EUROPAN 12 Venezia | enrico ansaloni

From forma urbis to a new metropolitan image: The process behind the project idea begins by observing Venezia’s forma urbis from the sky, where you can clearly distinguish the two hystorical islands divided by the Canal Grande’s double bight. That image looks like two hands catched in a union act, just a moment before the union, remembering Michelangelo’s Universal Judgment in the Sistin Chapel, where man’s and God’s indexes are not in physical contact, and the distance beetween them generates in the picture a global tension. Through an abstraction process, Venice’s two hands have been rationalised in a regular “double L” shape, producing a logotype that represents two open hands, ready and willing to help the neighbour. In the meantime, the concept refers to Mestre and Marghera, two different boroughs wich visually tend to form a unicum, but they are physically separated by the strong urban sign produced by the railway yard. Therefore, our creative process express itself by applying the generated logotype to the competition requests and so the station, residences and parks have been designed to receive and accomodate a big number of commuters and visitors who choose Mestre as destination for visiting Venice. The idea has been developed by repeting the double L logotype at different scales, generating a flexible morphemic imprint. The global idea express itself by applying the double L juxtaposition to the design of the new architecture, so the logo generates the plan for the towers, the section for the station and the fronts of the medium-rise courtyard buildings. Our solution has been designed to characterize a total transit place through the definition of a urban scale project: since the Holy Roman Empire, Mestre never left his natural predisposition to be crossed to reach one of the most fascinating and best conserved cities in the world. Our proposal aims to translate in an alternative way the theme of comparation with the hystorical city, remebering Quaroni’s project for San Giuliano’s Barene. Here, the new settlement visually speaks to the Laguna, and globally express itself through the passage from forma urbis to a new city logotype. The Mestre Railway Station area: The new Mestre railway station is one of the most important gates of the city as of the entire Venice territory. It represents the main access to Venice, but also a big and complex hub for people and goods, and it defines a territorial discontinuity characterized by its own specific morphology. It interprets itself and its functions, but its emotional tension rejects anonymity, indifferencence and apathy, that are typical realities of many infrastructural hubs. A boundary architecture beetween movement and wait (typical travelling peculiarities) wich accomodates the double L logotype coming from Venice’s forma urbis by assuming it as its cross section, while plans and facades speak directly to the city roads, generating an alternation of solid and porous elements. The entire complex reveals its rythmic and linear identity thanks to its structural and crosswalk variations, combining acelerations and breaks that refer to the actions of travelling and stay. The entire complex moves across the limit beetween representative monumentality (typical aspects of urban vestibules) and the functionalistic dynamism brought by visitors and transport directions and flows. Therefore two new different city fronts are set up: the first, towards Mestre, is open to the city and has a very strong impact, rich of visual interferences, while the second, fronting Marghera, is more moderate and discreet. The two fronts, as well as the two urban areas of Mestre and Margera, are related by a system of void and openings dictated by the natural continuation of the existing urban fabric. The Mestre Railway Station area - Functions analysis: Beetween the two L, a long, telescopic multilevel arcade, where all the station related functions take place, creates a new covered, lightful and comfortable urban space so that the city gets into the station and the station tself becomes the city. The railway complex turns into a new portal where railway-related activities are settled into the bigger L, and commercial and office services in the smaller one. The old postal building has been refurbished and included in the big L structure for hospitality purposes. The track access has been improved, reorganized and integrated to the existing one by providing a system of four underground rails connecting to all the station docks. A footbridge completes the links system beetween Mestre and Marghera, by connecting the park of Via Ulloa to the new Station. The Mestre Railway Station area - Networks and connections: At the urban level the entire complex is an infrastructural hub that offers the possibility to use multiple ways of transport, a crossroads of interchange in the new geography of distances, designed by the networks of short, medium and long runs. This will give to the community a single place in the interconnection between rail transport, Favaro-Marghera overground lines, the urban and suburban bus line, and the network of pedestrian and cycle paths. Moreover, thanks to the multi-storey carpark and bicipark the hub will allow an efficient exchange between private and public vehicles with a view to sustainable mobility in both urban and suburban context. Mestre Station in numbers: 31.000.000 travellers per year ; 85.000 travellers per day; 3.000 peak hours travellers; 510 m lenght; 32,4 m wide; 8.000 sq.m. of railway services ; 5.100 sq.m. o primary services (950 sq.m. of Tickets points) ; 9.000 sq.m. mq of secondary services; 8.100 sq.m. mq of accomodation facilities; 21 Elevators; 16 Escalators; 250 Car parking lots; 65 Motorcycle parking lots; 1.000 Bicycle lots; The towers: TheTwin Edges towers deal with the angle solution theme by solving it in two opposite ways. They are both generated by repeating a specific geometrical module of 7.20m, but in the south tower the structural frame has a 1.80m slip, leaving the corner structurally empty, referring to a Mies Van Der Rohe morphology. The towers articulate their volumes following the double L concept - also used to generate the station cross section - that here becomes the funtional nucleus on wich the plans take place. The smaller L, entirely opaque, contains service facilities as stairs, elevator and technological elements; the bigger L contains the residential units, and shapes with the smaller one a square shaped plan. Beetween the Ls, a big void engraves the facade. Each 6 floors the void is occupied by two-level volumes containing gardens and common spaces. The stereometric towers lean upon two different 3-level bases, one of wich includes commercial services, while the other one contains public services for the community. Particular attention has been paid to the big entrance lobbies, where the stairs reinterpret the high space, and where a water pool reflects the sunlight coming from the outside. The towers enphatize their relationship with the sky in a sculptural way: the top is composed by a opaque element that generate a new L on the fronts, and it accomodates techinical and solar energy facilities. The south tower has a 90° rotation, so it produces a continuum with the other one, also by casting its shadow upon it. The rotation process helps to recognize the towers as “complex architectural objects”, going beyond the traditional concept of the main facade. In this case, every single front can be a side of the city, fronting it in multiple ways. The green system: When a natural system is inserted into a well-defined urban context, it gets more values in terms of environmental solidity. Those values need to be conserved and protected. However protecting doesn’t mean “leaving unchanged” because the designing and re-designing acts include the application of a concept and that concept can crash against some unsolved questions of contemporary living. For this reason, the design of the two green spaces of the project, aim to reunificate the new settlement lines with the existing green directions. The new draw, keeping and continuing the existing alignment, generates geometrical green sectors, where nature and reason converge in a syntactical way. From the project-nature alternation, vegetable gardens break out, such as spaces for sports, italian gardens and other areas. In a similar way, the existing directions define urban penetrations, linking the city to the ecological system. Existing vegetation has been protected and improved by adding some furnished points, where the community can relax, enjoy the park and make some social activities. The court typology: The court typology allows to organize living spaces around a large empty square. In line with the design logic, the sides are alternately emptied and prepared with hanging gardens, making a building where nature and architecture are fully integrated and providing the inhabitants a fully sustainable living. According to the mesh size which dominates and organizes the entire project from the towers to the urban gardens, the two buildings have a square plan with a side of 43.2 m that contains the apartments whereas the services are arranged on the corners. The crowning then acts as a long ribbon which incorporates the emergency staircase. The volume is simple and regular in line with used materials as cement-plastered white and wood, giving the two buildings a simplicity and clarity of forms that ensures their perfect integration in the urban context of Mestre.