ABOUT...
EDUCATION
SOFTWARE SKILLS
My passion for architecture started at a young age, when I used to visit construction sites with my uncle. At the age of 15 I started spending my summers working as an apprentice bricklayer which taught me the strong technical approach to which I’m still loyal to.
Master of Science in Building Technology (Cum Laude) Delft University of Technology, NL Bachelor in Architecture and Building Construction (110/110) Politecnico di Milano, IT
Archicad Rhinoceros Adobe Suite (AI - ID - PS - PR - LR) Autodesk Maya Unreal Engine Cinema4D
WORK
LANGUAGES
- Architectural assistant at Vinante Costruzioni (2013-2015) Architectural design, on-site surveys, presentations and rendering tasks
- ITALIAN, mother tongue - ENGLISH, full professional proficiency - SPANISH, basic proficiency - DUTCH, learning
Both my bachelor and master studies in the architecture faculties of Milan and Delft were focused on finding pragmatic solutions to various construction problems ranging from the most common ones to the most ground-breaking. Other than that I cultivate passions for music in all its forms, football and especially cinema.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Fabfield
01
bridge to bosanke
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HOUSE OF DEMOCRACY
03
helmholtz light cubes
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VIRTUAL REALITY
05
a new approach to building services design
bridge design for Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Apprentice bricklayer at Vinante Costruzioni (2007-2011) Multiple tasks including concrete making, reinforcing and pouring, assembling of wooden claddings, formworks, facade structures and scaffoldings
facade design for a mixed function high-rise
EXTRA-CURRICULAR
COMPETITIONS
- Structural Glass - 2016 - Delft (w/ James O’Callaghan) Series of lectures and design tasks on Structural Glass led by James O’Calaghan fromEckersley O’Calaghan Engineers
2015 Premio Costruire Sostenibile Winner project
- Future of Libraries - 2016 - Delft (w/ Mecanoo Architects) Design of a library for the future, based on the evolving demands and the shifting of physical knowledge (books) to digital knowledge (e-books, internet)
product design for a ground breaking acoustic panel
2014 Premio Costruire Sostenibile Honorable mention 2015 Recovery Building Studio Runner-up project
full individual modeling and texturing of a VR environment
STUDIO: LOCATION: DATE: SOFTWARES:
Master Graduation Delft, NL November 2017 Rhinoceros, Autodesk Maya
#Prefabrication #BuildingServices #DesignMethodology #CircularDesign FabField is a prefabricated construction system by “The New Makers”; the concept was originally ideated by Pieter Stoutesdijk in 2013 and has been developed ever since. The “PD Lab” shown in the picture is the first fully assembled 1:1 prototype of the building system. It was assembled in the west entrance of the architecture faculty of TU Delft in March 2017 in just one week, avoiding the use of any heavy equipment and any specialised workers; the full construction process was carried out just by students who volunteered. The focus of my graduation project has been the integration of building services in the already existing construction system.
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The 4 Building Components All the building components are made of OSB boards which are processed by a 3-axes CNC milling machine into the building elements; the elements are then manually assembled into the 4 building components in factory using only glue and nails. Only when the components are assembled they are ready to be shipped on site.
Buildings can be entirely built and finished in factories and only later be shipped on site; this approach reduces time spent on site but limits design freedom due to transportation limitations
Large sections of buildings can be produced in factories and then shipped and assembled on site; this is a good trade-off between design freedom and reduced time on site
FabField produces small building components in factory, which are then shipped and assembled on site manually; this requires the most time spent on site but allows the most design freedom
Roof component Allows roof pitches of 30°, 45° and 60°. Max Length: 5200mm Width: 300mm Depth: 300mm
Beam component Connection between all other building components. Length: 1200mm Height: 250mm
Wall component Height: 2400mm Width: 600mm Depth: 300mm
Floor component Max Length: 5200mm Width: 300mm Height: 250mm project01/03
project01/04
Wall Components Design 1. the bottom floor components are positioned
2. wall components are connected to the floor components
3. upper beam and floor components are connected to the walls
4. roof components are connected to complete the structure
5. the facade panels are fixed to the outer structure
6. the front facade is installed to complete the cladding
A new approach to Building Services Design How can building services be integrated in the FabField building system in such a way that the core values (digital fabrication, lowcosts, high accuracy, light weight components, demountability, end of life strategies and short construction times) are perpetuated? project01/05
How can the new design for wall components allow parallel and perpendicular flow of services and still carry sufficient structural and thermal performances? The front face of the wall can be shifted backwards to create a cavity whilst the flaps still guarantee the same structural compression strenght and stiffness. The flaps must also feature some openings for a flexible horizontal flow of services between components; various 1:10 scale models have been built to test the effects of different shapes on the ease of assembly, structural strenght, fragility, milling time, services’ installation and stress concentrators.
After considering various scenarios of services’ distribution, it was decided that the most suitable for the FabField building system is one that serves all spots by allowing a “parallel to component” movement of services for the floor and roof components and a “paraller + perpendicular to component” movement for the wall components. The concept is simplified by the image on the left project01/06
Design Methodology Each design alternative is assessed through a list of pre-defined criteria which have been previously weighted in the house of quality. The methodology allows the designer to make conscious decisions only after assessing how each design performs under each criteria.
Ventilation Air supply and exhaust can either be supplied by localised units embedded in the wall components, or ducts can be placed in the unusable edges of the roofspace.
Electricity Two power lines can serve all electric outlets; the upper line optimises the connection to high appliances, the lower line mainly serves switches and plugs.
Snapfit Wall Water supply Pockets Wall
90° Openings Wall
Round Openings Wall
Elliptical Openings Wall project01/07
The main water supply line is placed right below the power lines to prevent dangerous leakage on the latter; the height of the water supply line is based on the position of most water appliances.
Water disposal A 40-50mm disposal pipe with 1% slope connects all outlets to the main 100mm vertical disposal pipe; 20cm of space allow for the 1% slope to be as long as 24 meters. project01/08
A breakdown of the design and building services integration is also displayed in a video which can either be found via link: https://vimeo.com/261857641 or simply by scanning the QR Code!
Possible Integrations in finishings What are the possibilities for the finishings so that final appliances can be integrated within them when required? The answer is basically limitless! Functions like thermal insulation, structural and fire proofing are already performed by either the components or the outer facade panels, which leaves the interiors only with aesthetic function and the possible integration with appliances. If the design of the finishings was to be integrated into the early stages of the design the latter panels could be easily CNC milled accordingly to the final position of final appliaces like light switches, plugs, sinks, shower and even TV’s or radiators. This approach could lead to a library of integrations and finishings which can grow along with the customer’s demands. Some examples of possible integrations are displayed on this page.
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project01/10
STUDIO: LOCATION: DATE: SOFTWARES:
Swat Dubrovnik, HR November 2016 Archicad, Rhinoceros
#BridgeDesign #StructuralDesign The Swat Studio was a mix between group and individual work, large urban scale design and detail oriented design. In the first phase of the studio every group was assigned a district of the city of Dubrovnik to analyse and make an urban proposal to improve its current conditions. After on-site analysis and questionnaires for locals our focus went on valorizing an ancient pedestrian road that connects the old city to a village uphill (Bosanke) from which one can enjoy a breathtaking view, depicted on this page. After the focus was set to this path, the valorisation of the latter has been tackled independently by every component of the group; my focus has been the design of a pedestrian bridge to allow people to safely cross a busy road.
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Structural Concept
Plan The red dots represent the location of the columns, which was restricted by the existing road. The graphs display the structural concept for the left truss, highligthed in the plan.
Bending Moment The two sides of the bridge were considered as continous beams and the bending moment was calculated for both
Truss section and Height The minimum section of the truss was calculated according to the most tense and most compressed points, both present in the first section of the left truss. The values of the bending moment give the architectural shape to the bridge, with a truss that varies accordingly
Final Outlines and Diagonals
project02/03
The calculated sections and heights are then translated into Warren trusses; the diagonal elements had to match the facing truss in order for the roof structure to be planar
Bridge: InDetail Solid concrete plinths host the slanted wooden columns. The columns support the main trusses which can be ideally split and built into sections and assembled on-site as long as the splitting points coincide with the lowest bending moment values. An additional truss supports the roof and rests on the main trusses. This “roof-truss� was designed so that the compressed elements are wooden whereas the tense ones are steel cables; the bottom chord is a cable that pulls the top of the main trusses together, this force is countered by a wooden element that keeps them apart. The whole floor of the bridge is hanging from the aforementioned roof truss through steel cables. To prevent the floor from swinging some additional stiffening elements were provided in order for the floor to behave like a whole. project02/04
Climate Concept One of the main issues in Dubrovnik are the heavy rain falls during the winter period; the group design comprises a large water reservoir on top of the hill which will then provide water for multiple functions during summer. The bridge will be constantly supplied with water which will be used to cool the bridge through evaporative cooling and wind acceleration but also to educate people on natural water purification processes.
Legend A. charcoal filtration B. ceramic filtration C. bone char filtration D. drinking tap water
Shading and cooling The porous ceramic elements shade the bridge and cool it at the same time. The shape is designed to shelter from the high summer sun and allow low winter sun in. The wind speed is also increased through the Venturi effect, thus fostering the evaporative cooling process. The sides in which this elements will be placed is the main summer wind direction, whereas winter winds are sheltered by surrounding houses and by the slope of the mountain. project02/05
project02/06
1 STUDIO: LOCATION: DATE: SOFTWARES:
Mega Den Haag, NL June 2016 Archicad, Rhinoceros, Cinema4D
#FacadeDesign #IntegratedDesign
2 The 4 functions (parliament, offices, housing and hotel) considered as independent buildings
Parliament and offices are pushed at the bottom to allow views and sunlight for hotel and housing
3 The two towers are moved to the corners for better sun exposure and a 360° view over the city
4 The low volumes are lifted to create a public space in front of the train central station entrance
5 Offices circulation is improved with an L typology; the distance from the central station’s facade further improves spacial quality
The design for the new house of democracy in Den Haag was carried out in groups of 6 people, each component with a specific field to focus on. The studio represents a perfect opportunity to test team work and design integration as well as diving into the preferred specialisation which in my case was Facade Design. The difficulties of this project were to create unitised facade modules that could fit the idea of the architect, fit into the structure of the building which was set by the structural engineer and finally perform according to the climate consultant’s directives.
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Accessible corridor facade The accessible facade contributes to increasing the rentable space of the parliament as well as performing an important role in the climate of the building: all modules are equipped with decentralised VHC units which perform differently according to the season. In winter, the fresh air is preheated by the sun and drawn in directly from the corridor; in summer fresh air is drawn directly from outside, where the intakes are facing the prevalent wind direction. The triangular plan of the outer skin is determined by the exposure: the sides facing the sun are shaded with a semi transparent PV layer whereas the other sides are completely transparent.
Double skin facade The same climate concept was used for the offices and the towers, with some minor modifications regarding the percentage of glazing and the possibility to operate the windows. To sum up, fresh air can be preheated or precooled by the VHC unit which is positioned just below window level. Operable push out windows can be opened when the single user requires it. Sunlight is blocked by stainless steel highly reflective louvres resistant to high wind pressures; the geometry of the louvres allows to block every sunray higher than 20 degrees but allow for lower light to enter, this enables to contemporarily prevent glare and maintain natural daylighting and a view.
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The facade of the parliament clads the whole perimeter of the building and allows a full horizontal continuity. In fact the only division between facade units is represented by their own floor. At the 4 edges of the building special facade units are positioned, these constitute vertical shafts that can be opened to foster the stack effect when the temperature inside the facade is too high. The typical unit is 375cm wide and 360cm high, it is fully fabricated off site and can be transported by truck and fixed to the building through steel brackets embedded in a reinforced concrete curb. To allow space for the air inlet of each facade unit, a steel L profile had to be introduced between brackets and used as a disposable formwork for the edges of the floors.
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RHS100 welded steel profiles act as the structural exoscheleton of the unit
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Inner skin of the facade comprising: aluminium external and internal sheeting double glazed sliding windows 150x220cm top push-out double glazing 150x30cm
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Top insulated aluminium cover to shelter dynamic VHC unit
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Hot dip galvanized grating floor H=35mm, supported by L steel profiles welded in the perimetral RHS profiles
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Fixed laminated glass panes, one side clear glass, one side 40% transparent PV glass Triangular pattern to optimise energy harvesting and minimize solar gain
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Vertical displacements of the units are allowed by the pinned bottom connection which only prevents them from swinging.
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The two towers over the parliament host housing and a hotel respectively; the directions of the architectural designer for the towers was based on the majority of buildings in the surroundings: it had to resemble traditional bricks. All facade units cladding the towers are structurally the same and only differ in percentage of glazing and fixed/operable windows. Every unit is 180cm wide and 360cm high.
Interior aluminium cladding
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Integrated VHC unit
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Mineral wool insulation
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Micro aluminium highly reflective louvre blinds
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Aluminium frame and horizontal supports for cladding
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Outer skin comprising: - Insulated double glazing - Terracotta cladding tiles
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The technique adopted to resemble bricks was a double skin facade clad with terracotta tiles which improve the thermal performance of the building as well as the sound insulation: the back-ventilation dissipates the moisture via a gap between the faรงade panels and the heat insulation. At the same time in summer it acts as a heat shield preventing build-ups of heat behind the facade. The air can flow through the horizontal gaps between the tiles, so no bottom and top openings are required; this gaps also ensure pressure equalisation between outer part and inner part of the back-ventilated system.
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Helmholtz resonance is often exploited in sound absorbing perforated panels, mainly observable in ceiling panels. The frequencies that these panels can absorb are mainly affected by 4 elements:
STUDIO: LOCATION: DATE: SOFTWARES:
BuckyLab N/A January 2016 Rhinoceros, CES Edupack, Cinema4D, iDiana
Area of the orifices, the opening that allows the air to enter the resonator The length of the orifice, also known as “neck” of the resonator The volume of the cavity, where the air is dissipated into heat by means of friction The porous absorber, often placed inside the cavity to increase the bandwidth
#Acoustics #ProductDesign #1:1Prototyping The design brief for BuckyLab was to design and create a 1:1 scale prototype of an acoustic panel for an office space inside the architecture faculty. Our idea was to create a transparent/translucent acoustic panel in order to preserve the lighting qualities of the open office. In order to create a product that could be placed on nowaday’s competitive market, the goal was to also achieve high efficiency, low costs and a high level of modularity, so as to give to the customer the chance to create its own acoustic panel according to the desired look and spatial requirements. How can a translucent acoustic panel be designed if the materials which are commonly used for absorbance of sounds are mainly porous and opaque? How can efficiency and modularity be implemented into the design of a cheap, feasible, realistic product? We believe these questions were answered by exploiting the principle of “Helmholtz resonance”.
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Design Concept
Prototype assembly
The whole design is based on transparent 6x6cm cubes with variable height and number of holes depending on the frequency absorbed. One module is made of 16 cubes which focus on a bandwidth between 100 and 2500Hz; half of the cubes are dedicated to low frequencies since human voice ranges between 100 and 300Hz.
1. Silica Gel packages are attached to the back of the lids 2. Vertical and Horizontal waffle structure elements are connected together and to the backside panel 3. Lids with Silica Gel are connected to the waffle structure elements to enclose the boxes 4. Sliding connections are riveted to the side of the module
A translucent porous absorber (silica gel) is placed behind the lids of each cube to increase the sound absorbtion. The modules can be connected to form acoustic panels of infinite shapes and geometries according to the customer’s needs
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1. backside panel 2. sliding connections 3. horizontal waffle elements 4. vertical waffle elements 5. silica gel packages 6. front perforated lids
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Front lids assembly Silica gel was found in form of white cat litter as well as orange spheres for the classic use of humidity absorbtion; the packages were cut to the proper size of 6x6cm, filled with silica gel and hermetically sealed. The latter packages were then glued to the back of the perforated lids by means of transparent glue.
Complete structure All perspex elements were laser cut; the waffle structure could then be assembled and secured using chloroform to ensure a strong, transparent connection. Each finished module features a perimetral sliding PVC connection to allow the attachment to other modules and ultimately to the enclosing wooden frame.
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STUDIO: LOCATION: DATE: SOFTWARES:
Beyond3D N/A February 2017 Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, PremierePro
#3DModeling #Illusions #Texturing #VR Beyond3D was an elective course that I selected among all others for my passion for 3D modeling, texturing, gaming and layout; the ultimate goal of the course was to create a Virtual Reality environment. My fascination was to test if optical illusions behave in the same way in the digital world, for this reason I modelled the interiors of the Pantheon in Rome and filled it with paintings, images and sculptures that can trick the eye of the viewer in multiple ways. Everything was modelled and textured using Maya, Substance painter and AdobePhotoshop; the final result was imported in UnrealEngine4 where music, effects and animations were integrated in the environment. The Virtual reality environment can only be experienced with UnrealEngine and a VR headset; nevertheless, I produced a cinematic trailer to display the final result. The video can be seen at the link: https://vimeo.com/261853397 or simply by scanning the QR code!
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