New Multipurpose Centre in Savona Italy opens today

The urban redevelopment project of the former industrial area of Metalmetron performed by architects 5+1AA opens to the public today: the new complex called "Le Officine" consists of 5 commercial structures and a hotel, with a plaza and a series of spaces dedicated to offices, services, workshops and restaurants.

5+1AA have tackled the challenge of architectural and landscape redevelopment of an area characterised by insufficient services and a controversial relationship between the decommissioned industrial plant of Metalmetron and the urban context of Savona, aiming at opening it up more to the tourism sector.

The new trade and craft centre has been created after demolishing a great deal of the previously existing buildings, except for a curved volume containing the refectory and the changing rooms and which now includes part of the workshops as well as the link to the hotel.

The hotel has been designed as a tower block with a façade system made up of pixels of differing shades of green, which communicate with the external flooring with bands of similar colours created in the car parks.

The starting concept was to imagine the new building with reference to the post-modern theory of bigness introduced by Rem Koolhas, by considering not only the territorial scale of the integrating the structure, but also the urban one, through the intensity of the cladding systems and the eloquence of details.

The final result is a series of simple volumes that dissipate in the order of the façade pixels, gradually paraphrasing construction rules into rules of expression.

The official opening will include a rich programme of artistic events including Rehabitat, contemporary dance exhibition mixed with the figurative art of the Company Ltdance Project, the acrobatic performance Gentleman on jump, the vertical dance performance Light on by the Scuola di Circo della Reale Società Ginnastica of Turin and the temporary exhibition Re-Habitat City, a selection of historical documents and photographs of the city of Savona, open to the public until 15th April.