic façade results in a liberating new lightness for the entire neighbourhood. The new

4. The two new entrances disclose the newly accessible interior of the monastery. Along the Provinciestraat, the façade of the old church is removed and substituted with a new porch. The porch is the prosecution of the passage. It introduces/ concludes the sequence of the 102

rant and the community centre will expand their spaces in the court, populating it with a plurality of activities. The small patio is a secret garden, a classic hortus conclusus with medicinal plants somehow reminiscent of the monastery atmosphere. The visually connected spaces of the court and of the roof garden just above it are interconnected. The patterns of ﬂowers and perennial grass on the roof garden repeats and mirrors the geometry of the court below. The highest roof-top of the complex, is a simple roofgarden covered with sedum and grass.

community centre introduces a new fresh, experimental atmosphere in the entire QVIT, acting as an activator of the urban transformation. 5. A vertical garden of climbing plants leads the visitors of the new community centre along the passage. The new façade of the church is ﬁlled with a set of hanging vases hosting plants. The vases and the plants are supported by a system of winches anchored to the greenhouse structure. This system allows the maintenance of the hanging green. The vases also contain a led lighting system that brings light to the passage and the church during the night hours. The main court is divided in two triangular halves: a hardscape, ready for all kinds of uses and a garden, with vegetation growing wild. The garden maintains as much as possible the existing vegetation and gives a hint of what will continue on the roof-garden facing the main patio. A soft ground made of gravel and grass is complemented by vines (betel) used as shading devices. During the warm season, the court can be freely appropriated for coffee breaks, launch breaks, open air events, lectures, little shows. In particular, the restau103

6. Inside, the church is kept as it is. Architecture does not change; only light and furniture change. Like in the Dutch churches painted by Pieter Jansz Saenredam shortly after the Reformation, the change in the use of the sacred spaces does not correspond to a change in the architecture of the building. In Saenredam’s paintings the architecture of the former Catholic churches does not change: there is just a new type of light and the collections of objects become more reduced. The change of light and furniture is sufﬁcient to deﬁne a mutation in the tone of the space, that becomes |

Kaisergalerie, Berlin

means should be opposed. We therefore propose an easy project: the passage and the court operate as the main infrastructure of the complex, giving access to all the different parts of the complex. The community centre is subdivided in ﬁve sub-units, that are grouped together along the vertical distribution cores. All sub-units are directly accessible from the passage and the public space, allowing each unit to operate independently. In principle, the passage will always be open, also when the different parts of the community centre will be closed. The simplicity of the scheme allows visitors to use the new community centre with great ease. Entering the complex, discovering activities, imagining possible uses will be extremely simple and intuitive. The visitor will be attracted inside the complex by its light, generous architecture; the vegetation will contribute to the production of a relaxed environment. The user-friendly character of the complex will attract new groups, eliminating a barrier that often reduces the social value of public facilities.

more familiar, more informal, more open. Saenredam is able to record this transformation with incredible delicacy. The only traces of a fundamental religious/political/social event such as the Reformation, are an adjusted chromatic range, minor changes in the positions of the persons inside the space of the painting and a new set of extremely simple benches and pulpits. The new program and the new users of the Dominican church of Provinciestraat are probably even more different from the previous ones than were the Protestants painted by Saenredam form the Catholics who used the churches before. Still, the transformation has to be delicate. The old church will not be changed, except for the removal of the façade. Without it, the church will be a much more pleasant and calm space: simpler and brighter. A new light enters the old church. The light is refracted by the screen of vegetation and has new – vibrating, greenish – tone. 7. The Dominican Monastery is transformed into the new community centre through the minimum amount of moves, changing as little as possible. The monastery indeed follows a very rational scheme that by no 104

Mimmo Rotella, "decollage"

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photo by Stefano Graziani

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photo by Stefano Graziani

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photo by Stefano Graziani

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photo by Stefano Graziani

900 KM NILE CITY a strategig design proposal for a rural metropolis

Period: Task: Place: Program: Surface: Costs: Sponsor:

Architects:

Photographers:

Scientiﬁc comittee:

In collaboration with:

Exhibitions:

2009 - ongoing research Governorate of Sohag, Egypt masterplan for the province of Al Monshah 400 sqkm (without budget) - The Netherlands Architecture Fund - AMGA, Genoa, Italy - Atelier Kempe Thill (The Netherlands) - baukuh (Italy) - GRAU (France) - LOLA (The Netherlands) - Stefano Graziani - Bas Princen - Giovanna Silva - Roger Diener (ETH Studio Basel) - Joseph Grima (chief editor, Domus) - Vedran Mimica - (director, Berlage Institute) - Berlage Institute (The Netherlands) - University of Assiut (Egypt) - Sohag Governorate (Egypt) - University of Gastronomic Sciences (Italy) 5th International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam (April 2012)

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I A New Type of City The reason for the existence of cities has always changed throughout history. The urban development of the last two centuries in Europe, America and Asia has been based on fast expanding capitalist economy. The rapid growth of industrial production stimulated an enormous immigration of poor farmers into the emerging industrial centres, generating a new working class with a secularized culture of the masses. This new metropolitan culture has always been seen as the polar opposite of the more tradition-based lifestyle of the countryside. These two cultures have long been an inseparable couple, with the countryside inspiring city dwellers and the rural population entranced by urban life. The whole tradition of European urban planning of the 19th and 20th centuries was based on the fertile contradiction between metropolis and countryside, a contradiction that generating fascinating new urban ideals like the garden city, the linear town and CIAM planning. At the beginning of the 21st century, new gigantic urban systems began to appear in developing countries that cannot be explained either by a capitalist economy paired with rural exodus, or by the traditional conﬂict between metropolis and countryside. To be able to read these systems, classical Western urbanistic thinking seems too limited. A new vocabulary is therefore necessary in order to be able to understand and describe these new megacities. II A City of Population Density One of these new gigantic urban systems is located in Egypt. Lacking a formal name, this city appears on no map. Even in Cairo – which is a megacity itself – the

new metropolis is unknown, because Cairo’s Westerntrained urban planners are simply unable to see it. But with more than 26 million inhabitants, the “Nile City” is bigger than the Egyptian capital and is – in terms of sheer numbers – one of the biggest cities in the world. The Nile City is situated in the river’s upper valley, forming a narrow linear strip of urbanization along the Nile in the middle of the desert. The city is no more than a few kilometres wide, but it is nearly 900 kilometres long. As an urban system, the Nile City is based neither on any particular industry nor on rural exodus. It is a new city type that was formed simply by rapid population growth produced by the introduction of Western medical standards, the security of food availability thanks to foreign importation and the absence of family planning in a tradition-based Islamic society. The Nile City is in its essence a city of population density. As an agricultural region, the Nile City has slowly turned into a single homogenous urban corridor over the last hundred years exclusively due to an annual population growth of around 2%.

form the edges of the Sahara. The infrastructure of the Nile City is closely linked to these morphological conditions. A single railway line, which was already built by the British in the 19th century, runs over 900 kilometres along the middle of the valley up to Aswan, forming a kind of “subway” for the Nile City with stops every 50 kilometres or so. Along both desert edges run two very functional highways connecting the Nile City to Cairo and the Red Sea. Every 200 kilometres there is a little district capital with its own bridge over the river and a small airport, each of them serving as an urban satellite in the desert. In light of these conditions, the Nile City can be read on a larger scale as a very logical and beautiful diagram of infrastructure and landscape, and it can be understood as a natural linear city, one that is placed not in a lush Arcadian landscape but in the harsh and beautiful emptiness of the Sahara. The Nile City is a linear city in the middle of nowhere – the only place where man can survive in an otherwise endless ocean of sand and stones. IV A Metropolis without Physical Density The Nile City is very densely populated. With 2,841 people per square kilometre, it has a density similar to those of Los Angeles, Tokyo–Yokohama and Milan. Such a comparison sounds promising, but in terms of its urban image, the Nile City absolutely cannot compete with Western or Asian megacities. Entering the Nile City is at ﬁrst a disillusioning experience, yet is also astonishing at the same time, for there is no city. The classic image of an urban metropolis comprised of housing blocks with big boulevards for trafﬁc is almost nowhere to be found. There are no signs of intense, hectic urban life. Seen through European eyes, the Nile

III A Natural Linear City The Nile City has an astonishingly simple layout that is clearly deﬁned by its geographical limits. In the middle, there is the Nile, an approximately half-kilometre-wide body of water that is strongly controlled by the Aswan Dams, several Nile barriers and man-made riverbanks. On both sides of the Nile there is a small strip of land irrigated with Nile water via an ingenious network of water channels, which create an artiﬁcial and very fertile oasis. On average, the valley is no wider than 12 kilometres, and it ends abruptly when it reaches the two mountain chains that soar as high as 300 metres and

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City still looks like an agricultural landscape, or like the countryside, despite having a population density ten times that of Germany. On an emotional level this is not easy to understand, but the reason for it is simple. Because of the limited conditions of a developing country, the Nile City is very rich in population but poor in physical infrastructure. The average housing surface is not much more than 5 square metres per person (the Western/European standard is around 45), there are hardly any built public facilities like ofﬁce buildings or factories, and the street network is very modest, because with 30 cars for every 1,000 inhabitants (the Western/European standard is around 500), mobility is still very limited. The Nile City is obviously very dense in terms of its population, but its building density is very limited. A population density that in Europe or America would generate a very densely built and farmland-consuming metropolitan area produces nothing more than a small-town atmosphere in the Egypt context. The Nile City is a metropolis without physical density.

tinuous body of farmland or as an equally long continuous strip of urban fabric or as combination of both. The Nile City can be read as a dense network of street villages or as a system of agricultural megablocks with an average size of a square kilometre. It can be read as a Leonidovian landscape-based linear city or as an Branziesque “agropolis”. In the Nile City, landscape is neither suppressed nor replaced by the city; rather, urban development encircles the landscape and frames the agricultural fields. Here “the field” is obviously not merely the foundation for the city; rather, in the urban figure–ground relationship, it has shifted from being the latter to being the former. In the Nile City, the landscape is still the essence and the structural backbone of the urban fabric, and it is the only thing people in the city have. The Nile City is a metropolis in which the city’s essence is still the countryside – it is a metropolis that is at the same time Arcadia. VI The Pre-urban Condition The Nile City is an accident. There had never been a will or a wish to create it; it just happened. The Nile City even denies being a city. People in the Nile City have no idea that the Nile City exists, or at least they ignore it. They try to behave like normal farmers, and even today their horizon ends at the edge of their fields. There is no consciousness of the Nile City as a perceivable object because it is a biotope for 26 million – a zone these people never leave and therefore cannot see. The Nile City is the first metropolis completely populated by farmers – a sort of rural metropolis or endless chain of villages turned into one metropolitan village. In the Nile City, there is no working class and hardly any middle class. Here there is no reason for people to move because farmers don’t move. People just stay

V The City as Countryside The Nile Valley forms a very strong barrier and offers no horizon other than its own. There is hardly any difference between the countryside and urban settlements, and hardly any difference between the periphery and urban centres. The Nile City looks the same everywhere. The Nile City is the only reality the people who live there know and – as if trapped in a test tube – they cannot escape from it. In the Nile City settlements and agricultural land form one inseparable unity because urban development and farming depend in a very direct way on one another. The Nile City can be read as a 900-kilometre-long con-

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and live their lives in their fields – the city is simply an endless sequence of local situations that do not relate to one another in any kind of spatial hierarchy. Urban consciousness does not exist. In the Nile City there is no reason for celebrating civitas, nor is there a reason to develop a public domain (like inventing an agora, founding an acropolis or creating a piazza) . . . In the Nile City people still engage in a Neolithic life, so there is no need for theatres or museums, or even a cinema or a discotheque, because there is no audience, no public dimension. Even the mosques – which are produced as endless repetitions of the same building types – are smallish and modest, because they serve very circumscribed local communities. There is no need for architectural heroes like Sinan, nor for architectural representation or landmarks. The Nile City is just the endless expansion of the same local conditions – the house with the field next to the house with the field, one village next to another village. The accumulation of enormous quantities in the Nile City has not yet resulted in a jump in quality. The Nile City is a city in a pre-urban condition, a megalopolis without an urban consciousness.

chitecture of rough brick surfaces. The brown architectural volumes appear in different sizes. Houses are designed in such a way as to be extendable. A small farmer’s family usually starts out with an (illegally built) one-storey structure and then gradually adds additional surfaces according to their family’s needs. Because of the fact that agricultural land is very valuable and is directly related to a family’s income, the houses are extended vertically. This results in housing that is up to five or six storeys high, even in small villages. The same technology is used for the design of commercial small-scale apartment buildings in the local centres, thereby producing mini-towers of up to fifteen storeys. Because architecture is the result of this rational and objective process, nearly all houses in the Nile City look the same. As a consequence, an astonishingly hermetic homogeneity is produced. Continuous brown building masses form modest walls between the intensely coloured green fields. This (nearly structuralistic) image of the Nile City generates two interesting phenomena. On one hand, architecture and urbanism can hardly be separated from one another in the Nile City – the quality of the individual building is also that of the whole megalopolis, and so there is no difference between architecture and urbanism. On the other hand, the figure–ground relationship in the Nile City is influenced in a lasting way by the more structural qualities of the buildings. The building masses form humble, non-communicative objects but can at the same time be read as neutral, monolithic structures that emphasize the green landscape; in other words, in the Nile City the buildings are so neutral that the landscape becomes the dominant element, thereby causing an inversion of the classic figure–ground relationship.

VII Architecture = Urbanism Architectural production in the Nile City is a very disciplined act based on limited local technologies. Building is expensive, and therefore it must be effective and efficient. The building materials is in large part taken directly from the fields. Illegal temporary brickyards turn out simple bricks made of the Nile’s fertile mud. A Maison Domino–like concrete skeleton functions as the basis for a house and gets filled with brickwork. Because of the hot climate there is hardly any need for windows, and this ends up generating a hermetic ar-

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the housing high-rises demonstrates the limits of the system. One thing seems to be sure, however. If the Nile City goes on like this for the next ﬁfty years – if the population explosion is not stopped or if the prosperity level rises too quickly – then it will consume all of its own ecological resources and become a city with serious water and food supply problems. Further growth will prove deadly for the Nile City. From this point of view, the Nile City can be seen as a model for the whole world with its rapidly growing population. Is it possible to imagine the world as an Arcadian metropolis? Is it possible to invent other models of prosperity, like welfare without growth? Is a happy Existenzminimum even thinkable?

VIII Instable Equilibrium The Nile City is an interesting phenomenon, and its existence raises more questions than it provides answers. Will it ever become a real city? Will the continual addition of quantity eventually create a jump in urban quality? Will there one day be some sort of development of the public domain? The future of the Nile City is very unclear. It exists in a very fragile state of balance, but might already be out of equilibrium. The rapid growth of the Nile City’s built structures has already reduced the agricultural surface to a level that obliges its inhabitants to import 30% of their food. This is a very dangerous state of affairs for a developing country. The farmer tilling the soil between

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February 2012, photo by Giovanna Silva

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the Nile river

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ecologies of Egypt

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large scale perspective

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medium scale perspective

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small scale perspective

chronology of works and projects

2012 albergo diffuso Burano, Venice, Italy ongoing

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2010 o 12 house G.P. Busalla, Genoa, Italy ongoing ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 apartment M.E.S. Genoa, Italy ongoing ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 apartment P.B. Genoa, Italy ongoing ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 colonization of the dam La Spezia, Italy competition

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 Bab Al Bahrain square Kingdom of Barhain international competition [second prize] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 900 Km Nile City Markaz El Monshah, Sohag Governorate, Egypt research ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 National and University Library (NUK II) Ljubljana, Slovenia international competition

Antwerp, Belgium invited competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2011 Casa della Memoria Milan, Italy invited competition [ﬁrst prize] - ongoing ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2011 transormation of the GdF offices Le Grazie, La Spezia, Itlay project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2011 apartement M.B. Salò, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2009 o 11 public park and wooden pavilion Vezzano, La Spezia, Italy built

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2009 o 12 villa M.E.R. Fraconalto, Alessandria, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2011 residential and ofﬁces complex Brescia, Italy private competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2010 new metro circle line Milan, Italy project

AFFORI CENTRO

FERMI

FULVIO TESTI WATTEAU

LENINGRADO

TURRO BOVISA

MONTECENERI

PADOVA

CERTOSA LAMBRATE

RUBATTINO LOTTO

S. GEROLAMO

BRESCIA

FORLANINI DE ANGELI

LOMBROSO TRIPOLI ORTOMERCATO NAPOLI PUGLIE MILIZIE LODI ROMOLO RIPAMONTI

TIBALDI CADUTI DEL LAVORO

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2012 QVIT monastery

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2010

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Carso 2014+ Gorizia, Italy invited competition [second prize] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 o 10 mixed use building Xhezmi Delli str., Tirana, Albania built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2010 renewal of a mixed use building Borgo Fornari,Genova, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2010 NHM Holland project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2010 La Metamorfosi Turin, Italy competition [two special mentions] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2009 o 10 roof extention of a residential building Genova, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 o 09 mixed use building Myslym Shyri str., Tirana, Albania built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2009 garden for a residencial complex San Giovanni Lupatoto, Verona, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2009 Library of the Chamber of Commerce Genova, Italy competition [ﬁrst prize] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2009 church Alesund, Norway competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 o 09 public spaces for a touristic village Lazise-Lake of Garda, Verona, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 masterplan for the former military airport area Tirana, Albania competition [second prize] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 masterplan Koivusaari, Helsinky, Finland competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 renewal of private house

Mount Amiata, Tuscany, Italy under construction ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 masterplan Northavnen, Copenhageh, Danmark competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 masterplan Lex, Walsall, United Kingdom competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 Kindergarten Galcetello, Prato, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 interior space of 48 attics San Giovanni Lupatoto, Verona, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 Italian Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 Skandenberg Square Tirana, Albania competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 campus Novellara, Reggio Emilia, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 72 houses Bakemabuurt, Geuzenveld, Amsterdam, NL project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2008 new open air swimming pool S.Nazaro bathing establishment, Genoa, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 multi-functional pavillion for a kinder garden Lazise-Lake of Garda, Verona, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 Pegli waterfront Genova, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 ex-prison Pesaro, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 poly-functional building Motta Visconti, Milano, Italy project –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

2007 housing complex Retorbido, Pavia, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 hotel and bungalow Halab, Syria project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 housing complex Comazzo, Lodi, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 “Roman holiday” project for the archaeological park Roma, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 hotel Palmyra, Syria project

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 social housing neighbourhood Mestre, Venice, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 “small railway stations” competition for ideas ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 “less is more 3” nursery school Olgiata, Rome, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 bar Leon d’oro Busalla, Genova, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2007 zoo Karlsruhe, Germany competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 National Library extension Stockholm, Sweiden

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competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 “Hacemos ciudad” 5700 public houses Alcalà de Henares (Madrid), Navalcarnero (Madrid), Utiel (Valencia), Spain competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 o 07 Lloyd Adriatico headquarter Genova, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 masterplan for the ex-gasometer area Pavia, Italy competition [ﬁrst prize]

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 renewal of a house in via del Cotone Sorano, Grosseto, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 renewal of the “Cittadella” Alessandria, Italy competition

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 renewal of private house. Genova, Italy. built. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006

primary school Noventa Padovana, Padova, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 masterplan for a settlement in via Somalia Albaro, Genova, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 public school Torino, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 o 08 renewal of Green house Sorano, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 renewal of Villa Palazzola Stresa, Lago Maggiore, Italy competition

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 new headquarters of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Jeddah, Saudi Arabia competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 mixed use building in Mustafa Matohiti strTirana, Albania project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 7 public fountains for 7 villages Vara Valley, La Spezia, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 ofﬁces pavillion in the garden of villa Saluzzo Genova, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2006 Foucault’s pendulum, permanent installation Palazzo della Ragione, Padova, Italy built

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 Estonian National Museum Tartu, Estonia

competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 primary school and kindergarten Funes, Bozen, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 o 07 renewal of Visca house Roncadelle, Brescia, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 “abitare Milano” social housing in Milan competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 o 06 renewal of private house Bonassola, Genova, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 palazzo Guasco restoration Alessandria, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 o 06 renewal of Nanni house Busalla, Genova, Italy built ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 o 05 public fountains Castelnuovo Scrivia and Castellazzo Bormida, Alessandria, Italy built

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 province headquarters Arezzo, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2005 house in the garden of villa Magnolia Genova, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 private house in the park of Villa Paradiso Genoa, Italy project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 convention centre and theatre Comacchio, Ferrara, Italy

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project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 Garibaldi square Cantù, Como, Italy competition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 bi-familiar house Certara, Lugano, CH project ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 masterplan for Bakemabuurt Geuzenveld, Amsterdam, The Nederlands approved ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2004 o 07 stone museum and public hall Brugnato, La Spezia, Italy built

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2003 Europan7 Bakemabuurt, Amsterdam, The Netherlands europen young architects competition [winner] ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2003 Europan7 Csepel, Budapest, Hungary europen young architects competition [runner up]

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

prizes, exhibitions and pubblications

prizes

Nomination for the 4th edition of the "Gold Medal of the Italian Architecture" Nomination for the Multicon Prize "40 under 40", Perspective's spotlight on the best Asia's young designers. Nomination for The Ordos Prize. Nomination for 45+1 Italian Oxygen, «Abitare» award for Italian inventiveness. Nomination for the Iakov Chernikhov International Prize. Honourable mention. Third Rotterdam Biennale Intra-luoghi award. Nomination for the Iakov Chernikhov International Prize.

2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2008 2007 2007 2006

exhibitions

«900 Km Nile City», 1st Istanbul Design Biennale, October 13th o December 12th 2012. «San Rocco 6: Collaborations», 13th Architecture Biennale of Venice, Arsenale, August 29th – November 25th 2012. «900 Km Nile City», 5th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdm: Making Cities, NAI Rotterdam, April 20th – August 18th 2012. «Sketches for a National History Museum», Zuiderkerk, Amsterdam, February 9th – April 15th 2011. «Beyond Entropy», Triennale, Milan, June. «Beyond Entropy», Collateral event – XII BIENNALE DI ARCHITETTURA, Fondazione Cini, Venice, 29th August - 21th November. «Geograﬁe italiane», permanent exhibition, MAXXI, Rome. «Attraversamenti», Contemporary architectural biennale, Spoleto «Dreaming Milano. Projects, dreams and visions for a changing city», Fondazione Mazzotta, Milan, april 17th26th. «50.000 houses for Milan», Italian Pavilion, XI BIENNALE DI ARCHITETTURA, Venice, September 14th November 23rd. «Roman Holiday», La Casa dell'Architettura, Rome, July 4th - 11th «My Public Space», NAI, Rotterdam, June 6th - October 19th «Power - Producing the Contemporary City», THIRD ROTTERDAM BIENNALE, May 24th - September 2nd. «Holland - Italy», MAXXI, Rome, may 17th - July 1st. «Annali dell'architettura e delle città», Palazzo Reale, Napoli, October 29th - December 15th. The Eighth Belgrade Triennial of World Architecture, Serbia, June 15th.

2012 2012

2012

2011 2011 2010

2010 2010 2009

2009

2008 2008 2008 2007 2007 2007

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2006

Wonderland European Tour, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Wien, St. Veit an der Glan. Wonderland, Magazzini del Sale, Venice, Italy. Informatie punkt Tuinstad, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Csepel City Hall, Budapest, Hungary. Now, between past and future, NAI, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

2006 2005 2004 2004

publications by baukuh

- Design or extinction, editorial, Domus 961. - 2 saggi sull'architettura (Genoa, Sagep, 2012). - baukuh, MARC, YellowOfﬁce, Dieci panorami della città e della campagna, in A. Agnoletto, M. Guerzoni, "La campagna necessaria. Un’agenda d’intervento dopo l’esplosione urbana", Macerata, 2012, pp. 124-134. - Atelier Kempe Thill, baukuh, Assiut University, 900 Km Nile City, in G. Brugmans, J. W. Petersen, "Making City, Catalog 5th IABR 2012", Rotterdam 2012, p. 62. - Baukuh - Genova, in "Laboratorio Genova - The Genoa Lab", edited by M. Ricci, M. Sabini, Alinea, Firenze 2010, pp. 135-46. - Afﬁnità/divergenze fra il compagno Grassi e noi. Del conseguimento della maggiore età, in M. Biraghi, G. Lo Ricco, S. Micheli, "MMX. Architettura zona critica", Rovereto, 2010, pp. 176-184. - Interview with baukuh: Per noi conta la qualità dello spazio, “Il giornale dell’architettura”, n. 83, April 2010. - baukuh: two scandinavian projects, in "Conditions", n. 2/2010: 32-37. - Interview with baukuh: distribuzione, spazio e società, in "Il giornale dell'architettura", n.83, April 2010: 6. - 100 piante (Genova: DeFerrari, 2008). - Laura Della Badia, Interview with baukuh, in "City Project", n. 18, December 2008: 4-9. - 50.000 case per Milano, in "Domus", n. 917, September 2008: 36-40. - 50.000 case per Milano, in Francesco Garofalo, L'Italia cerca casa (Milan: Electa, 2008): 76-83. - Novissimissime, in Concurso 2G Parque de la Laguna de Venecia / 2G Competition Venice Lagoon Park. 2G Dossier (Barcelona: 2G Gustavo Gili, 2008): 50-1. - The Bakemabuurt-Geuzenveld Masterplan (Amsterdam), in Gabriele Mastrigli, Holland-Italy 10 works of architecture (Milano: Electa, 2007) 96-103. - Roman Holiday. Exploiting the Power of Turism, in Christine De Baan, Joachim Declerck, Veronique Patteeuw (editors), Visionary Power. Producing the Contemporary City (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2007): 161-9. 127

- Brutus, in European Urbanity (Vienna - New York: Springer Verlag, 2007): 72-7.

publications about baukuh

- Matilde Cassani, A 900 Km long city, in Domus 961. - Baukuh, Forum Olanda, in "Sketches for a National History Museum", texts by Kenneth Frampton, Hans Ibelings (a.o.), SUN, Berlage Institute 2010, pp. 96-106. - Schetsen voor een Nationaal Historisch Museum , in V. Byvanck, E. Schlip, "Blauw Druk", Amsterdam, 2012, p. 251. - Lucia Tozzi, Piranesi a Tirana, text by Vedran Mimica, photo by Giovanna Silva, “Abitare”, n. 504, July-August 2010, pp. 72-81. - Simon de Dreuille, La piscine, in "Criticat", n. 4/2009. - Fabrizio Gallanti, Italian Oxygen, Roman Holiday, in "Abitare", n. 488, December 2008/ January 2009: 113-6. - Bakemabuurt, Amsterdam. Una demolizione controversa, in "Territorio", Politecnico di Milano, n. 45, 2008: 21-5. - baukuh, in Challenge of the time. Iakov Chernikhov International Prize for Young Architects 08 (Moscow: ICIF, 2007): pp. 62-63. - Anna Foppiano, Matteo Poli, How can history be put to good use?, Answers by Junya Ishigami and Denise Scott Brown, in "Abitare", n. 487, November 2008: 4859. - Andreas Kalpakci, Valerio Botta, Un gruppo nato per caso, in "L'Universo", Corriere del Ticino, n. 8, October 15, 2008: 8. - Elisa Ferrato, Progetti di Carta, in "Il giornale dell'Architettura", n. 66, October 2008: 47. - Friederike Meyer, Stadtquaritier auf dem Gelände des Militärﬂughafens in Tirana, in "Bauwelt", n. 31, August 2008: 12-14. - Gabriele Mastrigli, Olanda Italia 2008, in “d'Architettura”, n.36, August 2008: 146-53. - Matteo Costanzo, BAUKUH. Padiglione Italiano all'Expo Universale di Shanghai del 2010, in "Arch'it", July 22, 2008, http://architettura.supereva.com/ architetture/20080722/index.htm - Paola Pierotti, Dal concept ai cantieri, decolla Baukuh, in "Edilizia e Territorio", n. 29, July 21-26, 2008: 7. - Stefano Boeri, baukuh, in "Architektura Murator", May 2008: 54-55. - baukuh, in Iakov Chernikhov International Prize for Young Architects 06 (Moscow: ICIF, 2007): 62-63. - Casa Visca, in "Le case di Elixir", n.17, December 2007: 30-44. 128

- Asli Cicek, Roma Tatili, in "XXI", n. 58, August 2007: 60. - baukuh, in Marco Casamonti, Annali dell'Architettura e delle cittĂ (Milano: Motta Architettura, 2007): 134-5. - Design for Foucault, in "Domus", n. 891, April 2006: 7. - baukuh, in Wonderland Travelogue 2004-2006, (Vienna - New York: Springer, 2006): 168-169. - Il pendolo di Foucault a Padova, in "Le Scienze", n. 456, August 2006, p. 30. - Architectural obsessions. A survey, in "Kontrast", n. 1, 2006: 78-81. - Acqua fresca per tutti, in "Costruire", n. 272, January 2006, p. 56. - Rita Capezzuto, baukuh, in "Domus" n. 887, December 2005: 50-53. - Kaye Geipel, Riskieren - Spielen - Wagen, in "Bauwelt", n.15-16, 2004. - baukuh, in Europan7, Nieuw leven in de suburb (Rotterdam : NAi Publishers, 2004):26-33. - baukuh, in Europan7, General catalogue, Paris, 2004.

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partners' cv

In 2010 he was member of the Jury for the PASS competition in Rome. In 2010 he founded the San Rocco magazine.

Paolo Carpi (Brescia, 1974) studied architecture at the IUAV, where he graduated with honours in 2004. He has been an assistant of prof. Stefano Boeri at the IUAV and of prof. Franz Prati at the Faculty of Architecture of Genoa. He has been a tutor at several internationl workshops in Venice, Genoa and Istanbul. From 2010 he teaches at the Faculty of Architecture of Genoa. In 2010 he founded the San Rocco magazine.

Pier Paolo Tamburelli (Tortona, 1976) studied at the University of Genoa and at the Berlage Institute. He took part in the exhibition “Mutations” (2000) and collaborated with “Domus” from 2004 to 2007. He has lectured at a number of schools and cultural institutions, including Architectural Association, Columbia University, Cornell University, FESTARCH, Höchparterre Bücherei Zurich, Kunsthal Rotterdam, MAXXI Rome, RWTH Aachen, Triennale di Milano and USI Mendrisio. He has taught at the PUSA Aleppo (Syria), at TUM Munich, and he is currently unit coordinator at the Milan Politecnico and at the Berlage Institute. He has been guest editor of OASE 79 James Stirling 1964-1992. A Non-Dogmatic Accumulation of Formal Knowledge and he is one of the founders and editors of the San Rocco magazine.

Silvia Lupi (La Spezia, 1973) studied at the University of Genoa, where she graduated with honours in 2001. From 2001 to 2002 she worked at Fraile-Revillo arquitectos, Madrid. From 2003 to 2004 she worked at Liverani-Molteni ofﬁce, Milan. In 2007 Silvia Lupi designed the Museo Mineralogico in Brugnato [La Spezia] in collaboration with arch. Valter Scelsi. Vittorio Pizzigoni (Bergamo, 1975) studied architecture in Vienna (Universität für Angewandte Kunst ) and Venice (IUAV). In 2007 he discussed at the IUAV his Ph.D. thesis on Mies van der Rohe IIT Campus. He has taught at the University of Trieste, and lectured in many universities, including Columbia University in New York, the Architectural Association in London, and the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He has published many articles and has edited the book «Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Gli scritti e le parole», Einaudi 2010. He is now teaching at the Politecnico of Milan and at the University of Genoa.

Andrea Zanderigo (Verona, 1974) studied architecture at IUAV in Venice, where he graduated with honours. In 2002-04 he has been an assistant of Stefano Boeri at IUAV and worked for ZD6. In 2006-07 he was visiting professor at PUSA in Halab [Syria], teaching architectural and interior design. In 2009-2011 he has been working for Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio [Switzerland] with Kersten Geers and in 2012 in Tu Graz. He lectured in many universities and institutions, including UIA 2008, UdK Berlin, TU Graz, Politecnico in Milan, Ca’ Foscari and IUAV in Venice. In 2010 he founded the San Rocco magazine.

Giacomo Summa (Busalla, GE, 1976) studied architecture at the University of Genoa, where he graduated in 2002. From 2002 to 2004 he worked for Boeri Studio.

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collaborators 2004-2012: Kino Koichi, Beatrice De Carli, Ettore Donadoni, Chiara Kielland, Valeria Iberto, Alessandro Perotta, Nicola Gotti, Sandra Gallegos Rodriguez, Ana Maria Blanco Monzú, Susana Giménez De Aragón Sierra, Povilas Marozas, Natalia Fiszer, Giuseppe Tortarolo, Jean-Sebastien Lebreton, Viktorija Puodziute, Jurgita Vasiliauskaite, Hande Yildiz, Simone Ierardi, Raluka Mihaela Solomon, Maike Basista, Jacob Janzen, Guido Tesio, Ezio Siciliano, Eveline Livens, Luca Colomban, Delphine Roque, Giampaolo Morelli, Matilde Chitolina, Marta Petrov, Nenad Duric, Pietro Salamone, Riccardo Badano, Giulia Lecchini.

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baukuh www.baukuh.it posta@baukuh.it via Tertulliano 70 20137 Milano Italy tel fax

+39 0284542716 +39 0284542718