ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO GIACOMO MAGNONI
PERSONAL INFORMATIONS Name: Date of birth: Address: Email: Contact:
Giacomo Magnoni 26/07/1993 46 Via della Calcara, 34146 Trieste, IT giacomom.magnoni@gmail.com +39 393 562 9540
WORK EXPERIENCE august-september 2014 august-september 2015 Architecture studio ‘Studio Architettura Pittino’, Trieste, IT Internship EDUCATION october 2015 - to date IUAV, University of Venice, Faculty of Architecture Master’s degree - Architettura per il nuovo e l’antico july 2015 IUAV, University of Venice, Faculty of Architecture Bachelor’s degree - Scienze dell’Architettura 110/110 with honours july 2012 Liceo Classico Francesco Petrarca, Trieste, IT High school diploma 100/100 LANGUAGES Italian: native language English: IELTS mark 8.0 SOFTWARES - Microsoft Office tools: Word, Excel, PowerPoint - design tools: Autocad, Archicad - graphics editors and desktop publishing tools: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign - 3D modelling: Archicad, Sketchup, Vray for Sketchup
CITY PLANNING WORKSHOP Professor Laura Cipriani
06 11
THIRD YEAR 12 41
WORKSHOP Professor Serena Maffioletti
RESTORATION Professor Emanuela Sorbo
42 51
SUMMER 52 55
WORKSHOP Professor Murat Tabanlioglu
SECOND YEAR WORKSHOP Professor Attilio Santi
56 75
SURVEY 76 79
Professor Francesco Guerra
SUMMER WORKSHOP Professor Sean Godsell
80 81
ARCHITECTURE 82 85
THEORY Professor Domenico Bolla
CITY PLANNING WORKSHOP
The city planning workshop focused on the area defined by the cities of Mestre, Marghera and Venice. As a first step we analysed the infrastructure system and pointed out the the evolutions and the tensions it is currently experiencing: an impressive flow of cars and trucks through narrow routes and uncomfortable intersections; various attempts at requalification of the industrial area of Porto Marghera, extremely difficult due to the presence of the dividing line represented by the railway; a push towards a more concrete attention for bicycles and pedestrians, resulted in the past decade in the redevelopment of Parco San Giuliano and in the creation of one of the widest cyclable networks in Italy.
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As a second step we tried to tackle those issues with accurate interventions.
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We decided to set our reasonments in a specific time frame: far enough to expect the adoption of a number of technologies currently still being tested but near enough not to expect any major change in the infrastructure setup. In this context, the project aims at finding a solution to the main infrastructural problems which are currently concerning the area and to those which can reasonably be foreseen, with particular consideration for elements currently overlooked such as safeness and technology. Once defined the general approach, we focused our attention on two specific areas, the most in need, in our opinion, of a planning intervention: the roundabout in front of the main entrance to Parco San Giuliano (with the whole section of the SS 14 next to it) and the nearby flyover. The roundabout, currently representing an obstacle for bicycles and pedestrians, who can only reach the Parco through a raised walkway, becomes more permeable through the excavation of a number of circular underpasses and the introduction of a geometric green pattern in its center and in the whole section of the SS 14 between the entrance to the Parco and Forte Marghera; the flyover becomes a true connecting element being able to host bicycle tracks and walkways.
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THIRD YEAR WORKSHOP
The city of Venice has a great commitment to art. Every day people from all over the world come here to see its palaces and its churches, the pieces of art shown in its museums and exhibitions. Nonetheless, even if heritage recreation nowadays represents a vastly developed institution in the city, very little space is left to the expressive drives that this enjoyment can create in the visitors: very little space is left, ironically, to the artistic creation.
These were the preconditions of the third year Architectural Workshop. The chosen site for the project is located in the south-eastern end of Parco San Giuliano, Punta San Giuliano, already contextualised in the City Planning Workshop.
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What about creating a place in which the tourists, in particular the young ones, could express themselves with artistic means? A residential structure with a great number of workshops, capable of representing a starting point for all the cultural trips towards the city and the finish line for all the reasonments developed in this way?
In order to approach the surroundings in a more complex and complete way we were asked to consider the walkway meeting at right angles Ponte della LibertĂ designed in the Summer Workshop supervised by professor Venezia as integral part of the project.
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The first survey provided us with a lot of useful informations: first of all we understood how difficult it was to reach the site, since the area was quite scarcely connected and poorely served by public transport services.
Further more, the relationship with the lagoon landscape, in particulare with the small island right in front of the Punta, approximately a hundred meters away, and with the huge Parco san Giuliano have been recognised as important elements.
What struck us the most, however, was the important influence of Ponte della LibertĂ : the constant traffic noise and the annoying sense of being watched all the time by those who drove by on the bridge made us feel uncomfortable. In our opinion, such a wide open space needed protection, and the most efficient mean for this task lied in the above-mentioned fictional walkway, already recognised as essential in order to create an efficient link between the Punta and the surroundings.
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The whole Punta at the moment is used by Sporting companies and a Boat club, which have equipped the coastline with all the necessary means for their activities (boards, docks, cranes) and the great expanse behind as a stockage area for the boats, now tidily arranged in anticipation for the summer. These elements allowed us to comprehend the true dimensions of the place, previously underestimated.
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The walkway therefore became since the beginning the leading element in the project, making us meditate on the best way to integrate architecture and infrastructure in such a particular place. In a first moment, leaving more importance to the infrastructure, we tried to assimilate the building into the structure of the bridge, taking inspiration from the Houses for Elderly People designed by Francisco and Aires Mateus in Portugal.
Bending in sinuous curves, offering its roofing as the natural progression of the walkable area of the bridge, the building would have allowed it to gracefully land on the wide area of the Punta, creating at the same time a number of defined spaces on the ground, both facing the park and the lagoon.
These spaces, conveniently developed and equipped, would have formed the social foundation of the complex, the permeable ground floor ready to host the collective facilities, both recreational and educational: workshops, libraries and concert halls, restaurants and coffee bars; while the upper levels, covered with regular openings, would have hosted all the different types of residence.
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Even if temptating, this direction could not represent a working approach to the complexity of the issue, as promptly shown by a simple exercise: the perception of the project experienced from Ponte della LibertĂ was flat, mediocre, almost indiscernible: we needed something sharper. At that moment an idea peeked out: what if, instead of searching for a compromise between infrastructure and architecture...
...we made them collide?
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After dividing the structure in a number of different parts in order to have a better grasp of the dimensions of the site, one of the buildings, tall and broad, was pierced by the walkway, while the other one, short and wide, softened its leap, forcing it to land: a conflicted, dynamic group, tense image of two fighting giants.
We liked this concept so much that we decided to follow its lead. The tall and broad building, the pierced shield, was given the accommodations, while the other one, given its considerable freedom in plan, was in a first moment given all the other facilities; we then realised that it would have been an excessive concentration, and therefore decided to parcel out the auditorium, the restaurant and the coffee bar, providing them with indipendent, regular, geometric structures, opaque in the daytime and bright at night, connected by branches of the walkway.
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Between the two main buildings, variously dotted by the smaller ones, a great square; beyond it, proceeding east, a new landing place dug in the lagoon, both for the Boat club and for the Hotel. Once the general layout became satisfying enaugh, each one of us was given a building to develop in a much more detailed scale: I was put in charge of the workshops one.
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This building had a remarkable degree of difficulty: extended on the lagoon for half its length, surrounded by water on three sides, facing the main square, it had to be able to receive the significant flow of people to and from the walkway outside and inside its structure, without interfering with the hosted main activities: it needed without doubt a complex distributive layout.
After the first hesitant approaches to the problem, the first formulation of a complete answer came from the reprocessing of a recent project by Tadao Ando, the Roberto Gaza Sada Center of Art, Architecture and Design. This monolithic building offered a lot of starting points in its labyrinthine system of stairs, courts, theatres and corridors.
I decided to apply this layout to the structure organising it on two educational levels and and an exhibition level connected by two huge ramps.
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Copertura Copertura
Secondo piano Secondo piano
Primo piano Primo piano
Pianoterra Pianoterra
Prospetto sud
Prospetto sud
Sezione longitudinale
Sezione longitudinale
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Another version of the project, heavily influenced by Andalucia’s Museum of Memory designed by Alberto Campo Baeza and with some elements taken from the Reid Building at the Glasgow School of Art designed by Steven Holl, looked a lot more introspective, organised around the central void.
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The source of inspiration for what was going to become the final form of the project lied in the analysis of the Scarborough Campus, designed by John Andrews in 1963, impressive for its entity and its complexity: it pushed me to develop a new reasonment starting from the section, essential element in a project completely based on a functional distribution between levels.
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Following the methodology pointed out by this example, with the aesthetic influence delivered by Steven Holl’s project, the building entered the way that, with all the subsequent appropriate refinements, would have led to the final result, technologically influenced by the T Hall designed by Toyo Ito in the facade layout.
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RESTORATION
In Italy, every medium - sized province has its own mental hospital. These interesting structures, mostly built between mid XIX century and the early years of the XX century, have been dismissed and abandoned after the approval of the Basaglia law in 1978, which stated that the segregation these places represented was not suitable for the treatment of the mentally ill. From that moment on, the mental hospitals all over the country, often organised as groups of pavillions placed in peaceful parks (as stated by the current psychiatric school of thought), have become ghostly presences in the surrounding of each city, and even if some of them have been succesfully rearranged to host different functions and become part of the community some of them still lay abandoned to themselves. Opened in 1929 and finally shut in 1997, in the years of its maximum expansion it hosted more than 500 people among patients and personnel.
In order not to interfere with the regular life of the community it was built on a piece of land one kilometer away from the city centre, surrounded along half its perimeter by a channel.
While in the first years the whole structure was solely intended to keep the mentally ill quiet and away from the sane, trying to treat the illness when possible, as the psychiatric theories developed the patients were given more and more opportunities to express themselves:
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A relevant example of this situation is represented by the mental hospital in Rovigo, one of the biggest in the whole Veneto.
since the majority of the patients were farmers...
...they were given a piece of land to take care of;
in order to keep them in touch with the tradition...
small parties were given in the traditional occasions.
Between 1978 and 1997 the mental hospital was slowly emptied of its guests, who were moved to structures more specifically designed for their needs. In 1997 the whole park was abandoned, and to the present date no redevelopment project has been approved.
20 years of abandonment are leaving their mark both on the park...
...and on the buildings.
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Given this situation, the mental hospital of Rovigo represents, as rightfully recognised by professor Sorbo, a valuable testing ground for us students, that allows us to relate with a place which is both truly in need of an architectural intervention and heavily marked by its past history. We were therefore given the task of analising the complex from all the necessary points of view (historical, sociological, architectural and structural) and designing a restoration project capable of giving the hospital back to the people as a useful place.
As a first step we were divided in groups of three students and each group was associated with a specific building in the hospital.
We were then requested to make a research...
... regarding the history and the development of the complex and the designated pavillion troughout the century...
...and to organise the data obtained this way in a chart following both a chronological and a thematic order. The trends recognised for each theme would have become useful in the third stage of the workshop, the design one.
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The chart developed by our group tackles the issue analysing three main themes with consideration to three different scales. In the first section it is shown how the complex has been slowly surrounded by the city of Rovigo, nonetheless without establishing any connection with it; the three subsequent columns clarify how the distribution of the different functions inside the complex has remained more or less the same, how the inner circulation has developed from radial to concentric and how the tall plants have become more and more intrusive as time passed. Finally, the last section focuses on the same themes in an architectural scale: the long evolution in the structure of the analysed pavillion reveals to be the consequence of the change of roles it underwent, from “Paying men” pavillion, divided into 1st and 2nd class, to unified “Quiet women” pavillion. The last line of the chart, added in another moment of the workshop, as we shall see, shows how our group decided to relate to these themes in designing the new masterplan and the new layout for the pavillion.
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...and became more personally involved approaching the pavillion we had to deal with.
As a second step we were given four days to make a complete survey of our pavillion.
We took a number of pictures of the main facade and used specific softwares to straighten them...
We understood the true dimension and complexity of the hospital exploring the huge park...
...in order to obtaion a precise recreation of the surface to study on.
We measured all the distances, the heights, the whidths and the dephts necessary to draw a new plan of the building and compare it to the original one, so that it became possible to check which parts had been modified in the years; we made an investigation on the structure and the materials of which the single elements were made. After that, we focused on what used to be the meeting room of the pavillion and analysed it with extreme care. In particular, we noticed that the wall facing north was far more ruined than the other ones, and decided to understand the cause of that process.
We observed and mapped every single material layer...
...degradation process...
...necessary intervention...
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...and organised every information in a complete explanatory chart.
We discovered structural failure to be the main cause of the specific degradation, along with rising damp and the north facing orientation.
We therefore decided to apply partial structural reinforcement to that wing of the building. When dealing with windows fixtures, details and surfaces, our approach was based on the principle that a building with such a particular and important history has to show its marks, even if hosting other functions: we decided, when possible, not to replace the wooden and metal elements with new ones but to treat them in a way that allowed them to fulfill their original functions; the exfoliated surfaces were not to be refilled with material and covered with paints looking like the original ones but simply plastered around the gaps and covered with a light layer of special plaster conceived specifically to protect the surface and keep it visible at the same time (“scialbo� in Italian).
The same procedure, with the same result, was followed for the outside main facade.
As the survey went on we started thinking more persistently about what that place could become, about what to transform the complex and the pavillion into both respecting the historical memory of the place and answering the people’s needs.
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The two most striking characteristics of the place were without doubt its entity and its indifference towards the city of Rovigo: the mental hospital had always been an island, recently under siege but still indipendent, large enough to resemble a fascinatingly utopistic village aside. Given these traits, it would have been a difficult and violent act to create an unnaturally strong connection between the complex and the city, to demolish all the barriers and sink the old island in the modern sea of the urban web: if we wanted to preserve the identity of the hospital, it had to remain a place apart. In a first moment two paths seemed possible: the creation of an experimental social laboratory, which could have tightly fit the communal organisation of the structure, following the example of the villages of Cosanti and Arcosanti, created by Paolo Soleri in Arizona; or the redevelopment of the area as a research centre specialised in biotechnology, which seemed suitable because of the presence of the Faculty of Agriculture in Rovigo and to the great number of plant types growing in the park.
We started developing this idea and pursued it until the last week of the course. We were then given the opportunity of attending a lecture given by an influent italian psychiatrist about the history of psychiatry and its relationship with power. The captivating lesson enlightened the ironically most neglected side of the issue, the human one, underlining the enormous social and emotional importance of the structure we were dealing with, and ended explaining how the social control once employed by the mental hospitals is nowadays practiced by the pharmaceutical industry, greatly helped by the lack of knowledge people often have towards this matter. After the lecture, our project felt like a betrayal of the deep meaning of the place to us. We had underestimated its valuable nature, and wanted to make up for our mistakes by designing a new layout at the same time completely respectful of its history and factually useful for the community. Finally, after long reflection and research, we put toghether the idea: if the mental hospital had once represented a radical and brutal solution to the problem of mental illness, the new layout would have redeveloped it as an up to date mean to face the new problems related that issue, fith a focus on the preventive action that can be undertaken for the most sensitive among social groups, the young generations. This goal could be reached gathering in the park a number of facilities for the youngsters and for the institutions appointed to help them, currently set in a big medical centre far away from the city.
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We chose the second solution because of its more immediate practical usefulness, but we were still not completely happy about it: giving the complex entirely to the researchers, we were stealing it from the people. An idea popped up in our minds: why not try to satisfy the needs of both? Allocating the research facilities (researchers/students accomodations, laboratories, lecture rooms) in the outward circle of buildings and various recreational functions (bar/restaurant, sharing hub, market) in the inward one, we could create an interesting and enjoyable place both for the citizens of Rovigo and for the scientists, a melting pot of experiences and attitudes in which knowledge and everyday life could get to know each other more easily. In this arrangement our pavillion would have become the most self-evident representation of this concept: a museum appointed to host the most up to date exhibitions of the researchers work. At the same time, it would have belonged to the so-defined “cultural wing� of the complex, including an archive and a library, bearing the heavy responsability of constantly reminding the visitors of its past through a permanent dedicated exhibition.
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Legenda 1 - Padiglione d’ingresso 2 - Istituto scolastico superiore 3 - Centro di aggregazione giovanile 4 - Padiglione atelier 5 - ULSS: consultorio familiare 6 - Sharing hub 7 - Teatro / cinema / sala conferenze 8 - Bar / ristorante 9 - Mercato coperto 10 - Campi sportivi 11 - Strutture per la manutenzione del parco 12 - Archivio 13 - ULSS: struttura protetta residenziale 14 - Biblioteca 15 - ULSS: centro di salute mentale 16 - Strutture per lo sfruttamento dei campi 17 - Museo / sale espositive
The whole eastern wing of the complex, unified by a big central square, is dedicated to the young generations, providing them with a high school, a youth centre, a sharing hub, a workshop, a sport complex, a family planning clinic and a family counselig service;
Zona giovanile Zona sportiva Zona intrattenimento - ristoro
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Zona sociale Zona culturale
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Percorsi mezzi
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Percorsi pubblico
50 Percorsi personale
the western outward wing hosts a mental hygene centre and assisted living apartments, the western inward wing remains the cultural part of the park, whith an archive, a library and the museum; finally, the central part of the structure merges all the other ones, providing all the visitors and the personnel with a market, a bar/restaurant and a theatre.
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The entries are equipped with a number of parking lots, since the inner circulation is pedestrian only; all the major trees have been preserved, creating an interesting mixed texture.
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SUMMER WORKSHOP
Grown between Venice and Mestre, right on the border dividing water and soil, Porto Marghera represents at the same time the worst shape in the venetian lagoon and the best potentially revaluable area around. What could it be developed into, how could it positively affect the territory in a near future?
During the survey we saw the sea of concrete above the lagoon, the wrecking ships, the rusted silos and the smokeless chimneys, and moved our eyes upon the limitless vastity of the artificial landscape.
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Our first analysis focused on the transports: going through all the existing means to move between Venice and Porto Marghera we understood how tightly connected these are with the development of the harbour, how operating a change on the first ones would mean conditioning the second one.
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All these observations and researches flew into the final project. Since Porto Marghera stands like a motionless giant between Venice and Mestre, preventing the two cities from communicating, it seemed logical to reverse its influence redeveloping the whole complex into the most effective link possible: a landing place to and from Venice, inviting tourists to visit Mestre as well and easing the movements of the local people; a structure conceived as both urban and natural, alternating streets, bicycle tracks, channels and parks; an efficient cultural centre appointed to host both academic facilities and museums. Even more than that, our masterplan aimed at exploiting the great potential of the location by finding and filling important voids in the territory, attracting young and creative people with the promise of an effective teaching, producing and exchanging system and creating a new and more efficient point of connection between the islands and the coast, furthermore enhancing the existing green web outlined by Parco San Giuliano and the bicycle tracks.
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SECOND YEAR WORKSHOP
In the densely built urban texture of the city of Venice it is rare to find an open area, except for the many small campi, and almost impossible to find an empty space. An exception to this statement is represented by a large abandoned area located near the south - western end of the city, a triangle shaped piece of land with a particular story.
It is located in a very central point, standing right in the middle of an area defined by:
the remaining part of the harbour...
...the recent Santa Marta district...
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...the university facilities...
In the XIX century Venice still bore in mind its glorious past, which had named it as one of the most important commercial and military powers in the Mediterranean sea. Sadly, as the great mid - european empires rose, its influence weakened more and more, until nothing was left of the Venetian Empire. Nonetheless, in a phase of unstoppable political decay the city could still hope to mantain part of its prestige by remaining an econimic power: in order to do so, it had to put a great effort in upgrading its productive potential by building up to date industrial plants. The area taken into consideration is one of the last remains of that laborious period: for a number of years the whole south - western end of Venice was outlined by chimneys, smoke and steam; then it became clear that Venice was not suitable for a massive industrial development, and all the companies started moving their plants in Porto Marghera, transforming it in the artificial forest we saw. An entire corner of the city was emptied, and from that moment on the area underwent a slow ridevelopment process still visible in the current layout (the IUAV and Ca’Foscari facilities in that part of the city are set in old factories). The Ex- Italgas area (so it is called) is the only remaining space surrounded by walls, not redeveloped because of its high pollution levels.
...and the older part of the city.
With its closed entity it makes it difficult to move between the northern and the southern part of the city, and represents therefore a great circulation problem. As a first task of the second year architectural workshop we were requested to analyse the surroundings and propose a solution to this problem in the shape of a residential district.
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We explored the area and all the similar situations in Venice that could help us undestand the typical venetian structure, made a research regarding the history of the place and undertook long discussions regarding the layout of the new district. We recognised a number of agreed principles and worked on them: the new area should have been traditional in the set-up but contemporary in the architecture, in order not to collide with the rest of the city and to show its modernity at the same time; it should have eased the movement in the surroundings, linking the existing incomplete connections; it should have manteined its green vocation, being it so rare in a city like Venice. In the end, after a number of unsatisfying proposals, we agreed on a final design.
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The final layout recognised the most efficient pathways possible and developed the buildings around them, organising them as traditional courtyard structures, moving from the principle that open spaces are more important than built ones in the life of a city.
It outlined a great central square, as a traditional campo, and developed a productive relationship with the channel on the right; great importance was given to natural light exposure in different moments of the day and of the year.
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Once roughly defined the masterplan, as a second step each one of us was asked to choose one of the buildings and develop it from simple shape to detailed apartment complex. My choice fell on the “J” shaped building in the north - western corner. I started the desiging process wandering around Venice, keeping my eyes on the buildings, on the churches, on the squares and on the rare trees, trying to grasp the good and the bad points of living in such a city, guessing the impressions of the local people, searching for needs or gaps in the urban texture that could have been faced in a new district, by new structures. As the hours went by and I got to see more and more parts of the city I started to sense a feel of gloom and oppression: I imagined living my whole life there, sleeping in a room with almost blind windows, having no landscape, no tree to look at, passing to and fro through the irregular web of narrow streets, and it felt like living in the endless corridors of a maze. People in Venice do not have any sort of semi-private space between their homes and the street except for the staircase, receive little light from the sky and can rarely rely on a terrace, not to mention a garden. This dreadful consideration got stuck in my mind, and as I realised its importance I decided to try to design my building as a solution to this problem.
Bearing in mind Ian Gehl’s “Life between buildigs”, in which the importance of a plain private - semi-private - public sequence in everyday life is clearly underlined, I focused on this issue first, but didn’t get far, both because of the positive opinion the author shows towards the venetian layout, based on the comparison with the endless urban empty spaces shaped by the post-war european planning, and because of the total impossibility to realise a traditional system based on gardens in such a dense city.
...how could this model be applied to Venice?
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Then I remembered Le Corbusier’s Immeuble Villas: the fascinating idea of a series of terraces on on top of another allows everybody to have their semi-private space, along with a lot of light and view. I started wondering...
Choosing a traditional approach to start with, I applied a regular structural grid to the irregular shape of the building, obtaining a skeleton with 5 metres long beams and one staircase each three pillars. In this way every apartment would have had two whole rectangle surfaces (framed bt two pillars and two beams each) to face the outside: in order to creat the desired effect I decided to open one of them pushing it 5 metres back, obtaining a big terrace dug in the body of the building, just as il Le Corbusier’s example.
Unfortunately, in doing so the terrace consumed too much inner space, leaving not enaugh room for the other functions. After a short research I decided to opt for a solution that employed a triangular shape in plan, based on the model of terrace used by Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus in the Houses for Elderly People designed in Portugal, which allowed a similar result with three quarters less sacrificed volume.
Even this way, the building looked like a simple box, a flat surface plainly bent in the third dimension, and if there’s a lesson you get to learn when visiting Venice...
...it is that complexity and irregularity are its most positive traits.
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I needed something more, something to feel the building less as a monotonous cage an more like a confortable house. I went to the library searching for a possible inspiration among a number of contemporary architects works, an I casually stepped into a huge book collecting designs and philosophy of an Italian architect I had already studied in the past, Gio Ponti. The more I read and saw, the more I got fascinated: here was an endless collection of designs exlusively conceived for a single goal: human happiness. For the first time there was somebody who would gather “utilitas, firmitas, venustas” and joyfully guide them towards the factual subject of architecture, the people who have to live inside it. Structure, proportions, decoration, space, light, colour, material, skilfully organised by his mind and hands, would never be self-referring or simply symbolic, but always useful to pursue, as he used to say, the “joie d’y vivre”. I got captured by this concept, and decided to examine in depth its meaning and how Gio Ponti had factually applied it. Through his long career he developed a number of means to transform his philosophy into working architecture. The most effective among them were gathered under the flag of what he used to call “sicere architecture”: offices, houses and flats with the smallest number of walls, the biggest number of windows and the most natural light possible, designed in order not only to obtain great open spaces but also to make it always possible to see throughout the whole structure, regardless of the point of view. These means, conceived and applied in a great number of projects between the 30s and the 70s, comprise ideas such as the massive use of folding walls, equipped walls and equipped windows, along with a great variety of materials and colours. These solutions fit perfectly the problems I was trying to solve.
Among all Gio Ponti’s projects the one which struck me most was the “Alloggio uniambientale per quattro persone” designed for the 1956 exposition in Milan: its small dimensions, along with the passing through view and the central angled wall were perfectly suitable for the sinuous structure of the building I had to define.
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I took this system and tried to apply it to the regular grid of the pillars, modifying its inner disposition in order to make it able to host not two but four people. The main layout worked, but I still couldn’t solve its relationship with the facade: neither keeping it flat nor bending it like Gio Ponti had done would work. In the end the idea of designing a sawtoothed profile to orthogonally harmonize the inner disposition and the facade appeared almost spontaneous, and from that point on everything was easier.
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The final project shows a regular load-bearing structure of pillars and walls made of concrete set at a 5 metres distance one from another, closed by plastered brick walls and large glass walls.
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The groundfloor hosts commercial activities, moves back the facade line in order to obtain a comfortable portico and shows an iterruption in the middle of the central body in order to allowd communication and movement between the square on the front and the courtyard on the back of the building; all the doors for the staircases overlook the portico.
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The three residential levels refer to the same model. There are four types of flat, designed for differend groups of people and income levels, each with a different layout and a different approach to the outside. The little space and the passing through views can live toghether thank to a clear division of daytime and nighttime spaces; the angled facade makes the relationship with the opposite building less direct and pervading, opening perspective glances either towards the square at one end of the building or towards the green area at the other one; the moving walls allow multiple possibilities in each flat set-up. Every flat has its own terrace, and all the fixed walls are conceived as equipped walls, in order to save as much space as possible.
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The roof is designed as a huge terrace, almost a square on top of the building, an additional semi-private space accessible to all the residents through the common staircases that allow everybody to enjoy the landscape from a high point. the balaustrade on the left side of the plan is really a long seating, the one on the right one can host flowers and small plants; the slim structures between the staircases can work as shelters in case of bad weather and help to create an enclosed space.
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SURVEY
The aim of this course was to teach us all the different kinds of survey, from the mostr traditional to the most up to date ones, both from a theoretical and from a practical point of view. As a final task we were requested to prove our understanding of the means and the procedures by applying it in a complete and accurate survey of the Chiostro delle Terese, a courtyard close to the university.
We started by indentifying the main points and measuring the main distances with a theodolite; then we used a laser scanner set in different positions to obtaion a complete point cloud, took a number of pictures of the facade to be straightened aferwards and carefully measured a column in order to create a precise 3d model. Once completed the survey we were divided in groups of three people each and were given one week to obtain a meaningful and correct representation of the Chiostro.
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CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
C A
A'
B
B'
D
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CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
D'
Pianta
TAV.1 Scala di rappresentazione 1:50 25 50 75
Scala nominale 1:50
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
Sez. D-D'
Corso di Rilievo Strumentale Rappresentazione Digitale - Docente: Francesco Guerra Bergamo Anastasia 275930 - Mora Alessia 276704 - Magnoni Giacomo 276174
Università IUAV di Venezia
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CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
Sez. B-B'
A
A'
B
B'
D
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Pianta
Sez. A-A'
TAV.2 Scala di rappresentazione 1:50 Scala nominale 1:50 25 50 75
Università IUAV di Venezia
78 Corso di Rilievo Strumentale Rappresentazione Digitale - Docente: Francesco Guerra
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
C
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK
CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK CREATO CON LA VERSIONE DIDATTICA DI UN PRODOTTO AUTODESK 0
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0
100
25
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Scala di rappresentazione 1:10 Scala nominale 1:20
Scala di rappresentazione 1:10 Scala nominale 1:20
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100
Scala di rappresentazione 1:10 Scala nominale 1:20 0
25
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100
Scala di rappresentazione 1:5 Scala nominale 1:20
TAV.4
UniversitĂ IUAV di Venezia
Corso di Rilievo Strumentale Rappresentazione Digitale - Docente: Francesco Guerra Bergamo Anastasia 275930 - Mora Alessia 276704 - Magnoni Giacomo 276174 AA 2013-2014
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SUMMER WORKSHOP
The first year summer workshop created a particular link between Porto Marghera and the Venice Biennale. What if in a near future the Biennale was moved to the industrial harbour, as a part of its redevelopment project? What would it be of the Giardini, and how could the new exhibition be organised in such a large space? The first half of the workshop focused on these themes, and saw the creation of a huge park punctuated by an irregular disposition of pavillions gathered as if they were small villages in a wood, in order to deliver the impression of a nature trail. As a second task each one of us was requested to design a particular pavillion for the exhibition. My pavillion happened to be the Italian one, and after a number of tries I decided to rely on the Italian rationalist tradition and therefore to use simple shapes in a reasoned way. The final design builds up on a circular plan, memory of the silos and of the chimneys that used to dominate the area, shows a large central space for the exhibition interrupted only by a big cube with a cilinder inside, conceived to efficiently guide the visitors and to create a sequence of concentric spaces; the left wing hosts all the necessary technical volumes. The natural light comes from a long strip window on the roof running around the cube; the whole structure is made of simple concrete painted white.
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elevation
ITALIA
strato di impermeabilizzazione
1:20 sec B-B sec
A-A sec
A-A sec
B-B sec
office first aid
elevation
wc
loading dock
ITALIA
strato di impermeabilizzazione
1:20 sec B-B sec
prep room
kitchen
front desk A-A sec
finitura - 5 cm massetto - 15 cm isolante - 10 cm platea di fondazione plinto di fondazione magrone - 10 cm A-A sec
office first aid
B-B sec
wc
loading dock
prep room
kitchen
front desk
finitura - 5 cm massetto - 15 cm isolante - 10 cm platea di fondazione plinto di fondazione magrone - 10 cm
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ARCHITECTURE THEORY
The architectural theory course was both theoretical and practical: each lesson was divided into a lecture and a practical exercise. The lectures focused on the philosophies applied by a number of important architects from the last century; the exercises aimed at employing the theoretical means obtained this way in making a design mostly based on intuitive and expressive reasonments. The main task of the course was to design a building based on Leonardo’s Gioconda. I started by considering the famous painting as a voluntary representation of beauty. Then, reading “History of Beauty” and “History of Ugliness” by Umberto Eco and approaching the fascinating divison he operates between “formally ugly” and “ugly in itself”, I wondered: what if the paintor wanted to depict ugliness? It would have been too simple to rely on formal ugliness, and far more interesting to represent the conceptual one. Which could have been the mean? I remembered Nietzsche’s words in his “Twilight of the Idols”: What does the human being hate now? With no doubts, he hates the decay of his kind. The most direct result of such a reasonment would have been the representation of the dead body of the Monna Lisa, or, even better, of her skeleton, as always done in medieval paintings regarding death. Transliterating this result in architecture, I needed to transform a symbol of life and beauty into a symbol of death. Taking inspiration from the dynamic structure of medieval cathedrals and bearing in mind its modern interpretation given by Louis Kahn in “Monumentality”, I designed a cathedral resembling the bone structure of a human chest, with a presbitory resembling the inside of a skull: a temple for human fragility, for decay, for conceptual ugliness.
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For the final assignment of the course we had to consider a building designed by an architect of choice and redesign it according to another architect’s philosophy. I decided to start from Antoni Gaudì’s Casa Batlo and redevelop it as Ernesto Nathan Rogers would have done. Predictably, it wasn’t easy to attain a rationalist concept of architecture starting from a uniquely intense organic approach: to make this transformation possible it became necessary to involve Frank Lloyd Wright’s six principles of organic architecture as a link between the two.
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Thank you for your consideration!