This project for the Audi, Porsche, VW area
constitutes the first of a series of interventions that Porsche Inter Auto of
Salzburg has been actuating in Italy, in a take-over programme of car centres
in Central Europe. The same was created from a collaboration between the
technicians of Porsche Immobilien GesmbH of Salzburg (responsible for the Group
Corporate Architecture) and Studio Bradaschia Srl of Trieste, Engineering
Company, Research and Engineering Laboratory, planner of the intervention.
It deals with a structure made up of three
attached buildings representative of the relative brands.
On the basis of the guidelines of each company and
the image defined by the respective Corporate Architectures, the project has
tried to combine the brands considering their high-tech and therefore using a
high-tech architecture.
All three of the buildings are built on a steel structure glass curtain wall. The
choice of chromatisms, stainless steel
and metal grey is taken from the typical
colours of German racing cars.
The three steel and glass blocks open onto the
view of the car gems of the group, emphazised by a high-tech lighting system
during night-time.
The intervention is located in
the immediate outskirts of the city of Trieste, in the industrial zone, along
Via Flavia, a typical heavy traffic road which connects the city to the
inhabited centres of Muggia and Koper (Slovenia), in an area characterized by
buildings of poor quality.
Acquired areas and dated buildings belonging to
former times, the project has made a replacement of the same, keeping the
foundations of old buildings; it has proposed radically different buildings in
volumetrical respect.
As for the building housing Audi, it has dealt with an intervention (the first
of the three) of renovation of a small
building on two levels: the lower level was partially underground, the rear
building was covered by a barrel-vault on a single level.
Considering the existing volumetry, the project
was aimed at transforming the building organism through a systematic working
system. This has led to a different from the existing building organism, still
maintaining part of the existing
load bearing walls.
The building foundations remained unchanged, such
as the covered and useful surface.
The covering
was changed: from barrel vault to flat roof.
The built block,
behind the two level anterior block, has been superelevated to leave an
empty space intended to become a car
park on the existing ground floor.
The new building is made up of concrete and glass
curtain wall on a steel structure and
metal sheeting. Now it develops on a single level, paved in gres stoneware
porcelainized Fiandre granites in two shades of grey. Notwithstanding the
rigour of the executive technical
specifications of the PRGC (Master Plan
of Trieste), the derived image has produced a building of big effect and
impact on the surrounding territory. An "aerial" and transparent
building, which is far from the typical Audi "hangar", but still recognizable.
The Porsche workshop is adjacent. It constitutes the rearward
part of the intervention. It is characterized by a black sheet portal on which
the red Porsche logo shines on silver background. The rear building organism
has been modified inside with the demolition of partitionings and 3 pilasters.
The
building foundations have also remained unchanged, such as the covered and
useful surfaces. The internal finishing is aimed at adhering to the high-tech
of the brand; it is characterized by grey resin paving and high-tech electronic
equipment.
The intervention on the Volkswagen
building, the most complex, completes the intervention.
The property
was already destined as a car showroom, and it too is placed in D3a zone of the PRGC (Master
Plan of Trieste).
It was made up of an anterior body dedicated to
the showroom, which the offices were facing. The rear body was and, still is,
destined as the workshop.
It was a
question of a not particularly
characteristic architecture, undistinguished in the peri-urban landscape,
situated lower than road level.
The project has envisaged the overall revisitation
of the anterior body, from an architectural point of view, maintaining
unchanged the volume; the rear body, destined as the workshop, has not been changed in volumetry.
The building renovation has led to one different
from the existing building organism, through systematic work but, still
maintaining most of the existing
load bearing walls. It specifically envisaged the building's partial
demolition, with partial reconstruction, without increasing in volume (art. 43,
point c of the Building Law Regulation
in force).
The new building is made up of a concrete and glass curtain wall on a steel
and metal sheet structure; it develops over three levels.
At the front of the same, a roof (usable covering)
has been built; it is open on the sides
for a 50% bigger surface which does not constitute volume.
The built volumetry is equivalent to 7314,23 cu.m
and has remained unchanged.
The architecture is intended to represent the Volkswagen "family feeling"; it
is characterized by aesthetic and "technical-climatic" qualities
immediately recognizable. Colours, materials (glass, steel, gres stoneware
porcelainized Fiandre granites in the colours of the brand), confer an unusual
quality to internal environments.
Particularly the transparency acquires a specific
meaning in the Volkswagen architectural
concept. This is resembled by this project in the continuity among the working
places, the exhibition spaces, the workshop and so on , which go beyond the
classic car dealer concept. The open
plan allows the visitor to move freely through environments structured as urban
sites: the central square, accessible from an entrance portal and open spaces
on more levels, the offices.
A new building complex of big effect, a
"solo" in the peri-urban scenery able to upgrade a built-up ambit
of little value, due to transparencies,
the wide use of steel, the richness of particular aspects and the Miesian
refinement of details.