this new buildings it’s conceived as an integration of a new system in order to create an innovative vision of the campus
The starting point of the design process is the interpretation of the surrounding environment and of the urban context characteristics. The first step was to track a “Topos” – a trace such as as a farmer that plow a field – which highlights a new fabric, new axes and new hierarchies. Hence the idea of the “Decumano”, a main axis of a new vision of urban development.
The refurbishment of the former power station and the project of the new classroom building became the barycentre of this new system.
The existing building, cleaned up from the west additions, has a volumetric and structural clarity which suggests the use of the interior space without internal partitions in order to have open space as much as possible.
The new building is composed of two parts that create a sort of scenography for the “Piazza”.
The first building is divided into two parts: the glassed one is the joint between the existing building and the new one and houses the vertical connection; the opaque one contains the professor’s offices.
The other part of the building is low-rise in order to try not to compete with the existing building but to compare with the public areas and the trees. The organization of the building is the result of the aggregation of the classrooms volumes, also recognizable in their function to the outside. This volumes, raised off the ground by an elegant structure as such as on fingertips, define the square and the elevation on Viale Marconi. It is indeed on this front, towards the city, that the classrooms volumes acquire a curved shape in order to offer a free access to the square that became a meeting place between the city and the campus.