Renzo Sgolacchia
Portfolio
Pochè, a earth project of a common room TU Delft competition Mekelpark
Delft, The Netherlands, 2010
with Laura Fassio, Barbara Materia, and Francesco Marullo
From poché I learned the difference between the hollow wall and the solid wall. (...) I made the wall a container instead of a solid. Louis I. Kahn
1 Wall e existing park, with its multiple footpath connections, sloping hills and the winding groups of trees, offers a rich variety of events. The proposal consists of a unique linear pavilion, a minimum homogeneous infrastructure, which avoids fragmentariness and dispersion while referring the urban scale of the Campus and the city itself . In this sense, our project focuses on one single building, which allows maximum flexibility and the possibility to be gradually extended and completed in the future. We proposed a design of the entirety of its structure, a minimum programmatic outline and a more detailed study of a section of its length, which is of, approximately, 1000 cubic meter, as requested from the competition brief. 2 Principles Sustainability oen coincides with a fake idea of progress and saving. Sustainability, especially in architecture, has assumed the features of a fashionable trend devoid of content and of a serious commitment. Architecture, in the logic of its construction and its instruments, could be highly sustainable and low emitting if coherently deployed. At a big scale, in industrialized countries, the recent careless exploitation of resources, combined with energy-intensive production, caused enormous waste and environmental disasters. Technological innovation and the diffusion of ‘modern’ building materials generate even worst consequences at a small scale, leading to the abandonment of traditional construction techniques, considered obsolete, socially unbearable. 3 Earth One of the most ancient and most performative building technique, is earth construction, which existed for over 9000 years and paralleled the first rudimental urban human settlements. Earth architecture has been not reduced to a simple historical revival but rather coincides with a profound respect of the ecological sustainability of the environment and of the same building materials (fig.1). Earth for construction, better known as loam, is a fine balanced mixture of clay (22%), silt (48%), sand (30%) and gravel. Moist loam has to be poured into a formwork in layers of 15-20 cm thick and then compacted by ramming (Pisé). e formwork usually consists of two parallels wooden panels, separated and interconnected by spacers which are easy to assemble and dismantle. e formwork is continuously removed and re-erected horizontally layer by layer, maximizing the amount of material. At the top, since rammed earth has low tensile strength, the wall should eventually be reinforced by providing a bond or collar beam, made of concrete or wood.
4 Poché Running through the entire length of Mekelpark, the earth pavilion acts as a sort threshold of the dailyflux of students workers and visitors of Technical Campus. e multiple crossing interactions between the uniform blade of the pavilion and the existing net of footpaths would ultimately create a series of ‘propelling’ spots in the park, enhancing the different program activities with a direct public exposition. 5 Program e 500 square meters, indicated by the competition brief, have been concentrated in six peculiar areas of the pavilion, covered with green roof and partly with a green facade. e remaining length of the strip is le to open-air rest areas, exhibition spaces, enclosed gardens, horti and uncultivated soils, limited by a low earth curb, a sort of rail providing a basic infrastructure for temporary coverings, extensions, additions, and for a possible future completion of the pavilion strip. e typical floor plan is 3 meters wide (approximately 4 meter including the bearing structure and the green facade) and unlimited length: this allows a great fl exibility and variety of programs, which can be easily allocated and juxtaposed to each other and mutually interconnected. The unavoidable necessary support of the student center coincides with the reading room, autonomously organized and extremely flexible to different internal configurations. e standardized study tables and bookshelves can be freely rotated and moved across the floor and totally stored on the two sides. The series of doors on both sides of the room allow a complete openness to the park.
Mingong do not sleep
AIM International Design Competition Architects in Mission Beijing, China, 2010
fig. 1
Premise In theLaura past factories conceived as single propelling machines within the urban fabric, as identifiable and with Fassio,were Barbara Materia, isolated objects ofMarullo production on a territorial background. and Francesco At the present, instead, the production space extended far beyond the manufacture walls, covering the whole urbanized territory, reversing the previous figure/ground relationship: the factory becomes society itself, coinciding with the metropolis. Hence, if in the past the illegal position of migrant workers (mingong) was forced and controlled within the rigid boundaries of the hukou system, at the present such a condition has become the condition sine qua non of the Chinese metropolis. Chinese economy lies, in fact, on a substratum of 130 millions mingong people. The hukou system was originally established in 1958 to control internal migration, oversee employment and welfare allocation, and tighten surveillance. Chinese citizens were assigned either a rural or an urban household based on their place of residence. According to the assigned hukou, the local governments were responsible to provide facilities and services, such as education, housing and medical care. The hukou could be changed only through a formal permission from the government and fulfilling very demanding economical requirements. To prohibit internal migration, residents were not allowed to work or live outside the administrative boundaries of their household registration without approval of the authorities. Therefore, the immense economic and cultural disparity between the rural and the urban hukou was legally acknowledged in a sort of class system, stabilizing the management of the internal labour forces (fig.1). Because of the rapid urbanization and population growth, the gap between the rural and urban economies became socially and economically unsustainable: farmers and peasants began, since the 80s, to abandon the poor countryside towards the biggest cities of the coastal regions, accepting inhuman and illegal working and living conditions. Leaving their registered place of residence, migrant workers lost all their rights and benefits, degrading to the lowest position of the social ladder, without access to almost any social service: the greatest part, who is not eligible for a permanent residency, is required to register as temporary resident. Despite they are not entitled to social services such as sanitary assistance and a proper education for their children they are required to pay various fees for using urban public facilities. (fig.2) In this way, their unstable juridical position offered an easy exploitable opportunity for the capitalistic regime, using the mingong as the cheapest working force. The barriers of the hukou has been thus internalized in the very living and working condition. fig. 1
Premise In the past factories were conceived as single propelling machines within the urban fabric, as identifiable and isolated objects of production on a territorial background. At the present, instead, the production space extended far beyond the manufacture walls, covering the whole urbanized territory, reversing the previous figure/ground relationship: the factory becomes society itself, coinciding with the metropolis. Hence, if in the past the illegal position of migrant workers (mingong) was forced and controlled within the rigid boundaries of the hukou system, at the present such a condition has become the condition sine qua non of the Chinese metropolis. Chinese economy lies, in fact, on a substratum of 130 millions mingong people. The hukou system was originally established in 1958 to control internal migration, oversee employment and welfare allocation, and tighten surveillance. Chinese citizens were assigned either a rural or an urban household based on their place of residence. According to the assigned hukou, the local governments were responsible to provide facilities and services, such as education, housing and medical care. The hukou could be changed only through a formal permission from the government and fulfilling very demanding economical requirements. To prohibit internal migration, residents were not allowed to work or live outside the administrative boundaries of their household registration without approval of the authorities. Therefore, the immense economic and cultural disparity between the rural and the urban hukou was legally acknowledged in a sort of class system, stabilizing the management of the internal labour forces (fig.1). Because of the rapid urbanization and population growth, the gap between the rural and urban economies became socially and economically unsustainable: farmers and peasants began, since the 80s, to abandon the poor countryside towards the biggest cities of the coastal regions, accepting inhuman and illegal working fig. and2 living conditions. Leaving their registered place of residence, migrant workers lost all their rights and benefits, degrading to the lowest position of the social ladder, without access to almost any social service: the greatest part, who is not eligible for a permanent residency, is required to register as temporary resident. Despite they are not entitled to social services such as sanitary assistance and a proper education for their children they are required to pay various fees for using urban public facilities. (fig.2) In this way, their unstable juridical position offered an easy exploitable opportunity for the capitalistic Mingong do not sleep regime, using the mingong as the cheapest working force. The barriers of the hukou has been thus internalized in the very living and working condition.
1
fig. 2
Mingong do not sleep 1
Premise In the past factories were conceived as single propelling machines within the urban fabric, as identifiable and isolated objects of production on a territorial background. At the present, instead, the production space extended far beyond the manufacture walls, covering the whole urbanized territory, reversing the previous figure/ground relationship: the factory becomes society itself, coinciding with the metropolis. Hence, if in the past the illegal position of migrant workers (mingong) was forced and controlled within the rigid boundaries of the hukou system, at the present such a condition has become the condition sine qua non of the Chinese metropolis. Chinese economy lies, in fact, on a substratum of 130 millions mingong people. The hukou system was originally established in 1958 to control internal migration, oversee employment and welfare allocation, and tighten surveillance. Chinese citizens were assigned either a rural or an urban household based on their place of residence. According to the assigned hukou, the local governments were responsible to provide facilities and services, such as education, housing and medical care. The hukou could be changed only through a formal permission from the government and fulfilling very demanding economical requirements. To prohibit internal migration, residents were not allowed to work or live outside the administrative boundaries of their household registration without approval of the authorities. Therefore, the immense economic and cultural disparity between the rural and the urban hukou was legally acknowledged in a sort of class system, stabilizing the management of the internal labour forces (fig.1). Because of the rapid urbanization and population growth, the gap between the rural and urban economies became socially and economically unsustainable: farmers and peasants began, since the 80s, to abandon the poor countryside towards the biggest cities of the coastal regions, accepting inhuman and illegal working and living conditions. Leaving their registered place of residence, migrant workers lost all their rights and benefits, degrading to the lowest position of the social ladder, without access to almost any social service: the greatest part, who is not eligible for a permanent residency, is required to register as temporary resident. Despite they are not entitled to social services such as sanitary assistance and a proper education for their children they are required to pay various fees for using urban public facilities. (fig.2) In this way, their unstable juridical position offered an easy exploitable opportunity for the capitalistic regime, using the mingong as the cheapest working force. The barriers of the hukou has been thus internalized in the very living and working condition.
Mise en abîme: dormitory Migrant workers usually live on basic meals and very precarious accommodations, such as the congested collective dormitories, occupying less than five square meters per person (and in extreme cases only the two square meters of a single bed). Dormitories are often provided by the same working organization and directly annexed to the factory: thus the workers' lives are entirely subjugated under the unsustainable weight of the production requirements *.
Framework: hospital, schools and market Premises
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Migrant workers usually live on basic meals and very precarious accommodations, such as the congested collective dormitories, occupying less than five square meters per person (and in extreme cases only the two square meters of a single bed). Dormitories are often provided by the same working organization and directly annexed to the factory: thus the workers’ lives are entirely subjugated under the unsustainable weight of the production requirements *. The dorm thus became the most popular icon of chinese worker for the collective imaginary, the critical threshold where the minimum living needs and the working conditions eventually coincide. Despite the extremely bad conditions of these sleeping recoveries often without running water, suitable toilets and kitchens - they often constitute the only concrete proof of identity and existence for the anonymous migrant workers, who are often excluded from the urban population census.
The enclosure 16
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Migrant workers usually live on 7 basic meals and very precarious 13 accommodations, such as the 10 congested 4collective dormitories, occupying less than five square meters per person (and in extreme cases only the two square meters of 9 a single bed). Dormitories are often 11 provided by the same working organization and directly 8annexed to the factory: thus the workers' lives are entirely subjugated under 2 the unsustainable weight of the production requirements *.
* The recent suicides and strikes witnessed the extreme violent working * Theconditions. recent suicides and strikes witnessed the extreme violent One of the major computer working conditions. manufacturer added also a clause in One of the major computer manufacturer added also a clause in the the contract such as "I formally contract as “Imeticulous formally promise to be punctual, meticulous and promise to besuch punctual, to not suicide” and to notcommit commit suicide"
Out of the bouleterion
Framework: hospital, schools and market
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The dorm thus became the most Proposal popular icon of chinese workerDistrict for The Central Business subsists thanks to the ceaseless efforts the collective imaginary, the critical of millions of migrant workers. The proposed project is a reflection threshold where the minimum on theneeds present labour condition and an attempt to reveal the living and chinese the working backsideeventually of the immaterial production forces. conditions coincide. We prefer evident homogeneity of the fordist factory mass (often Despite the theextremely bad conditions of and these criticized sleeping condemned because of its “functionality”) to the recoveries - ofteninvisible without running generalized precariousness which affects the entire postwater, suitable toilets and kitchens fordist society. they often constitute the only The severity of identity the factory concrete proof of and mass, which could defend and organize itself, against fragmented and dismantled armies of temporary existence for thetheanonymous migrant workers, who are often workers. excluded from the urban population census.
The Central Business District subsists thanks to the ceaseless efforts of millions of migrant workers. The proposed project is a reflection on the present chinese labour condition and an attempt to reveal the backside of the immaterial production forces. We prefer the evident homogeneity of the fordist factory mass (often condemned and criticized because of its “functionality”) to the generalized invisible precariousness 6 which affects the entire post-fordist society. The severity of the factory mass, which could defend and organize itself, against the fragmented and dismantled armies of temporary workers.
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Isometric view
The dorm thus became the most popular icon of chinese worker for the collective imaginary, the critical threshold where the minimum living needs and the working conditions eventually coincide. Despite the extremely bad conditions of these sleeping 10 recoveries - often without running water, suitable toilets and kitchens they often constitute the only concrete proof of identity and existence for the anonymous migrant workers, who are often 4 9 excluded from the urban 3 population census.
Mingong do not sleep 2
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Plan
Legenda 1 Hospital 2 Census and employment centre 3 Men Toilets 4 Women Toilets 5 Showers 6 Enclosure 7 Bouleuterion/Assembly and Autonomous Workers’ Union 8 Common Market 9 Kindergarten 10 Primary School 11 Offices 12 Kitchens 13 Canteen 14 Farmyard Animals 15 Cold store 16 Warehouse 17 Patios 18 Dormitory 19 Main Entrance 20 Forest Access 21 Cable 8 renoved buildings
Out of the bouleterion
* The recent suicides and strikes witnessed the extreme violent working conditions. One of the major computer manufacturer added also a clause in thenot contract Mingong do sleep such as "I formally promise to be punctual, meticulous 3and to not commit suicide"
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Project Our intention has not been to emphasize the mass, but to give a framework to the mass of migrant laborers that everyday work in the CBD and other parts of Beijing. We proposed to transform the backyard of the Cable 8 Factory into a workers’ village, wrapping the already renewed Cable8 buildinds - filled with the typical post-fordist cultural infusion such as art Project galleries, museums, offices, shops, “creative” ateliers, media centers and lofts - with a vast homogeneous dormitory for thousand of but mingong. pre-existing industrial buildings, Our intention has not been to emphasize the mass, to give aThe framework to the mass of migrant laborers surrounded andinenglobed the dormitory the minimum social facilities,ofsuch that everyday work the CBDby and other parts of platform, Beijing. Wehost proposed to transform the backyard the Cable 8 Factoryservices, into a workers' wrapping An the already buildinds - filledassistance with the as hygienic toilets village, and restrooms. hospitalrenewed ensuresCable8 the basilar sanitary typical infusion such as art galleries, shops, "creative" ateliers, media whilepost-fordist a commoncultural canteen, directly connected to themuseums, kitchens,offices, the warehouses and the farmyards, centers and lofts - with a vast homogeneous dormitory for thousand of mingong. The pre-existing industrial guarantees daily meals. buildings, surrounded and englobed by the dormitory platform, host the minimum social facilities, such as Since services, the hosttoilets citiesand do restrooms. not have An the hospital responsibility to provide education to children without hygienic ensures the basilar sanitary assistance while a common a localdirectly hukou,connected migranttoworkers’ children living in cities to payguarantees higher fees inmeals. order to canteen, the kitchens, the warehouses and theneed farmyards, daily receive a proper education. This force manyto migrant parents to leave their children their Since the host cities do not have the responsibility provide education to children without a localinhukou, hometowns them fromneed a further education. the akindergarten and This the migrant workers’preventing children living in cities to pay higher fees inTherefore, order to receive proper education. force many school migrantconstitute parents to aleave their children hometowns preventing them from a further primary fundamental partinoftheir the entire settlement. education. Therefore, the primary school constitute a fundamental part of thepoint, entire The main entry ofthe thekindergarten settlementand is placed on Zhenzhi road, sided by an information settlement. a census register and an employment centre. Moreover, a common market reinforces the The main entry of the settlement is placed on Zhenzhi road, sided by an information point, a census register commercial relations with the outside, attracting other people the andcommercial favoring social exchanges. and an employment centre. Moreover, a common market reinforces relations with the The settlement provides spaces social for assemblies outside, attracting other peoplewide and favoring exchanges. and collective events, encouraging the constitution of autonomous workers’ unions. These grassroots trade unions are fundamental The settlement provides wide spaces for assemblies and collective events, encouraging the constitution to of represent and organize theThese workers to participate in a are democratic management autonomous workers' unions. grassroots trade unions fundamental to representand and supervision organize the workers tolabour participate in a democratic management and about supervision of their labour relationships; to of their relationships; to educate the workers ideology, ethics, science, technology educate the workers abouttoideology, science, technology general culture; campaigns, to organize put the and general culture; organizeethics, the workers to launch and labour emulation workers to launch labour emulation campaigns, put forward rational proposals and carry out technical forward rational proposals and carry out technical innovations and cooperation. An enclosure innovations An enclosure surrounds the village on the northwest side providing surroundsand thecooperation. workers’ village on the northwest sideworkers’ providing individual cloakrooms assigned individual cloakrooms assigned to each of the beds and opening the settlement to the inner forest. to each of the beds and opening the settlement to the inner forest.
550m
*
* these are 6.042 of the 7.260.000 mingong who had been living in the city of Beijing for more than half a year and who recently obtained a permanent resident hukou. Beijing municipal people's congress revealed that, at present time, the Chinese capital has 19.72 million inhabitants, growing by over 3% in the past 2 years. By the end of 2009, approximately 12.46 million people in the capital held a permanent Beijing hukou.
Chaoyang district block
650m
Platea Civitatis Housing in La Havana
Roma Tre University Final Thesis Rome, Italy, 2010
supervisor Valerio Palmieri co-supervisor F. Careri (Roma Tre); and within the Public Building Research Group tutors O. Gipser, F. Geerts, S. Milani (TU Delft)
1_BASEMENT In the XIX century La Havana starts spreading: from a colonial harbour and point of guard of the army for the control of the gulf of Florida it becomes an important urban and productive centre. With the construction of the railway system - financed by the United States – transport from the countryside to the harbour goods yard it is easier and it is possible to move from the country to the city the refining of the sugar. In the New World the localization of the industries in the city, the arrivals of new colon, the increasing of the transport brought the villages to become cities: and cities became metropolis. Grid / Capitalism In 1830 the urban structure of La Havana unifies the functional and organisational area of the city that is inside the old walls with the new one outside the walls. They build streets, water drains, waterworks, markets, theatres and parks, and they number the buildings that are on the single plots , tiles of the square blocks. In 1843 they draft the Plan Extramural of the Barrio Colon, area in which my architectural design insists. In general the genius of the expansion of the XIX century cities doesn’t consists as in the invention of the spatial form so much as in the creation of instruments of political economy that permit to realize this expansion. For Mumford – for instance – the plots, that have uniform shape, become units, as coins, easy to value and to exchange. The rectangular streets and the system of blocks that prolong towards the infinite are the universal expression of the capitalistic fantasies. The urban unity becomes the rectangular block (instead of the quarter). From the point of view of the new building speculator this kind of plan is perfect. It doesn’t consider at all any kind of natural and geographical characteristic. (Mumford, 1938) But if for Mumford the grid is something negative, symbol of the shortsighted commercial interests, for Koolhaas “it is the bi-dimensional discipline of the Grid that origins an unexpected freedom for a threedimensional anarchy”. From this point of view we can consider Manhattanism as an explicit doctrine able to transcend his own origin as island to claim his role among the contemporary urban theories; for instance, through that that culture of the congestion can express.
Model of the Barrio Colon, La Havana, scale 1/1000
Basement of the designed block, scale 1/400
Contradiction The utilization of the grid as a topographic carpet to be superimposed to the morphology of the territory of the Centre Havana it has been bad for those blocks that are shortly above the level of the sea. These depressions, along the seaside (called Malecòn), risk to sink under the height of the sea during the time of the hurricanes. The waters, that don’t flow, are stagnant and full up all the ground floors –as it happens in the Barrio Colon- until the quote of three meters. The the block where my project insists is defined as a “high priority of intervention block” for the strength of the hurricanes to which it is subordinate and because of the decay that follows. At the south of the block there are crumbling buildings and demolished ones too; in the northern part there is an interesting building (Loggia) with a giant architectonical order of the nineteenth century that until few years ago was the depot of the tram that crossed the Centre Havana. Pedestal The project wants to answer to the houses request in La Havana, where there are many crumbling buildings, and at the same time proposes to not move the population towards others areas in the city. The assumption of the project is to guarantee healthy condition to all the lodgings avoiding the possibility of flooding. The minimum high for the accesses to the houses is seven metres. The access at this level happens with stairs and ramps dug into the basement and that link directly the streets of the Barrio to the gangways and to the internal streets of the block. It is interesting to remind the story of “The city of the prisoner globe” of 1972, presented by Rem Koolhaas in ‘Delirious New York’ (1978), where, starting from the potential of the grid and Zoning Law of 1916 in Manhattan, the urban lab - that try to explore the capacity of every block - is experienced. “An identical basement made by a heavy smooth stone matches to every block. From these granite blocks, every philosophy has the right to expend unlimitedly towards the sky. Some of these have definite edges; others have frail structures made by experimental conjecture and hypnotic charm.” The reference to the delirium of NY is effective to solve physically the contradiction – raised by Mumford - between the ground and the grid: the basement is used as a wedge between the carpet of the grid and the body of the block, that creates new physical conditions being the pedestal on which the body of the block stays.
2_BODY OF THE BLOCK Classification of types The study of the Barrio Colon in the Centre Havana is aimed to the analysis of the compact block (the manzana compacta) through the modules that compose it: the building itself is the object that insists on a specific plot. The classification of types develops on different solutions depending on the distribution and the dimensioning of the collective spaces directly permeable from the street. The samples try to offer a representation (solution) for every plot and for every size of this. From the plan metric relief the work of classification proceeds on the construction of the essential volumes that define these collective spaces (internal voids to the architecture). This extra dimension is not meant to create richer and more complex architectonical figures: in fact, the meaning of the classification of types consists in its being a limitation, a schematic reduction, an abstraction. The analyzed types are translated according to the volumetric representation of the collective spaces of the building. “These excavated caves seemed to anticipate a following exterior architecture; in comparison with the immense outer constructions, these excavations appear more original, so that the immense outer constructions can be considered just like an imitation and a blossom to light from the underground. In fact, here it’s not a question of positive constructions, but only negative extractions.” (Hegel, Aesthetics ) Axonometric views of the inner voids
Image of City Upside Down or Buried City, 50 x 70 cm, Barrio Colon, La Havana 2008
The image of the City upside down, thought in order to depict the Barrio Colon through the exclusive representation of the voids of the city, uses the Hegelian idea of a native buried architecture, brought to light by removing a positive. The Body is nothing else that an object extended in space. The body as an intimate meaning enclosed into a wrapping (the built), that it seems clear that exists for this internal space. The body can represent both the block and the city, because this one is a sum of the blocks disposes on the grid. Buried city The image of the City upside down shows a precise architectonical choice, can represent something general and specific in regard to the project itself, because it is part and ideation of the project. The type becomes a conceptual instrument through which it reveals a general principle and doesn’t assume the meaning of simple instrument of the project. From the classification the type refers directly to the past because it is based on archaeology, through which part of the city can be rediscovered.Demolishing the built areas, and under which an operating architecture hides - according to the opposite rules of a subterranean existence - and revealing the buried city.
3_PROJECT Archetypes The compact block of La Havana, that works as an archetype for being crossed and because of the whole of collective practices that take place in it. The mental maps of his inhabitants, for what who concerns the distributive aspects of each block, are all constituted by very precise descriptions, and detailed, but above all unambiguous. The knowledge of the spaces inside the block is linked to the consistent frequency, until the minimal spaces, that at least once have been covered and crossed. Every empty space inside the block is like a system itself and can be considered as a passing room. Every passing room gives place to a complex system of relationship: every access or passage to other rooms or systems reveals an entire system of accesses. Ventilation In the Barrio Colon there are two kinds of voids: the public spaces that are the streets of the Barrio and the collective spaces that are inside the blocks (courts, corridors, staircases, loggia, patios, columned halls, terraces, halls, lanes). These last ones follow precise distributive and functional demands. The collective spaces are directly linked to the streets of the Centre Havana. From the streets one can enter into an inner court of a single building and can cross the whole block: from the aerial balconies, climbing up the stairs, walking on the plane roofs, passing from a building to another one. This integral permeability reveals not only the extraordinary three-dimensional complexity of the voids in the blocks, but also the ventilation system of those. In a high-density normal part of the city (600 inhabit/ha), the ventilation is one of the most important issues, because concerns hygiene and health of the rooms. The winds that come from the sea (from north) flow into the streets and enter into the blocks through the internal voids. The fresh breeze passes through every window that overlooks these spaces ; from these spaces the air is changed and extracted from the block.
4_ PLATEA CIVITATIS The unconscious of the city
Block roof plan
Inner voids of the block
Double architecture “In front of us there is a double architecture, one raising high on the ground, the other one subterranean: labyrinths underground, excavations big and splendid, long corridors, rooms covered by hieroglyphics, […]; and then, above, those incredible marvellous constructions among which are mainly to be named the pyramids.” (A. Vidler, 1992). The architecture of the compact block can be considered double, as it is constituted by a content, that is the empty space (the significance), and by a container that is the built (the form that gives significance). The significance can be expressed only through the form that gives significance. For this reason, in the model of platea civitatis , to reveal the content, it has been necessary building the expressive mould of the project. The mould is then removed to give back tangible the invisible; through a cast in plaster in the scale 1:100 of the empty space of the project, it has been realized a spatial continuum that departs from the street, goes through all the rooms that compose the empty space of the block, that are internal streets, courts, tunnels, big halls, ascending routes that end on the roofs, and then gets out to come back to the street with the possibility to begin a new routes among the space of an another block. Platea Civitatis Erving Goffmann resorts to a metaphor very effective for the social spaces, defined by the interaction ; it is the “dramaturgic” metaphor: the actor is always intent on putting himself in a scene on the stage of the society. The social life is then divided between the stage spaces (“the limelight”) and the background, that is the space where individuals don’t “act”, and public spaces where instead they stage a precise representation. Even though it exists the trend to identify a territory as the stage and other one as the background of the representation, there are territories that in a special moment and in a certain sense work as the stage, and in other situations work as background. (Erving Goffmann, 1959) The platea, in latin “large space”, denied to the building speculation of the XIX century in the Centre Habana, follows living fragmented inside the manzana compacta. The platea is the large space in front of the “stage of the streets”: since it is a collective space, it is on one hand an extension of the domestic housing space and on the other hand it is the space of the stage because it is able to host performances of anonymous and accidental actors. This is the city of the people alive, the city of people that live the space.
5_ PLASTER MODEL Block Mould The logical-mental process, on which is based this representation, considers the built part of the city as the ideal mould in which it is poured the material in the liquid state, able to fill every empty space, even those minimal that the city expresses. The fluid stays in the mould until the end of the setting process when – after the phase of the harden of the material - finally the mould can be disarmed. At this moment the mould lose its function and can be removed, because its structure is able to be the frame of itself.
Realization of the block mould, scale 1/100
Disarm This structure is a real negative matrix, able to resume itself and its opposite terms. It is possible just to think of the mark that the mould (that represents the built) leaves on the dried fluid: the edge surface that the internal space defines is the skin on which the facts and the different energies that shape it condense. But the internal volumes have a concrete presence themselves, that doesn’t depend from the figure of the built that enclose them.
Plaster model of the block, scale 1/100, 102 x 102 x 40 cm
GDC 09
Giancarlo De Carlo Architecture Partisan Seminars, Lectures and Exhibition Old slaughterhouse, Rome 2009
within Comitato Studentesco Architettura (AUTLAB) in collaboration with: Roma Tre, IUAV archive, Politecnico di Milano, Studio De Carlo
The process Known as the architect of participation, Giancarlo De Carlo spent all his life writing no end of texts and articles concerning many architectural and social issues (as he once wrote in an editorial in the review Domus: “…from the University to the black holes”). His plain words besides his architectural works had been fundamental for the Students of Architecture that, fascinated by him, elect to give a re-reading, as he would have also preferred, not accepting his words as dogma but using them as departing points to a deeper reflection upon the complexity of the spatial and social main themes. The exhibition consisted of the three sections: a series of critical boards, a central eye where there was the entirety of the numbers of the review Space and Society to consult (he was the founder and the director of the review) and the screening space. 1_The critical boards are the direct result of our studies. The visitor is guided through a critical and historical re-reading path of the main themes that had been characteristic of the life of Giancarlo De Carlo. The temporal sequence through which the critical boards are presented is not significant for a certain route, but just for one of the possible study routes examined by our seminar. The link between the different panels tells something about the way in which the AutLab seminar had taken place. The relation between the pictures is not like a cause-and-effect: there is not a specific document that follows another one. Every document is linked to the others with special links or key words as general frame of the exhibition was an hypertext. The exhibition in fact reuses the overhead rails mechanism of the production line of the old slaughterhouse, rails to which used to be attached the hogs: this choice gives the chance to move and to slide the panels where the critical boards are hanged on to configure different paths of reading. 2_The screening space presents our critical path of study. The visitor is guided here through a trip across the boarding schools of Urbino. The screening space includes also the video recordings of our interviews with Giancarlo De Carlo. The multifaceted themes were proposed in order to discuss them in the same place: as the video was turned off, the discussion was turned on. 3_The central eye represents the moment of break of the exhibition. The visitor is introduced into a cosy space, a small office where one can seat around a round table to read, to study individually or collectively the 90 numbers of Space and Society, that compose altogether the iris of the metaphorical Giancarlo De Carlo eye that the table represents. available as in a consultation room. The space around is enclosed by panels where are photos end sketches reproducing all the projects of De Carlo for the City and the University of Urbino. The work of the AutLab to exhibit this cycle of critical studies and the exhibition itself had been possible thanks to some important institutions as the De Carlo & Associates Office, the Archive of the projects of the IUAV University of Venice, the Departments of Urban Studies and Architecture of the faculty of Architecture of Roma Tre, the Academy of San Luca in Rome, the Library of Architectural Project of the Polytechnic of Milan, the mediatheque of the Faculty of Architecture of Valle Giulia (La Sapienza) of Rome .
Forte Pozzarello
Demaniore International Competition The Identity of the Public Real Estate Monte Argentario, Tuscany, 2008
with Francesco Marullo and Timoteo D’Alessandro
Forte Our proposal provides an internal and external reuse of the military facilities. In the north border of the ditch operates a movable theatre stage conceived as a medieval assault machine: mobile, light, foldable, easy to disassemble. The green spalto would be thus the perfect space for the audience, directly connected to the inner courtyard of the fortress where the foyer, the toilets and service rooms are located. The old distributive ammunition system is converted into an olive mill, which is common in these particular mediterranean islands. In this way, the old processes of conservation, storage and selection of the explosive dusts is compared to the different phases of the oil preparation between the different underground laboratories, where a good lighting condition is ensured by vertical skylights to the spalto. Finally, a eno-gastronomic center replaces the wide representative spaces along the southern front of the fortress, reusing the old systems of rails and trolleys, which were necessary to carry the ammunitions to the cannons in the inner courtyard, to serve the kitchens, the storage and the wine cellar. The ditch is transformed in a linear fruit garden and the military lodgings, similar to roman tabernae, turned into work ateliers.
Principles 1.The Fortress is an absolute architecture. 2.Since it is absolute, the architectural form persists in time while functions adapt to the circumstances. 3.The Fortress is an imposing building almost entirely not visible. 4.Its invisibility can be interrupted only through an assault or a storm. In that case, the exposition of a vessel or the presence of war machines will reveal its existence. 5.The pre-existent structure, efficiently designed, does not admit any violent modification. Architecture has to take responsibiliy on its intervention in order to not result vain. 6.Since the Fortress is entirely an hypogean architecture, the resulting space is substantially vaulted. 7.The hypogean spaces constitute tubular empty masses which are intensely connected: ammunitions circulation (polveriera, laboratories, depots, elevators, batteries); people circulation (laboratories, courtyard, bedrooms, kitchens, toilets); air circulation and lighting systems. 8.The courtyard constitutes the central space of the building. The spalto (glacis) founds the building on the ground. 9.The promontory preserves the Fortress. The Fortress is the promontory: it is the landscape. 10.As the local community captures the Fort, it achieves its lost awareness of the territory, its control on a public space.
Savorengo Ker Casilino 900 settlement www.osservatorionomade.net Rome 2008
Designers: Stalker Group Project supported by the Department of Urban studies (DIPSU Roma Tre) 11th Mostra Internazionale di Architettura Biennale di Venezia Triennale di Milano 2008
The two-level structure measures 6 by 4 m. Both floors had a porch area that was closed off during the construction phase and integrated with the dwelling, increasing the surface area from 50 m2 to 70 m2. The construction budget was less than the cost of transporting and positioning a container to be used for housing.
Everyone’s house Supported by the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Roma Tre, the house was designed as a tangible and topical response to some of the political issues that arose in the months leading up to the election of the new Berlusconi government, as well as to national and local political debates. The Stalker-designed ‘everyone’s house’ defies recent local government actions with regard to illegal ‘spontaneous’ housing. The authorities have consistently failed to implement reforms that would have allowed Rome’s gypsies affordable housing that meets European standards. Given the centre-left orientation of the previous city council, there has been an inexplicable delay in decisions and structural initiatives, leading to fragmented growth and turning the idea of buying a home into a far-off dream for the young and lowly paid. By contrast, the new centreright government has lived up to its cliched image. The campaign by the new mayor, Giovanni Alemanno, focused on security, promoting fear of the outsider as an election issue and ignoring the city’s real problems. So Casilino 900 is a reflection of the current standoff between legal and illegal, residents and immigrants. The building is located at the crossroads between Casilina and Palmiro Togliatti, on a site hidden by the vegetation and scrap yards that surround the spontaneous settlement, the oldest of its kind in Rome, constructed in the early post-war period by southern Italian immigrants. Today it houses a diverse Romany community of Macedonians, Montenegrins, Kosovans and Bosnians. The house designed by Stalker redefines the term ‘nomad’: the dwelling has no wheels, it cannot be transported like a container. But even though it has no foundations, it conveys a sense of rooted-ness and of the culture associated with the materials from which it has been constructed. In a period in which Roma dignity has had to defend itself against arbitrary government ‘transfers’ and the dismantling of their settlements, the Stalker design studio is attempting to reinvent the identity of Casilino 900 as a stable settlement with its own history, culture and geography. The wooden house has quickly become a national cause célèbre, the final stage in the life of the Romany settlement, with the government declaring that the whole site will soon be closed and the inhabitants moved to a place as yet to be decided. (Abstract for press)
In Rome on 28 July 2008, the Savorengo Ker, Everyone’s House, built by the Romanies community of Casilino 900 under the supervision of the Stalker Group, was opened to the public.
Urban Incubators
Infrastructures, Public Buildings and Collective Housing
Research, Project and Lecture for DIPSA Architecture Studies Department Roma Tre Univercity Rome, Italy, 2007
with Davide Lorenzo and Enrica Siracusa
Agro Romano under attack
Axonometric view of the studied stripes
Brief The objective of this study consisted in verifying the different infrastructures within the metropolitan basin of Rome. Each public building, closely located to metro/tram/train peripheral stations, has been analyzed in relation to its own peculiar urban and social context. A parallel vision of macro-scale scenarios and micro-scale close-readings, permitted to elaborate a comprehensive strategy of development, through different functional destinations (mostly public facilities and collective housing). The research attempted to establish a combination between the concept of “densification� and the network of transportation in opposition to the unreasonable growth of the built environment: the act of densification is thus conceived as urban strategy to limit the sprawl expansion towards the agro romano (saving its historical heritage) and also to propose innovative solutions. The research provides new different concepts for high-density urban dwelling, attempting to elaborate several affordable housing solutions which could be easily adapted to the new emerging social exigencies beyond the traditional familiar unit (short-stay residences, social hotel, single or couple apartment, student housing). The case study is an important area called Mandrione, history and archaelogy wise. Marked by a strong and desperate unauthorized growth during the XX century, stays today as a no planned area. The Mandrione appears like a wedge that slips into the city of Rome - from the country to the city centre. The projects proposes to densify the areas within transversal stripes that are able to unite - through linear trajectories - the different hubs present on the territory and situated along the main roads that conduce from the centre to the periphery. The project reuses and adapts the existing buildings and provides for the move of every superflous and unauthorized activity inside the stripes, to free the Mandrione and make it living again as an archeological park, through its trascendental and monumental structures: the roman waterworks, the middleage towers and the immense fortresses of XIX century.
Asylon
Nursery school project Parco Stazione Tiburtina Rome, Italy, 2006
within the Laboratory Project and Research Group; Professor Alessandro Anselmi
For an ethics of sensibility and authenticity
Without Empaty
The images of the analysis of the project intend to call the contemporary ethics into question. This ethics reflects a moral model that describes as due a certain protective attitude and loving care towards infancy. Beyond superficial remarks towards infancy, it is possible to notice the violence that always has accompanied the relationship between adults and children. For instance, the language is the witness of the tendency to an abuse of power towards infancy. From the of the etymology word it is possible comprehend the subordination of the child towards adults. The term infans (from Latin) means “dumb”: the infant is that who can’t talk and that - as a consequence - is distinguished from the talking community (adults). Infancy - that is a prosperous age- is defined as negative as a lack and more precisely as a lack of word. This way of thinking shouldn’t make us deduct that if the kid doesn’t talk he can’t communicate, or else he runs the risk to remain unheard. In the name of a moral of altruism the child is forcedly imposed to the unaware loss of the Oneself-components, judged as naughty and unacceptable: Autocratic parents (or educators), lacking in empathy, can appoint the critic, vital, autonomous expression of their sons as a form of hostility and selfishness and – still – can judge the child as a bad sort because of his expressive and adaptive aggressiveness. The adult-centred ethics uses as a weapon the pressure of the sense of duty and the threat of a punishment. This ethics requires to the child to be similar to a grand model of Superchild that forces the child to abandon the free expression of his emotional needs : it is important that the culture of infancy doesn’t privilege only some peculiar and grand aspects of the model of the child but it should focus on the relationship between the adult and child. On the other hand, this relationship - if betray – doesn’ represent a lack just for the child but for the adults above all, because they lose the opportunity to confront with the children imagination. The children in fact have the extraordinary skill to camouflage and be absorbed into the environment : they test their power on the spaces and on the objects through the magic of the interaction. The Camouflage In One-Way Street Benjamin describes a child playing a game of hide and-seek: “Standing behind the door¬way curtain, the child becomes himself something floating and white, a ghost. The dining table under which he is crouching turns him into the wooden idol in a temple whose four pillars are the carved legs. “ This tale reveals the delicate oscillation that op¬erates in mimesis between assimilating to the other, and not allowing ourselves to be trapped within the other. Mimesis is no empty mode of surrender. On the contrary, it subscribes to the logic of camouflage. It amounts to a preserving the self against a certain back¬drop. The project tries to exploit a privileged access to the camouflage process that children put in practice. The nursery school building engages a recreational form that deals with the other playgrounds in the park. The nursery school develops along different axes depending to the different ages of children. A corpus seems to come to life to overtop the others: in the head of the reptile there is the pediatrician hall. A classroom breaks away from the building and hangs in the balance on the hill: it is the room of the children that soon will leave the nursery to go to the primary school. The internal gangway distribution releases the different sections, the complex geometry of which doesn’t compromise the functional articulation. Every section can be considered as a special representation to the intern of which it is possible to identify with a single case. It is children who are most capable of reading themselves into represen¬tations - into pictures, dolls, dolls’ houses and other objects, and through them imagining themselves in other possible worlds. This has obvious implications for the world of archi¬tecture. For what are architectural drawings and mod¬els but the adult equivalent of children’s pictures and dolls’ houses?
Outlook Tower
Itinerant International workshop Villard 7 Installation at Palazzo della Gran Guardia Verona, Italy, 2006
with Andrea Valentini
Tribute to Vasily Zaytsev
Chronological O u t l o o k T o w e r
A new path departs from an undulate plate that holds services and sporting facilities - that once were inside the bastions walls – and after having crossed the San Procolo Fortress lands to an arena crossed over by the Cristoforo Colombo Street, that soars now like a suspension bridge. So the connection among the northern park of the Adige River and the park of the Masterly Walls concretizes. In the middle of the arena there is a tower- hooked up to the Bridge to be accessible both at the level of the Street and at the level of the square below- that contains a museum-observatory of the fortifications. The museum concerns the growth of the city through its defensive systems. Inside the tower maps and models that flow from above accompany to an upward tour that traces chronologically the develop of the fortifications of Verona, since the roman empire to the Austrian domination. To every age matches a specific overlook on the city. An enormous mirror at the top of the tower reflects the trace of the roman grid on the middle of the square. From the top of the tower – instead- it is possible to have a synthetic view of the city -the 360° degrees one- and one can also overlook on the last “front” – that one of the 900: these last view are in strong opposition to those former precise images of Verona. The tower stands out above the city and its viewfinders aimed on the territory represent metaphorically the image of a city under siege. Moreover, the tower works as an hinge between two different and divided parts of the city of Verona and it is significant the recall to Stalingrad - that during the Second World War was a great divide – on the limit between two empires and two different history evolutions. And it is also strong the reference to the soviet constructivism and to the Tatlin Tower – a framework with volumes hanged from above. The mirror at the top reminds of some instrument used by the snipers through which it was possible to control the battlefield without being exposed to the enemy fire.
Bogo-Rome
10th International Venice Biennale
International Design Workshop “Learning from Cities” Venice, Italy, 2006
in collaboration with arch. Francesco Careri, arch. Giovanni Caudo, DIPSU Università degli Studi Roma Tre
Learning from Bogotà Nowadays we often deal with a metropolis that can be conceived as a natural, uncontrollable organism, growing and surviving independently from its territorial government and outside its political regulations. Our task, which is more anthropological than merely aesthetic, involves intervening in the existing city revealing its intrinsic potentialities and its capacity to host complexities and differences. The archetype of the city is not its form but rather its own resources. Therefore, the difference between different cities represents the natural basis on which the structure of the city has been placed. It is absolutely necessary to begin again from the earth, the soil, the skin of the city, from the original characteristics of its foundations. Every city, in fact, could not be reproduced because of its peculiar skin, from its historical background and its primordial dimension. Archetypes are fundamentally related to the human being and his fundamental needs such as the water, soil and primary resources avoiding any simple environmentalist vision but rather as an universal act of redistribution. The urban projects, realized in Bogotà in these last decades, rediscover the basic principles of the traditional urbanism concerning a public and cooperative city. Nevertheless, the last twenty years of urban development have not changed or solved the contradictions and the problems of the city: Bogotà is still characterized by a social polarization which vertically divides the population into rich and extremely poor people, fragmenting the city into self-referential islands of security and control. Contrasts and contradictions divide the city and transform the urban life into an uncomfortable and unknown place both for the citizens and foreigners: the city threatens and offers safety at the same time. In this sense, everybody in Bogotà is looking out his own boundaries, protecting himself from an unknown and frightening city. Every day a sort of miracle makes possible the coexistence between different worlds and constantly reshapes and re-defines the border conditions between different realities. Hence, Bogotà could be conceived as a conglomeration of several islands without forming any archipelago. Islands as self referential realities : men have to become “ontological islanders” to free themselves from the toxic environment and to find refuge on the anthropogenic island” (from P. Sloterdijke). The everyday life is characterized by a calm and quiet lack of balance. Our proposal tried to reverse the reciprocal distancing principle which is affecting the actual construction of the city, transforming it into a principle of invasion through several agents, extracted from specific characteristic of the Colombian population, which are arranged along the urban territory according to a regular grid. These agents, through the metaphor of machines, operate like propellers of “actions” connecting different part of the city and multiplying theirs effects like a kaleidoscope: -the historical agent, constituted by the hidden memories and the ghosts of the past which are always present in the collective mind, -the natural and environmental agent, breaking into thee consolidated urban fabric and emerging again from the forgotten archaeological strata, -the temporal and precarious agent, characterized by the new and fragile realities of the city, -the simultaneous agent, related to systems of control of the city and based on several visual connections between wastelands and empy spaces within the urban fabric. Through these different agents, the project attempts to reveal the skin of the city in order to provide an innovative sense of Bogotà and a guide to new possibilities for its development.
Recent Abstracts Lectures
“Housing : Through the CIAM to the Team X” Lecture at Laboratory Project Roma Tre with AUTLAB group December 3rd, 2009
Glossary
The Ascoral group, leaded by Le Corbusier, in 1947 drafts a efficient and standardized graphic system. During the conferences of CIAM this system is used to present and compare the different projects: a grid framed as a system of Cartesian axes, that wants to make abstract the dynamics of the real world. A global and pre-determined instrument and a static form of order that comes from the points of the Athens Document. Adopting the grid means to adopt a method of work, a type of order, a group of values and a particular vision of the “functional” modern city. Modifying the grid means modifying the way through which it was possible to perceive the reality and how it would be considered the future of modern city. After the second world war young architects that appeared at the CIAM congresses did this: they shocked till abandoning a static thinking that didn’t wear out the various facets of a society continuously on the go. At the beginning was proposed a new graphic system, more dynamic, without Cartesian limits, the existentialist and phenomena logic notions of which were in opposition to the past Le Corbusier categories. Tired of the leading roles and monumentalises attitudes the young architects detached from the old group of architects, affirming the necessity of a bigger “modesty in architecture”, an ethics answer that would define modernism as primitivism and not necessarily as mechanicism. Abandoning the architectural prescriptions, breaking the grid, showing the squares, the streets of the workers’ class, in order to promote the human in all his creativity.
The Uncanny in Centre Havana Lecture at Multivercity Old Slaughterhouse, Rome July 5th, 2010 The Uncanny in psychoanalysis presents itself as a useful instrument to deflate an empty aesthetics, that prefers to be busy on the issue of what is beautiful, sublime and attractive. Freud recognizes the uncanny as an aesthetical category, that exists into the limits of “what that produces anxiety and terror. […] The uncanny belongs to the sphere of what that is frightening and often matches with what that is generically distressing”. The first relationship between the uncanny and the spatial element is linked to the absence of orientation and to the faculty of finding the way. The scheme of repetition of the uncanny is described by Freud after an odd experience among the streets of Genoa. After some vicious tours, he found himself in the same place from which he had departed and, besides all his efforts, he couldn’t find the street that he already knew. As he was in a dark room without finding the exit door. In the essay “The uncanny”, Sigmund Freud try to study the etymological meaning of the word uncanny, and he arrive to the conclusion that the best translation is the German word heimlich. From heim, “house”, “Heimlich” means “domestic”, “that belongs to the house”, “familiar”, and at the same moment “subtracted to unknown eyes”, “hidden”, “secret”. Heimlich, for what that concerns knowledge means “occult”, “subtracted to the knowledge”, “unconscious”. The meaning of “hidden”, “dangerous”, develops until Heimlich arrives to coincide with its opposite, unheimlich. “It is unheimlich all that could be remain secret, hidden, and that instead has surfaced” (Schelling, 1846).
An entrance into the block in Havana Centre
Return of the removed Unheimlich means also “come to surface”. The prefix un- is the sign of the removal that in the substance is the internal process of negation. Unheimlich intended as the worrying return, and Heimlich as hidden, are linked to the idea of something “buried”. The return of the removed , on which Freud bases his survey, derives from the Schelling’s assumption and defines the uncanny as something that rises when what was hidden becomes clear. For Vidler, the strength of this thinking was appreciated mainly by the romanticism because of its esthetical sensibility and because of its psyche since, what that appeared comforting and sure on the surface, “risked to become victim of something that should have been remained hidden and that instead, seeping into a crack of the progress ,had come back”. In the unconscious it is possible to find the removed psychical contents that can resurface in dreams under a symbolic form. More in detail it is possible to conceive the unconscious like a “warehouse” both personal and collective.
Labò Group
Lectures, Seminars, Self - Education Workshops www.lab0.org
Study and Project for an archive of contemporary architecture SELF-EDUCATION DESIGN LABORATORY Palermo 2004 The work is the study for a project of an Archive of the Contemporary Architecture in Palermo. The project has been the pretext for a survey focused on the accessibility to the knowledge in the actual metropolis and in particular in the specific local context of Palermo. From a critical study of the places delegated to the detention of the knowledge, we got to a redefinition of the typology of the Archive and to the proposal of a city where the public institutions, the libraries, the universities, the archives become the places of the diffusion of knowledge, through the new information technologies. The result is a mapping – navigable through every of its point – of the didactic path of the three research seminars and of their junction knots: the Web - the archive in the network of the information technologies ; the Type – the typology of the archive ; the City – the archive of contemporary architecture in the Mediterranean sea. The method of survey is that of the archaeology of knowledge introduced by Michel Foucault and applied to the study of the architecture: from the research of the archetypes to their declinations, until the definition of possible architectonical projects. The navigation can take place following the didactic path of each seminar until getting to the possible meeting points of the three seminars; otherwise, the navigation can take place entering freely from one of the map points, and from there go back to the archetypes or get lost according to a psicogeographical derive.
Collective Housing LECTURE AT ROMA TRE ARCHITECTURE FACULTY May 23th, 2006 It’s a selective narration through images, not chronological, about the heretical living experiences of the last century – displaced through time and space in the western culture. The analyzed projects are the result of particular combinations, that link together the figures of the technician, the purchaser, and the inhabitants with the opening of a political space that is a space of construction and imagination of the other - in a way liberating - in a way tragic – in a way dreaming – in a way very sweet: the Red Wien capital and prisoner of the empire, the October revolution and the first Five-year Plan, the Red Week of Rome and the organization of the Trade Unions, the Italy of the post-war period and the INA-CASA Program, the IACP Institute, the Hot Autumn and the Chilean slum. The train of thought is leaded by an ironic reflection on the architect role: from the Karl Marx Hof and the Domkomuna - as experiences of total projects, that configure architectural languages, political discourse and imagination of different life styles – to the residential area Quinta Monroy (Chile) – that puts in the middle the self-construction project and allows the disappearance (?) of the technician.
Edited by Labò Group with the presence of : CHRISTIAN MARAZZI, Supsi DAVID FANFANI, Università di Firenze - BRETT NEILSON, University of Western Sydney - GIGI ROGGERO, Università di Cosenza FRANCO FARINELLI, Università di Bologna - AUGUSTO ILLUMINATI, Università di Urbino - GABRIELE MASTRIGLI, Università di Ascoli Piceno - IVAN BERCEDO, Quaderns de arquitectura de Catalunya 2000 2005 - STEFANO CATUCCI, Università di Ascoli Piceno - STEFANO MILANI, Delft University of Technology AGOSTINO PETRILLO, Politecnico di Milano - FRANCESCO RAPARELLI, Università di Firenze.
The maps of education in the limbs of the metropolis SELF-EDUCATION WORKSHOP ON UNIVERSITY AND METROPOLIS Roma Tre Architecture Faculty 2007 - 2008 “From Roman Castrum to twenty-first century cluster: the maps of education in the limbs of the metropolis” is an investigation arguing on university spaces, their transformations of settlement models, their symbolization and morphology. It is structured as a series of multidisciplinary lectures in which architecture is just one of the disciplines. The dare is to decipher, through the metropolis analysis taxonomies, the evolution of the University territories, whereas universities no longer recognize as their own space a urban portion dedicated to them, but the entire metropolitan structure, complete with its links to infrastructure, manufacturing and business center nodes: The University goes beyond the fence and become metropolis, in the mixed forms, spread along the ridge line between training and production, redrawing the figures of the student and researcher in the gray land of work, finally reconstituting the types of its place in the hybrid forms in between the lecture halls and the rooms of work”.
Publications
Articles, Reviews, Essays
GDC 09 Exhibition
Giancarlo De Carlo, the architecture partisan May 2009
Savorengo Ker
on Revista Mapeo #5.6 Edited by Marcelo Danza 2009
L’Italia cerca casa / Housing Italy Edited by F. Garofalo Electa 2008
Everyone’s house on A10 #23 sep/oct 2008
POSSE Periodico The maps of education in the limbs of the metropolis Edited by Labò Edizioni Manifesto Libri. Nov2006
Learning from Cities Edited by F. Garofalo PostMedia Books Jun 2008
The Market of the Knowledge The self - education workshops
Villard7 Verona - Stratificazioni e connessioni
Imagining Corviale. A Project
CIERRE edizioni Jan 2007
Edited by Labò on Carta Quaderni #29 2005
on Lotus International #124 Jun 2005
Curriculum Vitae Renzo Sgolacchia Mail
Born in Rome, 17th Apr 1982 renzosgolacchia@hotmail.com
Projects 2010
Address Phone
TU Delft competition - Mekelpark
title: Poché, a earth project of a common room
2010
title: Mingong do not sleep Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2009
2008
Rome, Italy
2007
2007 2006
2004
promoted by Roma Tre University and Chilean Universities
Learning from cities
10th International Venice Biennale
International Design workshop, case study:Bogotà, Colombia
1000 y Una Plazas
Edited by Francesco Garofalo Supervisors Francesco Careri, Giovanni Caudo
Escuela de Arquitectura, Talca University, Chile
Villard 7
Village of Colin, Maule, Chile Built work
Itinerant International workshop case study: Verona, Italy
DIPSA Architecture Studies Department Roma Tre University
Edited by Aldo Aymonino, Pippo Ciorra, Alberto Ferlenga, Carlo Palazzolo, Mosè Ricci, Francesco Cellini with the Faculties of: Ancona, Ascoli, Beirut, Milano, Napoli, Palermo, Pescara, Reggio Calabria, Roma, Venezia, Zagabria
Asylon
Plus
within the Laboratory Project, Prof. Alessandro Anselmi Roma Tre University
Roma Tre University
Infrastructures, Public Buildings and Collective Housing
2005
Winner of the Cultural Exchange grant U Talca
Urban Incubators
2006
Winner of the grant for the thesis researches
promoted by Roma Tre University TU Delft
Savorengo Ker, Everyone’s house
Casilino 900 settlement 11th International Venice Biennale; Milan Triennale Realized within Stalker Group
Graduation course TU Delft
Pozzarello Fortress
Monte Argentario, Tuscany, Italy
Public Building, Territory in Transit Tutors O. Gipser, F. Geerts, S. Milani (TU Delft)
Promoted by AutLab group
Demaniore International Competition
title: Platea Civitatis, housing in La Havana
Roma Tre University
GDC 09 Exhibition Ex Mattatoio, Rome, Italy
Architectural Master Degree. 110 cum laude Supervisor Valerio Pamieri, Francesco Careri Co-Supervisor O. Gipser, F. Geerts, S. Milani (TU Delft)
AIM International Design Competition Beijing
2008
0031 06 33655439
Training events Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2009
Adrien Mildersstraat 74A, 3022 NK Rotterdam
workshop promoted by Lacaton-Vassal architects
Nursery School
CasaCorpoCasa
Promoted by OSI, Stalker, AutLab Built work
case study: Val Melaina suburb, Rome, Italy
2005
Bachelor Degree of Science of Architecture Roma Tre University
Roma Tre University
Architecture Richness and Poverty
Archive of contemporary architecture
Parma, Italy
within Labò Group Palermo, Italy
Exhibition at Festival of Architecture
2004
Corviale UniverCITY workshop
Promoted by Stalker and Olivetti Foundation Rome, Italy
Professional experiences
Research 2010
Lecture “The Uncanny in the Centre Havana”
2009
Lecture “Housing : Through the CIAM to the Team X”
Multivercity, Rome, Italy
within AutLab group Roma Tre University
2008
Lecture “Tribute to Vasily Zaytsev”
2007
Self-Education workshop on University and Metropolis
Roma Tre University
Studio Marco Vermeulen
2008
Stalker Group
2007
Studio Blasi Architect
Rotterdam Rome Rome
Qualification and Competences
Promoted by Labò Group
Software
Research agreement “The Border of the City”
Languages Italian
Roma Tre University
2006
2010-11
Promoted by DIPSU Urban Studies Department Roma Tre University
Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere) AutoCad, VectorWorks, Rhinoceros, SketchUp mother tongue
English fluent
Spanish fluent French beginner