F.I.CO Bologna
€ 3.000.000,00
Commerciale
Concorso di idee
2015
Arch. Nicola Di Biase (Team leader), Lorenza Di Cicco, Fabio Sireni (Collaboratori)
Contemporary design must cope with the need to save resources and reduce soil consumption, answering at the same time to a widespread demand of heritage preservation. Its scope has therefore shifted from the probing of an utopian future to the interpretation of the past. The recent import within the architectural debate of the re-cycle concept and procedures promises to keep together the exigencies of environmental, economic and social sustainability with a renovated experimental momentum, both pragmatic and radical. The surprising potential of re-cycle as a design tool has been explored in our project.
The indications of the call gave the possibility to completely demolish the existing building but in our case this does not happen. The design operation provides for the recovery of the whole structure with light structural grafts able to facilitate new features organically. We called this process “inception graft”.
We know that many important parts of the city are moving toward a re-signification of their architectural and urban qualities: similar to a chair reaction, once the mechanism of urban transformation has been triggered, even if by a specific intervention, a domino effect soon involves adjacent sites. This could happen for our urban area of intervention.
The aim of the project is not demolish the building, but we carry out an action of recycle that it can gives a new life to the existing. This approach has led us to a rigorous exercise of reading of the items and responsibility of the actions that, through a system of governance project, it has generated a new program of the compositional development. A different thought and a chain of innovative actions capable of being applied to the entire urban context (“contamination”).
So the first step was been to identify a logic of internals flows, following the directions of the call, in order to distinguish the various areas according to different internals temperatures. Another important step was the study of the dries and wets routes paying attention to the interferences.
At this point, our intention was put a ramp passage from the entrance area, located to the west, would lead directly to the first level (through the large area of the spa) where there are the changing rooms. So we succeeded to release a large amount of space on the ground floor, obtaining more freedom and flexibility for the spa. The ramp, besides the link function, has also a function of composition: its organic form breaks the geometrical stiffness of the existing space and it increases the elegance of the interior space.
The second stage project was carried out through the inclusion of a new floor inside the existing industrial hall that it has led to a structural change and the inclusion of three blocks of volumes: the gym, the services and the core of suites. They can be reached by an elevator and a stairs present in the hall.
The last step was the arrangement of the existing parallelepiped of the offices. Here, on the ground floor we put the info-point and tickets, the bar, the shop and a first core group of offices. On the first floor, we have included a new office’s block and an area of massages that is quickly accessible to the user who doesn’t want to use the spa.
The entire building has been designed to consume not much; the parameters of direct and diffuse radiation and sun impact studies lead to conclusions that have influence on orientation, massing, program and envelope.
The final goal is linked to an integration of elements using solar and geothermal energy