stefano foĂ
architecture portfolio
EDUCATION Registration at the Rome Board of Architecture april 2013 Master’s Degree in Architecture “Sapienza”, University of Rome “Valle Giulia” faculty of Architecture july 2012 top marks cum laude Highschool Diploma Liceo Scientifico Statale “A. Avogadro”, Roma july 2005 top marks COMPUTER SKILLS INFO born 14/10/1986, Bologna, Italy add piazza Trasimeno 6, 00198 Roma, Italy tel +39 339 2658267 mail foa.stefano@gmail.com web www.stefanofoa.org
WORK EXPERIENCE
excellent Autocad 2D/3D, Rhinoceros, Photoshop, InDesign, Artlantis Render, pacchetto Office good 3D Studio Max+VRAY, Illustrator, Sketch-Up, Blender
LANGUAGE SKILLS Italian mother tongue
Freelance Rome, january 2015 - october 2015 Architect
English mother tongue equivalent Certificate of Proficiency in English University of Cambridge
SUS&HI OFFICE - Calcagno Littardi Associati Rome, february 2013 - december 2014 Architect
Photography
Paola D’Alfonso Architect Rome, january 2013 Internship
“Nature and Men” photography book Mattioli editore december 2013
SOM - Skidmore, Owings & Merrill London, august 2007 Internship
“Su e Giù, Idee in Salita” photography exhibition Biblioteca Angelica june 2011
London Nursery School
Library in Via Giulia
Himalaya Mountain Hut
Photography
London, UK - december 2015 Competition STEFANO FOA’
Paldor Base Camp, Nepal - april 2015 Competition STEFANO FOA’ + SIMONE CALO’ + PAOLA D’ALFONSO + GIADA LANCIANO
Cully Residential Complex Cully, Switzerland - july 2014 Competition BERIC SA + SUS&HI OFFICE
Plaza in Ümraniye Istanbul - december 2013 Concept design SUS&HI OFFICE
Belgorod Residential Complex Belgorod, Russia - june 2013 Competition SUS&HI OFFICE + FEDERICO PITZALIS
Taichung Cultural Center
Taichung, Taiwan - may 2013 Competition 5+1 AA + SUS&HI OFFICE + EDS INTERNATIONAL
Bois de la Batie Park
Geneva, Switzerland - january 2013 Competition Paola D’Alfonso + Giada Calcagno
Rome - july 2012 Master’s thesis supervisor Prof. Arch. Massimo Zammerini
2009 - Present Hobby Stefano Foà
London Nursery School London, UK - december 2015 Competition STEFANO FOA’
The nursery is imagined inside a vast empty area, this is why the design was guided by the importance given to the resulting park, in order to maximize the relationship between the children and nature and outdoor playgrounds. So, the perimeter of the building is shaped by the entrance, the drop off area, pedestrian and car access, but most of all by trees and open-air spaces. The theoretical facade strip is thus deformed and becomes a sinuous form: shaping a pavilion which is immersed into nature that interacts with it. And nature is also welcomed inside the building itself, into two large patios that light the interior, and create a protected yet open play environment. The roof of the construction doesn’t bluntly follow the perimeter of the nursery. Instead, it is a variation of the curve, thus creating roofed open terraces in front of the classes. The design process was from the outside-in, rather than the other way around.
What the project suggests is not a large box filled with functions. It is an organic and carefully designed, variable space that it is tailored around the strict children needs, that at the same time provides a free canvas for their growth and experiences, in contact with nature and with each other. There are no conventional classrooms in the nursery. The closed resting and sleeping rooms are a quiet and protected environment, which define the learning and playing space. The latter is variable and vibrant, it stretches and narrows shaping a variety of areas. Each class has direct access to one of these areas, which are organized according to peculiar age needs. However, there is no physical separation in this space: it encourages interaction across ages and classes, as part of the growth and educational process. This design allows for the existence of quiet spaces as well as the fore-mentioned common ones in order to fuel creativity, playing, learning, socializing, in harmony and with consideration of each and every children’s unique personality.
Himalaya Mountain Hut
Paldor Base Camp, Nepal - april 2015 Competition STEFANO FOA’ + SIMONE CALO’ + PAOLA D’ALFONSO + GIADA LANCIANO Aim of the competition was to imagine a mountain hut prototype, to place along the track leading to Paldor Peak at first. The hut has to be reproducible in other venues, as support to hikers and climbers. The shape of it is inspired by the Doko, a traditional nepalese basket, built from a net of bamboo stripes, used to transport almost anything. It is omnipresent in Nepal, thus being a very familiar image. Rethinked, this net becomes the bearing structure of both the hut and its cladding. The latter is formed by two translucent elements, the innermost being a sandwich panel made of two sheets of fiberglass-reinforced resin housing a polyester wool insulation layer. The outermost coating layer is made of polycarbonate flakes. This means that the Doko is visible also at night, or in poor weather. It is a landmark for climbers, an always visible, safe shelter that shows its presence during the whole day. Yet its translucent lightness softens and dematerializes the volumetric impact. The frusto-conical shape harmoniously blends in the natural context, it is highly wind-resistant and offers limited surface to snow stacking. Paldor Peak 5928 meters
Doko Mountain Hut Paldor Base Camp 4280 meters
The ground floor houses the common functions, which can be used also by who does not necessarly sleep in the hut, such has the kitchen, gear storage, tables and seating to eat and rest. On the first and second floors we have the beds, in the former divided in double bedrooms, in the latter a large dormitory. Electric power and hot water are generated by solar and photovoltaic panels placed on the roof, where a warming coil melts the snow. Water is stored in tanks, sewage is treated to be used again in toilets. The hut is composed of ready-made modules, which are brought on site by an helicopter and assembled. The staircase central core is the first, upon a concrete base. After that, the seven slices that make up the cone. The outer shell is realized on site, through the assembly of the polycarbonate flakes on laminated wood supports linked to the bearing structure.
Cully Residential Complex Cully, Switzerland - july 2014 Competition BERIC SA + SUS&HI OFFICE
Overlooking the Geneva Lake, adjacent the railway connecting to the city, the vast competition site is going to become a residential area composed of two facing buildings. Both require a ground floor reserved to public and private services, and large retail areas. An underground parking floor extends beneath the whole site, with private parking and public exchange parking for train passengers. The buildings are designed in order to maximize residences facing the lake, and reduce north exposure to a minimum. Thus the volumes are shaped around a wooden clad courtyard, which contrasts with the fiber-cement facade panels on the other sides of the buildings. The courts are actually terraces, which, combined with the covered loggia windows, mean that each apartment has one or more private open space.
The first building is destined to private dwellings. A vast retail area occupies the whole ground floor. The first and second floors house twenty-three apartments, ranging from two to five rooms. The courtyard presents large terraces facing the lake, and it is designed in order to garantee ideal exposure to as many residences as possible, The second building is destined to special public dwellings. It consists of twentyone two and three rooms apartments, as well as common areas and utilities. Ground floor is divided in three activities: a neighborhood medical centre, public offices, and a large retail area with an underground storage. The vast underground floor includes parkings and utilities (such as cellars and storages) reserved to residences as well as to retail. Furthermore part of the railway exchange parking is underground. The rest of it occupies the surface between the two buildings. Even though they share the same design philosophy, and the same materials, the two buildings are imagined and different hues of a same idea, in order to mirror similar albeit not identical purposes.
Plaza in Ümraniye Istanbul - december 2013 Concept design SUS&HI OFFICE
Located in the Asian side of Istanbul, Ümraniye district is interested by projects and construction at the urban scale aimed to renew its looks and role. Among them there is the intent of building a vast area of public services, including a university campus and a mosque, located atop a large hill in the northern quarter. The purpose of the plaza is to connect the residential area with such hill, as well as to overpass a large expressway. This dual nature, both crossing and aggregation gate, has guided the design choices, leading to the conception of a large roofed plaza. The roof itself is the key element of the project. By synthesizing modern tecnology with Arabic traditions, it represents the mixture of cultures, forms, customs, that is typical of Istanbul, true bridge between Europe and Asia. This recall of local identity, linked to the future construction of the mosque, doesn’t however result in shallow imitation or inept mocking.
Under this sort of big perforated tent, which offers protection while still being open, the plaza creates a fundamental pedestrian connection above the freeway, and at the same time acts as a functional filter between residences and services. By protecting the pedestrian area from the noise of the freeway flowing underneath, framing the view of the city by hiding the road itself, and finally weakening sun rays whilst encouraging ventilation, the plaza also acts as a physical filter.
It is this materiality, albeit light, this protection, albeit subtle, that makes this an aggregative space, more than just a bridge. The two side volumes, housing cafes, shops, exhibition spaces, help to make the square, more than just a passage, a place to stop and stay: a new space for the community. The volumes are mostly glass cled and light, thus not competing with the roofing. Instead they highlight its symbolic and functional quality. They emphasize the dimensional ambiguity of the roofing: a tent, but at a urban scale. This double scale, both local and urban, justified by the traits and the localization of the project, guides and strengthens the design. Although it solves a precise and limited node, its strong image can make it a metropolitan icon, a symbol of the growth of the Ăœmraniye district and of the whole Turkey.
Belgorod Residential Complex Belgorod, Russia - june 2013 Competition SUS&HI OFFICE + FEDERICO PITZALIS
The request for the design of a whole new block of the city brought to the conception of three types of spaces: the perimeter, the park, and the dwellings. Along the perimetral streets, as well as along the central pedestrian boulevard, there are public activities such as shops, cafes, restaurants, sport and leisure facilities. The large city park inside the perimeter houses the residential buildings. During the day access is free, making it a green and peaceful area for the community. At night its gates close, allowing for inhabitants’ privacy and quiet. Instead of designing strict and unsurmountable boundaries, these public spaces act as large and progressive filters. The project is open to the city, rather than closed in on itself, and aspires to become fuel to the renovation of a much larger area. It is the model for a pedestrian city, an urban park, a common ground, made easily exportable and repeatable by its modular structure. The seed of a modern, sustainable and renewed city, that sprouts from the ground of the existing urban fabrics and paths.
Dwellings are designed to be environmentally friendly. Orientation is optimized along the east-west axis. Most of the rooms have a solar greenhouse. During the cold seasons it behaves as a eat-gatherer. When the weather is hot, it is a further insulation layer and an open space for the inhabitants. There are five types of apartments, ranging from studioapartment to four bedrooms. Each of them can be further varied according to the position of the greenhouse. Thus the number of facade combinations is close to endless. Buildings are ocovered with a green roof. Combined with the park at ground, the green imprint of the project is maximized: an horizontal and vertical park. At ground level there are public and private activities. Shops, sport facilities, a covered market, a nursery school. These are intented for the whole city, in order to turn the block into a sort of new urban magnet. Underground there is place for public parking. Those reserved to house owners are placed close to the dwellings’ entraces, at ground level, and complete the perimeter that circles the park. Drawing inspiration from the competition brief, we decided to project more than just a group of houses: the model for a modern development of the city. A starting point, a new balance, for a better urban life quality.
Taichung Cultural Center
Taichung, Taiwan - may 2013 Competition 5+1 AA + SUS&HI OFFICE + EDS INTERNATIONAL The brief requested the design of a large cultural institution, made of a museum and a library. Placed at the entrance of a city-park, it is the culmination of a vast urban renewal project. Purpose of the program, other than the obvious cultural motive, is to fit the green area with a majestic entrance. This is the reason why the brief asked for great permeability in the building’s design, in order to make it a filter between the city and the park. The three main functions (open public foyer, library, exhibition spaces) intersect and enclose the central plaza, and dialog with the city and the park. From the underground levels up to the green roof, vertical and horizontal flows are merged into a long and continuous cultural promenade.
The collective nature of the central plaza is reflected inside: the large foyer is its counterpoint, boulevard of sorts that fronts the plaza, housing cultural and leisure spaces with free public access. It is a real and figurative balance point between the museum and the library, acting as filter and connection between them and the city.
Exhibition areas are underground. Apart from the ground floor foyer, they can be accessed from a large stair ramp that cuts the plaza. Through it, the museum dialogues with the park, it shows itself and, instead of hiding the art, it shows it progressively. Furthermore, the cut lets the sun light in. The two underground levels house exhibition halls of various sizes, some double-height, in order to grant the flexibility necessary to a modern museum. The large library is located in the levels above the ground: like the museum it grows up from the foyer at street and park level. From there it climbs inside the volumes, progressively converting from an open public space, to a quiet reading area and archive. Thus the filter works in two directions, and the swarming city life becomes more and more rarefied. Horizontally, it turns into a city park, an area of fun and distraction for the community. Vertically, into the home of book and art, and its fruition. The cultural promenade keeps the element together: it is designed to amplify the collective feeling of the building, in order to create an even stronger relationship between space and people.
Bois de la Batie Park
Geneva, Switzerland - january 2013 Competition Paola D’Alfonso + Giada Calcagno Located at the intersection of the two rivers that cut through Geneva, and close to a large cemetery, Bois de la Batie is a vast public city park. Purpose of the competition is to transform part of the park into an area dedicated to children’s recreation and education, by maintaining and repruposing two existing building located at the extremities of the site. This is to become a green and leisure space during the whole year, as well as an educational venue, an open-air school made of classrooms in direct connection with the vegetation. Design sparks from the overlapping of four systems. The first is composed of the three play areas, ispired from the leaves’ organic shape, which include games specifically designed for the project according to various kids’ ages. The pedestrian path represents the second system, a long wood covered strip, that is deformed according to local necessities, opens to house flora and folds to become seating bench.
Plant species have been chosen with particular care. Flora must not only suit the geographic location, but also the specific function of the park: it has to be safe and educational throughout the whole year. Finally we have illumination and decoration, made from environmentally friendly material and specially designed for the park. By harmoniously blending with the path and the play areas they represent a further signature of the project. The two existing building are modified and repurposed, in order to host both visitors and educational and leisure activities for the community. Every part was designed for this park in particular, in the belief that each natural setting is unique, as it sprouts, grows, changes in an organic and, often, unpredictable way.
Library in Via Giulia
Rome - july 2012 Master’s thesis supervisor Prof. Arch. Massimo Zammerini Aim of the project is to rebuild a part of the historic city, which was demolished during the fascist period and never filled up. By inserting a highly culturally valuable public institution, a focal point is created along Via Giulia, which acts as an architectural counterpoint to Regina Coeli prisons and as a backgroung to the bridge. Two elements, derived from the context, have been decisive when designing both the outer and inner morphology of the building: resolving the height gap between Via Giulia and Lungotevere, and showing the recent archeological findings. In light of this, the use of inclined planes became the main feature of the project, defining both the interior and exterior spaces. Most of the covering acts as a large plaza that allows to overcome the street height difference while housing underneath stricly public functions other than volume consultation (such as exhibition spaces, auditorium, cafe, book shop). Where archeological findings are concentrated the ground plans are lifted to allow observation.
The external cladding is made of grill corten panels. The natural aging of this material makes it especially suited for building among historic presets, and its dark red/brown color belongs to the neighborhood palette. Grills protect the volumes from direct sunshine and, combined with the northerly exposed large glass walls, contribute to ideally light the reading areas. In corrispondance with leisure spaces, the panels open allowing a view over the city.
The library typology is interpreted in a modern key, as a complex and multi-functional cultural venue, a “knowledge plaza� of sorts which goes beyond book consultation. The ground floor is the core of this ideal space, hosting services ever opened to the city and the neighborhood. From the first floor up the books, either archived or free for consultation, together with reading areas climb along an ideally continuous sloped plane, which creates a fluid space by turning around itself. In this sense, the experience within the library is similar to that of a cultural itinerary, open and shared.
Photography 2009 - Present Hobby Stefano FoA’
Rome, Italy Porto, Portugal Munich, Germany
London, United Kingdom Budapest, Hungary Venice, Italy
Zurich, Switzerland Bologna, Italy Basel, Switzerland
Locarno, Switzerland Lisbon, Portugal
Shanghai, China Weil am Rhein, Germany Rome, Italy
Zurich, Switzerland Venice, Italy Shanghai, China