Year: 2010

Project team: Cristina Catto & Cindy Comprés

Graduate school: Istituto Europeo di Design, Turin

Project strategies: Leed Certification,  sustainable strategies

 

The place in which the school complex is located, consists of an ex-factory building across the train lines that ends up shortly at Porta Nuova train station. It is for sure a terrain vague. In this excersice we reused and renovated an important part of this building and we were guide by the Leed Certification manual. The School complex concept consists of continuing the existing rail road lines from the landscape to recreat the idea of being inside a train. It is thought as a playing ground floor full of interactivity.

 

The school is divided into two main parts; a public area (garden, coffee, lecture rooms, etc) and the private area (wagon-cubes within classrooms and administration area), which are connected with a common straight circulation passage and a main entrance from the square. The factory's envelope works as a glass garden and funcions as the circulation area. It conforms also the restrooms, exposition and relax zone with vegetation. The café opens up  to a square and a covered roof connects the building to the parking zone. The classrooms are separated from the administration area for functional and acoustical reasons. The administrative area is situated in the ground floor and first floor beside to the Lilbrary and both have separate entrances. The classrooms are located in the first and second floor, looking as interconnected rectangular cubes that looks like wagons. Each classroom has a exhibition area that works as a vitrine, so that from the first level passage many representations of art and design can be seen. The link from the main entrance to the second floor allows ceremony events and expositions for guests.The material for the envelope are steel and glass with coloured panels for the internal façade.