Financial Guard regional headquarters Emilia Romagna

The new regional headquarters of the Financial Guard in Bologna is a project that fits into a complex context, a fringe area enclosed by urban partitions and designed by a series of spaces of heterogeneous character. To the north, the railway line and the Bologna high-speed train station define a continuous curtain of partitions and logistic infrastructures; to the south, the dynamic and transforming area of the Dumbo social centre; to the east, via Tanari and the edges of the stratified city of Bologna.

The project interprets this condition of marginal cut-out as an opportunity to relate and regenerate the area. The new building fits in as an element with a compact footprint, but characterised by the articulation of the elevation profile. This approach produces a series of terraces in continuity with the office areas, conceived as outside extensions of the main functions of the programme. This elevated gardens guarantee high quality working spaces in visual connection with the landscape of Bologna. The extension of the boundary thus acts as an additional, dynamic space that articulates the south front with an aerial connection between the new offices and the pre-existing spaces of the Bertarini barracks. The façades unfold according to a precise composition of stringcourses and profiles that create minimal variations in the surface on the fronts: the result is a modular pattern of panels which chromatically evokes the dominant red tones contained in the material texture of the city of Bologna.

The relationship of the façades with their surroundings also feeds the theme of the rule and its alteration within the composition. The result is a shape that has to be read according to an extended plan of perceptive sequences, thus foreshortened views and frontal points of view create a progression that oscillates from the horizontal system to the vertical one by exploiting the dimensional imbalance between the two axes of the floorplan.

The building is entirely crossed by a long longitudinal staircase, which connects all the levels, guiding the movement and gaze. From a construction point of view, a logic of integration with the technological components was followed. The structure is made entirely of concrete, left exposed on the inside. Its tectonics thus merges with the work-spaces, drawing a large frame into which the long, powerful void of the staircase runs. The result is an ambivalent spatiality, alternating the reserved areas of the working sections with spaces for staff interaction.

Connections expand and find their way into the large galleries at different levels on the staircase. The conference room and offices on the short sides always enjoy a green terrace or an unobstructed view of the surrounding landscape. This logic establishes a condition of continuous interchange between the circumscribed inner space and the expanded outer urban space, a form of dynamics that intends to include the building in the life of the city and vice versa.