UpCity

period : september ‘12 – february ’13

studio: atelier of architectural and technology design

teacher: arch. Augusto Ambrosini, arch. Guido Callegari

team work: Leonardo Ramondetti, Daniele De Riccardis

location: Via Plava, Turin, Italy

project program: student residence

exhibited at: “Architettura in città” 2013, Turin

published on: www.roofscapes.polito.it

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roofscapes / landscapes raised
urban regeneration with land use zero

“A scene or view of roofs, especially when considered in terms of its aesthetic appeal”

Oxford dictionary

Raising a buildings is an efficient urban development strategy. Also it’s ground-zero consumption solutions. In the last years, the land use is alarmingly high. So, moderate overlappings of volumes and activity on existing buildings are responding to new expansions beyond the city or demolition and reconstruction of buildings. It is an operation that works punctually on the city, discretely but in the same time, decisively, in sensitive places to transformation.
The raising is also technological innovation, with the search for new lightweight materials and adapted to overlay an existing structure.
The main areas of intervention are currently:
– Public buildings to revitalize, grafting new public or private activities and open spaces
– Industrial buildings to be redeveloped by intervening on the cover and on the casing for new collective activities
– Residential buildings to expand with particular attention to the requirements of eco-compatibility

VIA PLAVA

The project area consists of fifteen residential buildings located between Via Giovanni Roveda and via Plava and placed on six staggered rows. The area is peripheral, we are in exactly mirafiori south, last part of the city before the campaigns.
The buildings were costriute in 1960 to accommodate workers at the headquarters of Fiat Mirafiori, on the north side of the site. Therefore, it is popular housing made of precast concrete modules.
Through analysis of the site, it was found that the average age in this area is very high and that many apartments are now empty. The project, through the inclusion of a new type of population, under 30, tries to revitalize the area and forget the appellation of dormitory district, as is now considered and remembered by who live there. For this reason and for proximity to the school of design of Politecnico di Torino is thought to designing a student residence.

EXISTING

↑ . general plan

↑ . section and elevations A-A’ of a line of building

↑ . ground floor plan . first floor plan . seventh floor plan

↑ . existing building

↑ . existing area sections B-B’: sequences of building and unused green areas.

↑ . inhabitants and spaces of sociability

PROJECT

The redevelopment of the buildings on Via Plava is an opportunity to experience the concept of overlapping, seen as extending upward.
The idea of the village on the roof, consisting of a succession of regular modules with wooden structure, comes from the composition of the structure below and the selected function, the university residence. Three types of modules, tall less than two floors, are designed to be rooms, kitchens and multifunctional spaces, to 24 students. Two parallel axes defining the sequence of spaces between private and public. The sequence of the modules in the northwest, destined for more private spaces (rooms and services), is broken by glass stairwells. Instead, in the southeast, there are spaces for students’s common life: kitchens, entertainment venues and multifunctional rooms.
The public spaces are divided, alternately, by open green space or space-glazed sealed, who have a double skin. If, in winter, the public spaces are like a bioclimatic greenhouse because of the large windows, in summer, they can be opened to allow greater airflow and environmental wellness.