Leonardo multi-purpose center - Cavarzere Venice (Italy) | carlo costantini

The Place. City of Cavarzere_Venice , Italy, about 16000 inhabitants. The city center, until the postwar period limited to the sub-band embankment of the river Adige, has been greatly expanded - for accentrarsi of the population living in the countryside - in the 60s and 70s. During the long process of approval of the first PRG of Giuseppe Samona (by the Ministry of Public Works, then responsible) large parts of the capital were built until the late 70s, without a planning implementation, resulting in disorder and randomness in the construction projects, inadequate roads, lack of parking lots, public parks, areas for public and private services. The Plan identified the city and settlement a series of "strategic areas", still unbuilt areas or subject to conversion to other urban-building, particularly certain industrial areas being disposed of or which favored the shift to new production area .. The Site Until the closing of the factory, which occurred in the early '90s, the area in question was occupied by a company that was operating in the horticultural sector. The main body consisted of 4 warehouses in the face of which the oldest (50 years) with coverage to low arches AC , Others to steel trusses. Economic reasons and decisions of the commission led to maintain that structure, consolidating and being included in the overall project. The Policy setting. The centrality of the area and its inclusion in the urban context, in addition to the provision of a number of residences, led to exclude the typical configuration of suburban malls, it was so conscious of this multipurpose center as an urban building complex, which contains itself, and offers the city, open spaces and protected areas, such as porches, gallery and places it face: here are precisely the spaces that are open to public use, like a nineteenth-century building - which lodge-urban church - exactly ' opposite, then, the gallery inside a suburban mall. The open spaces are modeled, in turn, this policy of building an urban characteristic, such as purchasing officer a role in the morphological picture of the city center. Lacking, for another, constestuali references of any kind (the neighborhood is made up of detached houses built of little value in the 70s), the project seeks necessarily in itself and indirect references a language and a matrix composition. The street front along L.da Vinci has characteristics typically urban, with an avenue of trees and a long porch. The latter, apparently "disconnected" from the main body, is conceived as an architectural element that in its present form, reminiscent of the collective archetypal images of a piece of the historic city, a "relic" of the ancient turreted castle, originally and a symbol of Cavan (last bastion to the south of the Venetian Republic). The Conditioning design. The complex, while a unit designed for the needs of the clients had to be made into two functional sections, complete with their urbanization: the first, very quickly, through the recovery of the main structure of the old factory, intended to house a supermarket approximately 2500 square meters., the second new building, forming a functional complex (shops, offices, apartments, a large underground car park), all having as its central focus the "public square blanket" of about 500 square meters. provided by the standards of the PRG. Clearly the need to preserve and incorporate the old structure has strongly affected the entire project. In addition, the Regulations implementing the PRG dictated in a very detailed and specific binding characteristics of public intervention, beyond the "normal" planning parameters, including the obligation to focus on new multifunctional complex around a "covered square "public, like a nineteenth-century modern gallery. The Data Project Area: sqm. 11,000 Gross capacity built v.p.p. : Mc. About 40,000 Gross profit built surface: mq. 9900 (commercial, office, residential and underground parking) Supermarket: mq.2500 Shops: sqm. 1000 Offices: sqm. 1000 Apartments: n. 32 Covered square: square meters. 480 Arcades and Gallery sqm. 525 Parking and underground: square meters. 6300 Public parks and other pedestrian spaces: m. 1216 The setting of the project. The search for a "tectonic stratification" of the construction is evident, both in form and materials: the "finding" archaeological data from the front turreted brick facades, on which is grafted a "plate" continues to horizontal bands of precast panels ca, of about 5000 square meters. covered, resting on a base - the foundation ac cross section that emphasizes the anchor to the ground to rise above the plate volumes of residential units, strongly articulated in a game of swings and falls, which are "cut "windows, balconies and other passages, where greater weight is given also by the finish of painted plaster finish" overcoat "and finally, on the top floor, in back, with a curved roof - like the old factory sheds - metal aluminum "silver" which, along with the stairwells and high "chimneys" (which contain numerous chimneys, vents, air vents and other pipes), seems to disappear into the sky, reflecting the changing light and color . As mentioned, the building is characterized as a large plate of 5000 square meters. , Two stories high, built with perimeter concrete walls. Prefabricated, with bands marked by deep horizontal slits: accordingly, very economical, allowed to incorporate the existing structure and to realize quickly the first phase (supermarket) and to give formal unity to the whole building. Note that the multi-purpose building prefabricated panels planivolumetrica have a complex structure, with one game to joints, arranged on two floors, unusual in this type of mixed technology (prefabricated panels, structures and slabs cast on site): the assembly of panels , drawn one by one, proceeded gradually "thick" because of the construction of the structure and the floors above. The cover is made of square tubular steel, laminated glass plates such as "stop-sol" simply resting on supports at the corners and sealed with structural silicone. The balcony on the first floor, inside the square, is supported by metal frame anchored with brackets, specially designed, combined with plugs attached to the pillars of epoxy resins: This has helped to lay in place the pillars to full height, making them recoverable metal formwork structurally and architecturally "independent" from the metal beams that look like "hanging" them. The preliminary draft provided to give continuity to the first floor around the square pool, obtaining additional offices above the supermarket, this has not been realized because of the decision to maintain the existing structure: this option is remembered virtually from the wall of the supermarket to the covered plaza, where it is visibly "cut" the wide opening supported by a steel lintel, and there are a series of "blind windows".