Portfolio 2022

Diego Heras

selected works

portfolio

Born in Como, Italy. 27.06.97 Contact diego.heras.dh@gmail.com +39 3493387305

EDUCATION WORK EXPERIENCES

2016-2019 Bachelor of Science in Architecture,

USI Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, Switzerland

2018-2019 Internship, Berlin, Germany

2020 ERASMUS Program: ETSAM, Madrid, Spain

2020-2022 Master of Science in Architecture,

USI Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, Switzerland

2018 FORMATION_A Architekten Berlin, Germany

2019 NIETO SOBEJANO Arquitectos Berlin, Germany

2020-2022 Biblioteca dell’Accademia di architettura Mendrisio, Switzerland

Teatro dell’architettura (TAM) Mendrisio, Switzerland

ACADEMIC PROJECTS

BSc 1 Fall Semester

BSc 1 Spring Semester

atelierMARIO BOTTA-BASERGA professor: arch. Nicola Baserga atelierSÁNCHEZ GARCÍA professor: arch. José María Sánchez García

BSc 2 Fall Semester

BSc 2 Spring Semester

Building the landscape: Valle di Blenio Building the landscape: Comune di Serravalle

atelierAIRES MATEUS

professors: arch. Francisco Aires Mateus + Manuel Aires Mateus

MSc 1 Fall Semester

OPEN ARCHITECTURE - Basel, Switzerland

atelierNUNES-GOMES

professors: arch. João Nunes + João Gomes da Silva

MSc 1 Spring Semester

Inhabited territory: Cantabrian AtlanticHousing in Galicia

Inhabited territory: Cantabrian AtlanticCollective Housing in San Sebastián

atelierGUEDES

professor: arch. Cristina Guedes

BSc 3 Fall Semester

HÁ MAR - THRESHOLD - Matosinhos harbour between land and sea between harbour and city

A park in Brno: about landscape typology

atelierPETZET professor: arch. Muck Petzet

MSc 2 Fall Semester

Re-visiting Varese: Reuse of the Aermacchi factory

atelierGRAFTON

Diploma 2022 “From Brussels with Love” Director: prof. Kersten GeersatelierPAREDES PEDROSA | honorable mention proposal ERASMUS: ETSAM (Madrid) responsible: arch. Emilio Tuñón Álvarez professor: arch. Ángela García de Paredes + Ignacio Pedrosa

professors: arch. Yvonne Farrell + Shelley McNamara

MSc 2 Spring SemesterBSc 3 Spring Semester

Los límites de lo urbano: habitar SoriaHousing + covid-19 emergency

Baukultur. A Growing Path: infrastructure as social connector

MASTER THEORETICAL THESIS

professor: arch. PhD Carlo Nozza Advanced construction systems - Sistemi costruttivi avanzati

La progettazione di involucri adattivi: dai sistemi biomimetici passivi alle possibilità delle strutture auxetiche

Adaptive envelope design: from passive biomimetic systems to the possibilities of auxetic structures

WORKSHOPS

Filming Architecture, Mendrisio (CH)

Tutor: Ila Bêka (Paris, Bordeaux, Venice)

Learning form the image, Mendrisio (CH) Tutor: Filippo Bolognese (Milan)

Quick and easy, Mendrisio (CH) Tutor: Anna MacIver-Ek & Axel Chevroulet (Neuchâtel, Zürich, Lausanne)

EXPOSITIONS

“140 modi di piegare la carta” professor: arch. Riccardo Blumer Milano Design Week, 2017 Casabella’s stand, Milan

SOFTWARE SKILLS

ArchiCAD, AutoCAD

Adobe Programs: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Rhinoceros 3D Twinmotion, Maxwell Render

COMPETITIONS

with Nieto Sobejano Architectos (Berlin, Germany)

Ostrava Concert Hall Ostrava, Czech Republic

Railway Management Centre Guangzhou Guangzhou, China

Neubau eines Büro- und Wohnkomplexes an der Kurfürstenstraße Berlin, Germany

Universität Bibliothek Rostock Rostock, Germany

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Hans Scharoun) Berlin, Germany

LANGUAGES

Italian . native language Spanish . native language English . fluent German . basic French . basic

Others:

Directional Member of OSA (Academy Student Organization)

A GROWING PATH: INFRASTRUCTURE AS SOCIAL CONNECTOR

BAUKULTUR

Diploma 2022 “From Brussels with Love” Director: prof. Kersten Geers

atelierGRAFTON

AAM - MSc 2

Healing the urban fabric through recreation

Laeken is a district, in the northern part of Brussels, with the highest rate of families with children in the region, but also one of the lowest incomes. It is mainly represented by migrants from Africa, espe cially North Africa, and from the new EU member states.

The given site is affected by the presence of the railway infrastructure, which creates a serious di sconnection problem in the neighbourhood, being 6-8 m lower than the roads and therefore difficult to cross.

Other physical constraints, like congested roads and overlapping cars and bicycles, create various issues in the slow mobility. This non-pedestrian and non kids-friendly area led me to think about how such a cut in the urban fabric could be mended, how the people who live there could feel more integrated and live in a more wel coming environment. The residential character of the area, the presence of numerous schools (both french and dutch spea king) and the complete absence of public services such as sports facilities and meeting places led the project to be an infrastructure for the neighbourho od, an elevated bicycle and pedestrian path that heals the urban fabric (both physically and socially),

providing a safe alternative for getting to and from school, and offering new opportunities for play and gathering.

This elevated path above the railway connects the different schools avoiding cars’ traffic, and it expands in three specific knots, hosting activies for the community.

An existing platform is transformed and used as a skatepark.

An inhabited bridge offers a training swimming pool suspended over the railway, a basketball court above, a café and public outdoor gym equipments.

A third node of the route accommodates a circular playground for children, scenically enclosed by the junction of the cycle path, adding a third layer abo ve railway and roads’ levels.

All these events are connected and defined by a long path that connects the two parts of the district and continues towards the city centre, reactivating the square where the cultural centre Maison de la creation stands, in the former Laeken’s town hall building.

The structure is composed by prefab cantilevered elements that support the continuous slab and avoid the trains, and in situ casted pylons to handle height changes.

RE-VISITING VARESE: REUSE OF THE AERMACCHI FACTORY

atelierPETZET

AAM - MSc 2 in pair with Lorenzo Pastorello

Community factory

The Aeronautica Macchi consists in one of the main characters of the industrial history of Italy: key in the development of national aviation through the de cades, the complex has indeed a remarkable histor ical and social relevance.

The ensemble, abandoned since 1993, is composed of more than 20 buildings (hangars, palazzine and other industrial typologies built between 1910s and 1960s): those define an organic and articulated out door space of connection, offering differentiated spatial qualities that are missing in the public spac es of the neighbourhood, causing a feeling of lack of identity.

In 2020 the Aermacchi factory finally found a private buyer (the real estate society Italiana Diamanti S.r.l.) and an investor: Tigros S.p.A., which proposes a project for a supermarket which implies the demo lition of the entire complex, with no regard for what is already there. The residents, the public adminis tration and different local and national associations are manifesting their disappointment for the proj ect.

The strategy is therefore to provide the demanded activities but keeping the site as it is today, imme diately satisfying the economic needs of the owner and the investor and then make the rest of the site available for the public, the neighborhood and the city: Aermacchi can then become the occasion for a public legitimate cultural re-appropriation of the

Video presentation https://www.petzet.arc.usi. ch/Diego-Heras-Lorenzo -Pastorello-12-copy

local identity, while remaining part of a bigger eco nomic system.

To save and maintain the complex would also allow a drastic reduction in the amount of grey energy produced for the reactivation of the site.

In order to do so, starting with the buildings which are in the best conservation state, it is possible to immediately activate the site with a limited amount of money. Those first hangars will host the Tigros’ supermarket, parking lots and some sport facilities. With the money coming from the activators, it will be possible to renovate the rest of the site, making it available at low rents thanks to the income, which will gradually increase.

In the Tigros’ hangar a new pavement is provided, a self-bearing structure of tall shelves is mounted along the perimeter, covered with insulating poly carbonate panels, and a new inner ceiling will be hanged to the existing roof. Between these two, there will be technicals and lighting. Its construction will be fast and won’t require major intervention on the existence, letting the supermarket to immedi ately open, be operative and create income. The resulting covered space inside the hangar can work synergically with the supermarket as a food market. The other major hangar can become a mobility hub, but still able to host public and cultural activities.

Let the rest of the functions be decided by the com munity...

progetto - sezioni

BETWEEN TWO RIVERS: A PARK IN BRNO

atelierNUNES-GOMES

AAM - MSc 1 in group with Rachele Righini and Federico Stefanoni

Contacts

The city of Brno grew up at the base of the Špilberk and Petrov hills as a fortified settlement belonging to the Great Moravian Empire. With its medieval layout, it is located in a strategical position on the hill at the confluence of two rivers: the Svratka and Svitava, modified by canalizations. Due to these anthropic changes of the rivers’ course, a clear increase of flooding land in the urban fabric is found. The urban development has seen an expansion following the main transportation lines. Thanks to the construction of the railway line in 1839, the city has become a fulcrum in the european transportation system. This main line crosses the city on the top of the so-called Vienna Viaduct. In the 90s the expansion in section of the railway emphatized the division of the urban fabric. Due to the current needs of the city, the two stations – the main one and the commercial one – will be reunited in a bigger one, now a topic of international competition, leaving the Vienna Viaduct free and dismissed, giving the opportunity to rethink this unused infrastructure and the huge amount of brownfield sites nearby. Overlapping the various studies, the proposal is to give continuity inside the city through the implementation of an ecological corridor (15 km): this connects the extremes of the forests to the west and the north, and it partially follows the two watercourses until it intersects with the anthropic and infrastructural elements of the

railway. This park is a space of contact between the two great elements of the embankment and the river, that dialogues directly with the large-scale edge of the commercial strip on the east and the future station. To the west a new residential limit is created, on the east a new urban front related to the commercial area is proposed, in view of a future development of the city in this direction. The south-east limit is defined by the new train station, creating a clear edge which protects the park from the chaotic side of the railway. The green structure is now defined by five big tree masses, that play an important role in cooling the city and in creating different spaces. Access relations at high and low levels are defined through artificial connecting topographies, in order to make the park permeable. Responding to the issue of flooding, the bend in the river is enlarged, the result is a more urban and controlled bank made up of terraces. A new urban space is finally defined, allowing to enjoy the river, previously not directly accessible. On the side of the commercial strip and the new station there is a certain monotony in the contacts, while on the edges of the embankment there is an enormous diversity of contacts and vibrations. The potential of the park is precisely the contrast between the large scale and the diversity of opportunities that can be reported in the contact with the river and the embankment.

OPEN ARCHITECTURE: NO PROGRAM, INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LIFE

BASEL Switzerland

atelierAIRES MATEUS

AAM - MSc 1

A dismissed industrial area as an opportunity

This project aims to research the possibilities of of fering an infrastructure, a series of spaces with the widest possible versatility for the community, which dialogues with the pre-existing features of a very special site. The peninsula in the north of Basel, used entirely as an industrial area and now disused, which makes it an opportunity to create a new pole of attraction for people from three nations: Switzer land, France and Germany. The existing structures, in particular the cantileve red roofs over the port basin, were an important condition for defining the strategy from the start: they define the beginning and end of the building and make it a sort of permeable filter towards the tip of the peninsula. More concretely, the shape of the building starts from a rectangle, but it moulds itself by insinuating where it can between the pre-existing buildings, creating a dialogue and a homothetic relationship with the industrial built environment on the other side of the basin: the possibilities of this dialogue were therefore explored. As far as the definition of the interior spaces is concerned, through a process

of subtraction of volumes, variants of the same ar chetype inspired by the existing structures, the buil ding tries to offer as much variety as possible, in or der to make it suitable for any function. This process of subtraction also defines the courtyards, which act as light sockets, and the openings in the facade. The elevations and sections show the relationship with the other buildings and the continuity offered by this series of spaces.

Concrete model

HÁ MAR: A NEW HARBOUR FOR MATOSINHOS

THRESHOLD

between land and sea between harbour and city

atelierGUEDES

AAM - BSc 3 in pair with Lorenzo Pastorello

Daras-sina’ah

Daras-sina’ah is an arab word standing for “house of craft”. The Venetians, throughout the Middle Ages, had close relationships with the Bizantine world, from which they took the term as their own: they were inventing what they used to call the Arsenal The Arsenal is born as a difensive structure built to protect an enclosed portion of water: the Darsena. This is indeed the house of the boats and of all the activities linked to them.

Through the design of this new body of water, we tried to take the sea back to the city of Matosinhos (Porto). Still, a neat threshold has been sought between the private activities of the harbour and the public: this is in fact our defensive wall.

Above it is the public walkway: an overhead path from which the people can take a look to all the different activities going on in the port, without interfering with them: we kind of consider it as an open-air museum. The walk is punctuated by three different terraces, one at the beginning (on the city front, over the main entrance) and one for each end of the path. All the private activities of the harbour go on protected by the large Arsenal: a big covered space basically made of precast in situ beams. The beams let the indirect light from North in, creating the perfect environment for precise as well as ma

nual occupations. The beams are also our way to mark the different activities, describe the different spaces through structural elements, adapting them through variations in dimension. This way, with a single structure, a specific research for very different activities is made. The Arsenal of Venice itself is in fact considered as one of the earliest large-scale in dustrial enterprises in history. Passed through the main entrance, which is directly situated in the centre of the city front, is the long public plaza, serving the Second Sale Market and the Restaurant.

Between it and the private zone is just the Auction Hall, dedicated both to the workers and the public, sellers and buyers.

DARAS-SINA’AH

Analog photography as a tool for thinking

Contact diego.heras.dh@gmail.com +39 3493387305