The project is a refurbishment of an ex-slaughterhouse built between 1960 and 1970. During the last 30 years Università Ca’ Foscari has been adapting this building in order to host different faculties. At the end of this process just 1.000 sqm remained free to use. Our task was to adapt those 1.000 sqm into new chemical laboratories.
As the space was very wide, we decided to place all the labs, classes and professor rooms along the perimeter to gain the maximum natural light and ventilation possible. Inside, two parallel corridors delineate the central technical areas (deposits, cell rooms etc.) and at the same time divide the lab area (accessible only to professors and researchers) from the teaching area (open to all the students).
A feature of the façade are the concrete frames which define its span. Brickwork previously filled the each span and we decided to demolish all the previous brick walls and to border the concrete frame with an iron structure and to fill each span with a new glass façade.
Despite a long refurbishment process which the building had gone through prior to our intervention, it still remained remained homogeneous and characterized by a certain kind of roughness that we wanted to preserve. Therefore, we designed the glass façade in order to for it be as silent as possible so that the building would be still perceived as one single entity and not as the sum of different interventions.
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