ELENA CASINI
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PORTFOLIO
Passion and creativity, will to put myself to the test and obtain a real outcome, realizing my architectural sight with a working and dynamic team.
Architecture is my life.
INDEX pg | 04
Curriculum Vitae
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Thesis | Master
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International Competition | OWC | ARCHmedium
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Workshop | Landscape as opportunity
E.R.A., Emergency Rubber Architecture: Origami inspired response to natural catastrophes
Sports and Entertainment Center where to organize and promote all sorts of water activities related to the lake.
Intensive Workshop in Orani’s Nivola Museum, (Sardinia, Italy). Permacolture, an organic design representing the cycle of life.
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Workshop | MIAW | Agri-Culture
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Design Studio 3 | Bachelor
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Design Studio 1 | Bachelor
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Building Technology Studio | Master
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Preservation Studio | Master
Milan International Architectural Workshop. In collaboration with Arch. Michael Shwarting (NYIT) and his students, project in relation with the natural and historical contex of Parco Lambro.
Design in the heart of Milan of an art museum, where the city was born, facing to the heritage of our memory.
My first approach to architecture, a Balnear activity designed on the Como’s lake.
Dubai EXPO 2020, advanced responsive technologies and parametrical development of the project. Best Energy, Ecotect 2011 and Rhino with Grasshopper are some of the softwares used.
The Castel Masegra is a wonderful example of ancient architecture. Thanks to technologies like laser scans and thermographical analyses, it was designed a reinforcement structural process, to host an exposition area and a V.I.P. dining room on the first and frescoed floor.
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Master Thesis | Emergency Rubber Architecture Origami inspired Response to Natural Catastrophes
Any emergency can occur, at any time. When the needs are multiplied, Architecture becomes a human right more than ever. Natural disasters, diseases and poverty are creating the necessity of a quick response that is able to keep people together and safe. The disaster is responsible for loss of properties and life leaving damages and weakness, depending on the intensity of population and the elderly of the architecture. This had happened even in September, after the devastating earthquakes in the centre of Italy. People might live in tenses for months, losing their privacy in noisy and inconsistent spaces. The resilience of the population is strongly connected with the secure condition and feeling of safety.
E.R.A. (Emergency Rubber Architecture) proposes a different solution to the ones on the market, providing a natural rubber shell for refugee families: the space inside is warm and comfortable, a constant temperature is kept due to the insulating power of the rubber. The structure had been shaped parametrically, using a Grasshopper’s algorithm that follows the mathematical origami rules of the Yoshimura pattern, a triangular mesh found in thin-walled cylinders under axial compression. The goal had been to match the physical properties of an elastic material to a rigid deployable structure, easy to package and to deploy on the site. During the deployment, the faces will exhibit a rigid movement as a result of the rotation between two adjacent faces around the specific axis of the angle of deployment.It is obtained a modular structure composed of periodical elements evaluated in the way to follow the production’s rubber constraints, with a maximum width of 1.5 meters.
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As result of consultation with the industry (Tovo Gomme Spa, Brescia) and due to personal design constraints, it has been chosen to arrange twelve rubber sheets, with a base of 30 Sh A natural rubber (Polyisoprene) vulcanised with an 85 Sh A harder layer, working as a rigid face in the origami pattern: meanwhile the valleys and the mountains are obtained by cut subtraction. The emergency rubber architecture designed has a hosting power of 12 people, experiencing the hollow acoustics of the interior and the translucency of the amber-colored walls: the referring main dimensions are 9.8 meters times 5.6 meters, with an internal height of 2.8 meters. It is safe and consistent, resistant to any stress and atmospherical adverse event: the structure is good to any kind of environment, tough to a high-temperature range and to the low ones, snow and acid rains have no effect of the rubber.
Electricity is provided by 78 sun collectors on the top, furnishing 2.275 kWh to charge any cellular and or emergency kit by 6 sockets in the middle of the shared space: the internal temperature is maintained between the 22 and 27 degrees. For further studies, a specific blend that combines the major hardness of the rubber with a thin layer of the material would solve the weight factor in the actual design.
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MASTER | International Competition | OWC | ARCHmedium Ohrid_Macedonia June 2015 Team: Elena Casini, Sunay Altintipe, Ghiath Al Jebawi, Matteo Gullo
http://en.archmedium.com/
ArchMedium proposes the creation of a new facility for the Balkan city of Ohrid, taking into account the historical, natural and cultural importance of Lake Ohrid. Thanks to the sporting tradition of the area and ideal weather conditions (with over 230 sunny days per year) we propose a new watersports center: the Ohrid Watersports Club. The OWC is a sports and entertainment center where all sorts of water activities related to the lake are organized and promoted. A place where to store efficiently the necessary equipment for windsurfing, rowing boats, canoes and kayaks.
B R I N G I N G - T H E - W A T E R
Water is that natural element that gives life: in Ohrid this is a certainty. In this way the lake is an essential point for tourism actraction, that gives an economical and cultural profit. Being it so pure and affordable, the idea is to bring the water till the heart of the project, affecting all the architectural shape and giving order and richness to the final design. The resultant canal will be not only aesthetic, but also functional to the sport activities: it is the path to reach the lake directly from the building with the canoas.
P U S H I N G - T H E - E A R T H
As our plot is located in a context where there is a direct dialogue between two giants of nature, the mountain chain and the Ohrid lake, it was decided to work in the complete respect of this dialogue, facing directly both of them. Pushing the earth was the means to obtain it, giving the opportunity to see them from a unique point of view and having in this way two principal facades.
V I S U A L - P E R M E A B I L I T Y
Another point that defined the shape of our project was the aim to create an architecture that, working in parallel with nature, is letting who is living the project admire the landscape around, appreciating not only the natural one but also the view of the ancient city, located on the opposite side of the mountains. The roof is thought as a natural hill, above which it is possible to have a walk without realizing to be on the top of a structure, continuing the sensation of a bucolic walk.
_contextualization
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_longitudinal section _ground floor plan
conference area administration food and beverage area
entrance canal swimming pool
changing rooms
Bringing the water, Pushing the earth, Making visual permeability. The project was born after a studio of the area, famous for the purity of water and wondeful landscape. Around it, woods and mountains are ensuring the perfect background to develop an architecture that works directly with the earth, moving it and creating the shape in a way to obtain two
principal facades, one oriented toward the old city, the second to the mountains. A canal is moving from the core of the building to the lake, like a spring immersed in nature and letting the canoas flowing directly into the lake.
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WKSP ORANI Orani_Sardinia_Italy April 2015
http://www.museonivola.it/en/
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Orani is a marvelous place, on the central Sardinian mountain chain, where the relationship between human and nature is
so strong that affects all the daily life of the inhabitants. Concentrated on agriculture and the breding-farms mostly devoted to the rearing of arabian and sardinian horses. During the twenties this area was influenced by Costantino Nivola, an italian artist born there in 1911. Moved to Paris, he had the opportunity to meet Le Corbusier, starting a collaboration that continued during all their life. In the small city now there is a museum devoted to him, housed in the ancient washery house of Orani, on a hill slope that is offering a magnificent view, the building has recently been restored and improved, but actually none is living the area exept from the workers in the museum. The project in this way tries to be a contact point between the natural and the art element, infact working directly with the nature it is created a permaculture in the museum garden. The landscape project involves directly the inhabitants, reactivating and introducing the museum into the working daily life.
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Starting from the analysis of the area, which is located on the East part of Milan, nearby the Lambro River and the agricoltural park, we noticed as the neighbourhood is very much active and orientated on the art and cultural point of view. In-fact, the Lambrate is one of the most common stop during the “milanese” event “Salone del Mobile” for tourists and students, with art installations ad shows. Moreover, nature and culture of the area are meeting the history in the Rubattino barrak, used during the Second World War as a social repair from bombing attacks. Here it was decided to focus our work, in respect to the structure and with the aim to mantain it renovating the amazing interior space into an agricltural zero km market. Working on the idea to give a recognizable landmark to be used daily as catalyst for the cultural development, it was created an open theatre, the urban central point of our project, visible in the image on the top.
Rubattino Barrak_Milan_Italy September 2015 http://issuu.com/miawpolimi/docs/miaw2014_dws03
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BACHELOR | Design Studio III | FACING HEAR(i)T-AGE Milano_Italy Via Brisa February 2014 Via Brisa is where Milan was born, where everything started hundreds of years ago (around 291 a.D.). From the castrum romanum to the construction of royal palace, Mediolanum has taken his capital role thanks to the Imperator Massimilano. Designing is such a context was exciting: in order to respect and give importance to the place, it was taken as reference the ancient level of the city: history takes place under the aspalth of the contemporary age, it is here that the museum is developed, with a respectful linearity. From above, the ancient palace is visible from the public plaza thanks to the open facade, designed in front of it, in a way to obtain an auditorium at the second level.
_ground floor plan
_ancient level plan, -2,8 m
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A big cut in the open space defines the museum below it, and gives light to the entire expositive area. The second building is devoted to administration and offices, completely glazed on the groundfloor is exactly the opposite of the first one: lightness and modularity are its characteristics.
_state of art
_longitudinal section
_West facade
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BACHELOR | Design Studio 1 | BALNEAR LINEARITY Gravedona_Como_Italy Via Regina Margherita July 2012
_ground floor plan _South facade
“My first approach to Architecture...� This architecture is telling a story of layered perceptions. As the first impact for the organism coming from the street is a wall with few openings, a second layer authonomously emerges in the eclosed space, giving the opportunity to face directly with the lake, with volumes that are extruded from the wall itself. Water is the element that defines the linearity of the shape, reflecting it in an artificial lake where spaces are docked as ships on the plot.
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_cross section
_plani-volumetric
MASTER | Building Technology Studio | DUBAI EXPO Dubai | United Arab Emirates | EXPO site January 2016 The course aim is to find the technological innovative solutions in terms of energetical efficiency, technology and structure, to design a pavillon for the next EXPO, planned in Dubai, in the 2020. The pavillon chosen is the Japan one: according to Japan culture and mix of religion it was chosen to represent the ying and yang symbol, with the creation of two different areas and adopted technology, the light and the shadow, dark and white. The curved structure is in wood, it is designed with Grasshopper and analyzed in terms of technological efficiency with Bestenergy software. The chosen materials are wood and photovoltaic panels in the first case, in order to create a dark habitat inside; on the opposite side, glazed and single-curved panels are protected by irradiation with the use of responsive elements: on the one hand it was chosen to use origami tenso-structures that were closing and opening, on the other hand simple brisesoleil that are reacting to the intensity of the solar irradiation are analyzed. Another software used is Retscreen, to calculate the amount of energy provided by the photovoltaic panels to the entire structure.
_general section
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MASTER | Preservation Studio | CASTEL MASEGRA Sondrio_Italy July 2015 Castel Masegra is located in a strategical area, in Northern Italy. Since the ancient ages the Beccaria family was the owner of the castle, but after the 1639 it passed to the Salis one because of economical reasons. The portion that we analyzed with laser scans and the thermography pictures taken in loco, was dedicated to Jacobina Beccaria’s personal apartment: the pigeon coop, the umbrella vault, and all the architectural elements that are composing this section of the castle, are extremely charming from the the historical analisy point of view, infact we can find signs coming from different ages and periods. So, between the XV and XVI Century it is noticeable how this castle changes its function, becoming a nobiliar residence. In order to follow the milanese nobiliar taste, there were all of those necessary changes required by the common thought. So that, the external facade and the internal parts were changed in the aesthetic aspect: the engraved decoration and the rapresentation of false masonry by frescoes. These frescoes are giving importance and relevance to the entire structure, in this way the renovation project was concentrated on the accessibility and the innovation in the way of communication. There are an interactive museum at the ground floor and a VIP area at the first one, accessible during the day by the visitors and to rent durign the evening for elegant meetings and appointments.
_facade reconstruction
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_3d exploded structural axonometry
_VIP area
_ground floor museum
_Masegra app
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Thank You