EURgeneration | Germana Trione

In a period in which availability of resources is limited, as well as expensive, their waste is deprecable. Research for alternative resources is a necessity to answer needs and standards, always growing, of society and users. This doesn’t only mean to improve green and natural energies source exploitation, but also to be able to consider “resource” even what was considered to be “waste materials” before.

From this point of view, Italy has a lot to learn: society’s thoughts on recycling and separate collection of waste are more about sanction than positive incentives. Where separate collection of waste works betters, it is because of penalties and obligations instead than aware users’ involvement. Separate collection of waste becomes a matter of inconvenience for users which is linked to penalties and sanctions, more than a resource. However, separate collection of waste, aimed to recycle, should be able to consider WASTE as a reusable unit, after transformation, and so as a RAW MATERIAL. This point is about the SUSTAINABILITY of human and social behaviour and can be linked to building in many ways.

Building AMBIENTAL SUSTAINABILITY comprehends:

-      low energy price of production and installation of buildings materials;

-      low energy consumption of the building;

-      low energy price to remove materials.

In brief, it is about the energy price during the entire life of the building (starting from raw materials, to an “unicuum”, finishing into separated materials again).

Obviously it is possible to build something energy efficient, starting from raw materials; but it is also possible to put building into a recycle field, reusing materials coming from other buildings, epxploiting the not-biodegradability of some materials, dued to the durability of building materials. In the balance of the energy price in a building, from birth to death , the use of recycled materials register bonus since the start, even before someone light a bulb – low consumption -, switch on the heating – with re-circulated air-, open a tap – heated with geothermal heat – and so on. The service of sustainability can be found in using what we already have before employing technology, smart buildings – maybe too much smart-, sensors which understand users’ needs before they express them, and so on. It is about re-learning the old use of materials coming from ruined buildings where nothing is thrown away!!!

For all these reasons, this project is not futuristic, doesn’t use smart systems, doesn’t create a new way of living: its point is the simplicity and the extreme consistency, the reuse of available materials assembled until creation of cell housing and joining them to create the building.

Following this idea, the container has been chosen as primary modulus: It becomes the modular parallelepiped to assemble potentially infinite times, whom reuse becomes the key of the entire project.

The required hotel function serves this idea and the choice of these industrial elements, because the cell becomes the unit of the hotel itself: a room with restroom exposing to a corridor . A simplicity that the modern way of living doesn’t have any more, because it is asking for comfort and bigger spaces.

The container itself has been used in various occasions in building and in architecture, creating different living examples, assembling different containers, or using them near a traditional structure.

The versatility of the container elements is fundamental because it allows different (both for number of users and area) typologies of rooms: the possibility to assemble the parallepipedom or to combine it, permits to give rooms bigger than the simple modulus and to answer to a bigger range of users. The insertion of the modulus isn’t aimed only at building the front of the towers, or a mere cover, but instead it influences the internal functional distribution, as said.

Also it requires different expedients to guarantee the necessary comfort and performance: the short side, cleared of doors, can be totally glazed guaranteeing the necessary natural illumination inside; sound proofing and thermal insulation between two cells must be made with an insulation made of cellulose flave to fill the entire cavity between walls in corrugated metal sheet, with minimal lack of space for the interstice itself. To preserve on front a sight of the corrugated metal sheet – painted and conveniently treated – the protruding part of each container is internally covered with OSB wood panel paired with the insulation guaranteeing the continuity, both in plan and section, of the insulating material.

The same material will be used to build the internal partitions. The result will be an internal environment which continuously changes, following the colour of the paint of the single container and the surface strongly shaded of the metal corrugated sheet, in opposition to the uniformity given by the OSB panel, equally variable to the sight because of the colour and the orientation of the wood segments, composing it, but uniform at the tact.

The materials, as seen, answer at the ECONOMY principle, both in term of sustainability – thanks to the derivation of materials from recycle and also to the energetic performance – and from a financial point of view, because the resulting environment is without any kind of luxury; instead it will be simple as provocation: industrial materials aren’t usually left on sight or on tact of the user who will find himself in a really different than usual environment and will be able to evaluate the beauty and the comfort of materials usually considered “not noble”.

The building typology of skyscrapers naturally has an emersion on facade of a grid due to the enlargement of windowed area until the horizontal border of the floors ant of the vertical elements that create the front. The result is a whole of modulus, that theoretically can be of infinite height. That’s why the use of the container is coherent with the whole building organism, showing on front the modularity, the sum of single cells, each used by a single user: the sight results both uniform and variable thanks to the concept contained: the some kind of space for different kind of users and life. The various overhang of single cells avoid both an excessive exposition to sun of the glass window surface, and a uniformity on front, “in motion” thanks to the shadows coming from the corrugated metal sheet. In addition, the view from Via Cristoforo Colombo, looking to the area of project, will see the bright coloured towers stand out against the uniform dark panes belonging to the hotel part of the complex of the Cloud by Fuksas.

The adopted principle of construction of the façade allows to give the human dimension to buildings too big for that. In fact, this can be a feature and a problem of the whole EUR: its monumentality and eloquence, inspired by modern city-planning and by fascist promotion , make the human scale vanish and the users mix up. The magniloquent dimensions and distended distances avoid the familiar and snug feature of Italian cities. There ones, in particular the oldest ones – like Rome – become rich because of the combination and juxtaposition of a lot of individuals during the history. The story of the city can be read in the layering of the urban fabric, in little variations done by every inhabitant to each building, until creating the known appearance of the city, both homogeneous and varied.

The main choice for the project originates from these ideas: instead of creating a big difference between big empty public spaces and the towers with big amount of people in height, I diffuse the containers in the site, like a waterfall of them from the towers to the public spaces, in an apparently chaotic way. They encircle the spaces, characterizing them. They will be used for little shops, moving there the daily market ahead the EUR FERMI station in a less uncertain position.

To retain the ecological aim of the site, other functions have been sited among the public spaces. For example I chose some of them, among sustainable activities. A point for bike sharing and reparation of bike; a point for refilling the electric cars, will be sustainable from the transport point of view, taking advantage from the vicinity of the car park near the EUR Lake and the metropolitan station EUR Fermi, being this a point of change of means of transport. Other activities useful for the district can be an urban centre where share information about the evolution of the city and of the neighbourhood and also to collect inhabitant’s opinion about it; a market for organic food, differently from the daily market which sells other kind of products. Finally, the third topic of eco-friendly activities is the waste one: it is an important topic of this project and I decided to develop it in public spaces, too. As said, in Italy the waste is seen like something to clear, while the creation of a point where collect the recyclable materials (in exchange of money) would change this way of think and start to consider the waste as a resource, used to product new things and paid as a rough material. It’s a new idea in Italy, where the user pays to have the waste removed. This is why I think it’s necessary to put it near an info point about the sustainability and the recycling process, but also about the use of eco-friendly resources and habits.

Differently form the Towers where the sum of single modulus become a unicuum, working together for the thermoigrometric comfort, in this last case the container is the shell and the insulation have to be extended on the whole internal surface of the modulus, like a second wall. It will be in OSB panels and will cover the necessary machinery and the thermo- acoustic insulation. The obtained volume will be in corrugated metal sheet outwards and completely in wood inward. It would be opportune to use custom-cut furniture and equipped walls so that every available area will be used. It can be inspired by commercial activities which already use minimal spaces – kiosks, news-stands, tobacco shops, florists, etc. It would be reserved the possibility of join more modulus and create bigger surfaces, even if outward fragmented.

Avoiding the building of new edifices, the block can be open to pedestrian promenades, creating new walks and spaces for relationship: it can be penetrated from three different sides because of the present position of buildings. The intersections of these new walkpaths and the surrounding units of shops define the open spaces, used both by commercial activities and generic users, numerous and varied in this neighbourhood. The proximity of the Lake of EUR with its park makes unnecessary the addition of extended grassland, but the block can be a transition element between the park and the buildings of the neighbourhood. This is why we decided to adopt a ground both green and cobbled: the free area is divided in sectors, some of them are with a natural stone floor, bright coloured – Roman Travertine – others are green. Nearby the apparently chaotic arrangement of the building, the green one is regular. The single plants are distributed defining the spaces: a walk, identified by one or two sides lined with trees or shrubs; a shadowed square, filled with trees that occupy totally the area; an other separated from the surrounding space by a screen of trees, continuous on the perimeter, but empty in the centre; one square in which the empty centre is filled with different trees; a space defined by a single big tree in the centre, like a monument.

The essences chosen are both traditional in Rome and innovative in the collective imagination: the big plane tree is often used to overshadow monumental roads; the orange tree used in Rome also in urban contests of high visibility, like Barberini Place; the laurel oak, aromatic plant, used in Rome in ancient times, with some exemplar in EUR, too; the lemon tree, another citrus tree, like the orange tree; the mimosa, ornamental tree with a rich flowering, maybe not too much used although the beautiful output; between the bushes, the rosemary, an other aromatic plant, with mauve flowers and a thick and compact trend; the scotch broom, typical in the hot areas of the Mediterranean, consecrated by the poetry to be leathery and strong.

This is a choice of essences well-established in the Mediterranean tradition, chosen to guarantee shadows and bright and various flowerings. Another reason of the choice is their fragrances, having scented flowers or leafs. Depending from the period of the year and the position in the block, the wind will smell like citrus, or aromatic plans: in the centre of the city it would be possible to lift up the breast and breathe in the fragrances of the ground and the Mediterranean.