LAW-COURT OFFICES BY C+S ARCHITECTS

“The project is a winning entry of an international competition. The building is a graft in the complexity of the Venetian urban system facing Piazzale Roma, the car-entrance space to the city of Venice.

At the same time it becomes the 'infrastructure' which brings an existing 19th century complex factory (Ex-Manifattura Tabacchi) to a contemporary use: in fact it houses the the technological systems  serving the whole.

The dimension of the building is measured on the huge void of Piazzale Roma facing the bridge of Santiago Calatrava, on the opposite side.
A huge, five level high space acts as a 'urban entrance' enlightened by the roof as all the ex-industrial existing buildings. 

This vertical inner space,  opened to free entrance during the day, will house, on the ground level, the commercial services which will allow to improve and give back the citizen a big public space, functioning also as an entrance to the sequence of public spaces which will be regained by the future restoration of the existing buildings. 

The new volume has a simple, archetypical, compact shape, resulting from the manipulation of the Venetian industrial building typology and the connection to the skyline of the huge parking lots. 

A five meter long cantiliver on Piazzale Roma becomes the entrance: a huge shadow which attracts the fluxes of people horizontally in the new urban system and vertically along either a linear stair or elevators which distributes to all the levels.

The linear stair is designed parallel to the elevation facing the parking building San Marco, letting us to design that elevation as a punctuation of small windows designing a special natural light in the inside. 

The material of the building is a preoxidated type of TECU copper. Copper in Venice is the material with which all the institutional (religious and laic) buildings' roofs are built with. 

In this projects, materiality and form become a metaphor representing institution: the house of justice is a big monomateric roof which welcome the citizens inside an enlightened space.

We always work with materiality and light, instigating, with pro-oxidation, the idea of subtracting material from surfaces and activationg them with light, which is what time does. Working with the idea of 'time' is archetypical in Venice.” Description of Architects.

 

Location: Venice, Italy

Architects: C+S Architects, Carlo Cappai, Maria Alessandra Segantini

Project Team: Davide Testi, Barbara Acciari, Monica Moro

Masterplan: C+S Architects, Studio CM, Technimont spa

Structural and Plant Engineering: Technimont, Studio Greggio, Progin

Area: 6.916 m² (gross)

Competition: March 1999

Year: 2012

Client: Comune di Venezia

Photographs: Courtesy of C+S Architects

MUSEUM MUMAC BY ARKISPAZIO

MuMAC, Museum of Coffee Machine, was designed by Paolo Balzanelli owner of Arkispazio and Valerio Cometti founder of Valerio Cometti+V12 Design in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Cimbali Group, the most important pofessional coffee machine manufacturer in the world, through its legendary brands LaCimbali and Faema.

MuMAC lies within the establishment of the Cimbali Group a few miles South of Milan. The core of the new architecture is a building previously used as a warehouse, within which are located both the exposition area and a versatile open space suitable for events and exhibitions to the culture of coffee. MuMAC narrates a story that spans across 100 years, recounting the history of this extraordinary objects within its 1,800 square meters.

Both facades of the museum have been rendered with a delicate nonetheless technological technique: “LaCimbali red” slats of a composite material create a sinuous embrace that has been inspired by the flow of the aroma lifting off a coffee cup and at night a carefully designed illumination creates a strikingly backlit grid of light that evokes the energy living inside MuMAC.

Visitors of Mumac, access via a new entrance: a coffee-colored wall identifies clearly such opening. The internal garden is limited by this coffee-coloured wall that is marked by nine trees which divide it into 10 equal spaces: ten decades of the century that symbolize the life and the achievements of Cimbali Group.

The museum area offers an exposition divided into six historical periods from the beginning of the century to the present day: The early years, The age of Rationalism, Invention of the lever, Under the banners of design, The International dimension and The New Millennium.

Area called The early years is characterized by a suspended ceiling and posters from Art Deco period. Exhibition of The age of Rationalism include a severe fascist colonnade and strict grid of orthogonal lines identifies the layout of the marble display stands.

In the area dedicated to the culture of the 50s and 60s we can find a reconstruction of a bar and an entirely cantilevered structure, that supports the machines of the period where thanks to cleverly positioned mirrors, visitors can enjoy both sides of these wonderful machines.

Under the banners of design is characterised by a collection of design masterpieces of the late ’60s and ’70s: great Masters of design have penned coffee machines in these decades, therefore these machine are actual design icons.

The New Millennium is where the display stands are coated in white resin and they smoothly emerge from the floor equally coated in white resin: this area portrays the most modern machines, those designed for an increasingly fast society. This room has a full height red volume, which is visible from any angle of the museum.

Within this volume is visible an installation of the new LaCimbali M100 coffee machine designed by Valerio Cometti+V12 Design: a daring exploded view that allows to grasp the technological content and the level of complexity of such machine, becoming an invitation to reflect on the extraordinary journey that the coffee machine has made during these last hundred years.

 

 

Location: Milan, Italy 
Architects: Arkispazio 
Project Team: Karolina Kolodziej, Massimo Lapenna, Roberto Lamanna 
Structural Engineering: Francesco Terreni 
Mep Engineering: Antonio Bozino 
Head Designers: Paolo Balzanelli, Valerio Cometti 
Area: 1,800 sqm 
Year: 2012 
Client: Gruppo Cimbali 
Photography: Angelo Margutti & Associati 
Software used: Autocad and 3d Studio Max

MULTIPURPOSE BUILDING BY GSMM ARCHITECTS

The purpose of this building is to provide the small town in with its located with a visual landmark. The features of its personality softly emerge without direct imposition on the environment.

Its multifaceted roof structure, which looks like pleated paper, is immediately recognizable and represents a clear statement of public and representative architecture.

The sunken floor, lower than the street level, is designed to respect the proportions of the surrounding space and accommodate the human scale. Subsequently, the building appears to be exceptional but yet compatible with humans.

The roof projects itself into the space to form a large covered public area. Within this area, another three, smaller structures: a reading room, the public access to the sunken floor and a kitchen used for public outdoor events.

Three sides of the multipurpose hall are floor-to-ceiling glass walls. The shelter seems to hover above the ground and connects the interior of the hall and the outdoor space.

By night this hovering effect is emphasized by the artificial light, which seems to become the immaterial support on which the roof rests. There are no other significant buildings in the immediate surroundings and therefore the choice of the materials was autopoietic.

The only constraint in this respect was the limited available budget. The building is mainly made with prefabricated components and using simple and inexpensive technology. 

The smaller structures and the back wall of the hall are in raw reinforced concrete. The interior of the hall is covered in composite wooden and cement panels up to the entry door level. The rest is in glass panes assembled on a steel frame up to the roof.

 

Location: Dueville, Italy 
Architect: GSMM Giorgio Santagostino . Monica Margarido 
Engineering Design: Alessandro Gasparini - Micheletti Ingegneria Srl 
Landscape: Giorgio Santagostino . Monica Margarido 
Schedule: Competition 2006. Project 2007 - 2008 . Realization 2011 
Total Area: 1,390 sqm 
Cost: 1,315,000 Euro 
Client: Comune Di Dueville 
Photographs: Michele Gusmeri

VILLA GM BY ARCHITREND ARCHITECTURE

Una villa panoramica che affaccia su un tratto di costa di Marina di Ragusa, a pochi chilometri dalla città Iblea, dalla quale si può vedere in alcune giornate l’isola di Malta, distante solo una sessantina di miglia.

Il progetto di questa villa è un riconoscimento alla Stahl House realizzata da Pierre Koenig nel 1959 a Los Angeles sulle colline di Hollywood, l’opera più rappresentativa del programma “Case study houses” attuato agli anni ’50 da John Entenza sponsorizzato dalla rivista “Art & Architecture”.

L'obiettivo del programma era quello di introdurre principi modernisti nell’architettura residenziale, non solo per promuovere l'estetica, ma per introdurre nuovi modi di vita.

Un programma che ha coinvolto architetti internazioni come Charles and Ray Eames, Graig Ellwood, Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen ed Raphael Soriano.

La posizione del lotto del progetto e le assonanze culturali con il programma CSH ha determinato il carattere della villa, la sua conformazione planimetrica, la sua filosofia costruttiva con chiari riferimenti alla Stahl House di Pierre Koenig.

La villa si sviluppa attorno alla piscina con una planimetria ad elle che affaccia sullo spazio interno e contemporaneamente esalta la veduta sul mare, mentre sul lato del giardino risulta sospesa con un piano distaccato dal terreno come fosse un padiglione.

La linea della base della costruzione prosegue in alzato e continua nella copertura incorniciando i volumi della villa sul lato del giardino con un’estetica netta ed asciutta priva di aperture ad eccezione dell’ingresso.

All’interno gli spazi si aprono con una vetrata continua lungo tutto il perimetro della villa creando una continuità dello spazio abitativo, del living e delle camere, con l’esterno del grande solarium.

I riferimenti ai maestri dell’architettura moderna proseguo nei dettagli costruttivi, come la scala in lamiera rossa come le pensiline del parco di Ipirabuera a S. Paolo di Oscar Niemeyer.

Nella sistemazione del giardino con una raccolta di essenze mediterranee, con piante grasse e palme, e un gioco tra ghiaia e verde come un chiaro riferimento alle realizzazioni di paesaggista brasiliano Roberto Burle Marx, progettista dell’Asse monumentale di Brasília.

Anche gli interni, in un total look bianco, esaltano gli arredi dove spiccano il tavolo da pranzo Tulip di Saarinen con sedie di Arne Jacobsen e una sfera luminosa in vetro, sopra il tavolo, come quella della Stahl House.

 

Location: Marina di Ragusa, Italy

Architect: Architrend Architecture

Project Team: Gaetano Manganello & Carmelo Tumino

Collaborators: Patrizia Anfuso, Marco Garfì

Area: 1.250 sqm

Year: 2010

Photographs: Moreno Maggi