piovenefabi

piovenefabi
PIOVENEFABI
Profile
PIOVENEFABI is an architectural office. Founded in
2013 in Milan, it is led by two partners: Ambra Fabi
and Giovanni Piovene. The office works in national
and international contexts and is active in the field of
architecture, urban research, territorial visions and
design. The office activity develops through commissions, competitions, publications, workshops and teaching.
September 2013. Participation to the Planning
for Protests Exhibition with the work NUOVA
TOPOGRAFIA DI ROMA MMXIII, Lisbon Triennale,
with 2a+p.
Selected Works
December 2012. Velodrome Vigorelli Milan (Italy), 2
phases competition, finalists, with 51N4E
June 2014. The Sixth Room, Participation to the
Techne, n.: A convergence between art, craftsmanship
and architecture exhibition, Den Frie Gallery,
Copenhagen (Denmark).
June 2014. Unconscious Metropolis, contribution
to IABR 2014 Urban by Nature, Rotterdam
(Netherlands), with 51N4E
May 2014. Paulo Mendes Da Rocha - Tecnica Ed
Immaginazione - Exhibition Design, La Triennale di
Milano, Milano (Italy).
June 2013. House renovation, Rome (Italy).
September 2013. San Rocco Book of Copies Exhibition
Design, AA School, London.
November 2012. Archivo Pavilion Competition,
Mexico City (Mexico)
October 2012. Piraeus Underwater Antiquities
Museum, Athens (Greece). Competition with
YellowOffice
October 2011. Piata Universitatii Bucuresti (Romania)
Competition, first prize, built
July 2012. Promenade de Crètes, Geneve, competition,
4th prize, with YellowOffice
May 2014. Extension of the Musee du Lac Leman,
invited competition (3rd price), Nyon (Switzerland),
with Studio Mumbai.
March 2011. School of Art of Construcion,Como
(Italy). 2 phases competition.
March 2014. Childhood Pavillion, 2 phases
competition, Milan (Italy), with yellowoffice.
July 2011. Small House, Seccheto, Elba Island, (Italy)
Preliminary project
November 2013. Piazza Matteotti, self-proposed
project, Vicenza (Italy).
AMBRA FABI
Architect
Urban Planner
Profile
Ambra Fabi (1981), studied at Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland) and at the École Nationale Supérieure de Paris-Belleville (France). From
2007 to 2010 she worked as art director and project
leader in Architekturbüro Peter Zumthor und Partner,
Haldenstein (Switzerland) and from 2010 to 2012 in
her own office in Milan (Italy). In 2013 she founded,
together with Giovanni Piovene, the office PIOVENEFABI. From 2010 to 2012 she has worked at the
Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio together with
Freek Persyn (51N4E).
She’s currently working at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio with Eric Lapierre and Bijoy Jain
(Studio Mumbai) and she is teaching professor at IED
Cagliari.
February-August 2010 - Park Towers on the Iseo Lake
(Italy). Preliminary project.
LACMA ,County Museum of Arts, Los Angeles (USA)
- project leader, design and development.
Selected competitions
Vewing Platform, Lhati (Finland) - project leader
design and development
2007/2010 Selected works at Architekturbüro
Peter Zumthor und Partner
2010/12 Teaching assistant at Studio Freek Persyn,
Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland).
Professional Experiences
2012/14 Teaching assistant at Studio Eric Lapierre,
Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland).
2010/2012. Own Practice, selected works
Summer Restaurant, Ufnau Island,
Zurich
(Switzerland) - project leader, design and
developement.
July 2011. 40M2 House in Seccheto, Elba Island,
(Italy) Preliminary project, under development.
New Poststrasse, Vals, (Switzerland) - design and
development.
August 2010-January 2011. 35 Apartments in
Montlouis sur Loire (France) Preliminary project.
Vals Masterplan, Vals (Switzerland) - design and
development.
July-October 2010, Café in Milan (Italy), Low budget
restauration, built.
Lamps Design (with Viabizzuno) - project leader,
design, developement and realization.
January-September 2010 - Toni&Guy Saloon in Milan
(Italy). Restauration, built.
Neighbourhood Al Rahyan, Doha (Qatar) - design and
development.
July 2012. Promenade
Competition, fourth prize.
de
Cretes,
Géneve,
October 2011. Piata Universitatii Bucarest (Rumania)
Competition, first prize, under construction.
March 2010. Cittadella dell’Edilizia, Como (Italy)
Competition, second prize.
Exhibition Space for craftmens, Bregenzerwald
(Austria) - design and development.
Santa Giulia Church, Milano Rogoredo (Italy) - project
leader.
Teaching Experiences
2014 Teaching assistant at Studio Bijoy Jain,
Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland).
2014 Teaching professor at IED Cagliari.
2014 Tutor at San Rocco Summer School, Tirana.
2007/2014 - Invited guest critic in East London
(UK), Columbia University (USA), EPFL Lausanne
(Switzerland) and Marne La Vallée Paris.
GIOVANNI PIOVENE
Architect
Urban Planner
Profile
Giovanni Piovene (1981), studied at Università IUAV
di Venezia (Italy) and at the École Nationale Supérieure de Paris-Belleville (France). After working for
Shrinking Cities Office in Berlin, he co-founded Salottobuono office in Venice in 2007 and have been
part of it till 2012. In 2013 he founded, together with
Ambra Fabi, the office PIOVENEFABI. He is founder
and editor of the architecture magazine San Rocco.
He have taught at the Università IUAV di Venezia and
ISIA Urbino, and assisted at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio. He’s currently working at EPFL,
as part of FORM (Kersten Geers, Andrea Zanderigo,
Jelena Pancevaç, Giovanni Piovene, Dries Rodet). He
lectured at the Università IUAV di Venezia, Politecnico di Milano, Proqm Berlin and Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio.
September 2012. Curator of the Public City Workshop,
Vicenza. Tutors: Sotiria Kornaropoulou (51N4E) and
Kostantinos Pantazis (Point Supreme).
June-October 2008. Author of the “Manual of
Decolonization” research, produced by Decolonizing
Architecture, Bethlehem.
May 2012. Author of “The Possibility of Disappearing”,
San Rocco 4, Fuck Concepts! Context!, 73-79.
October 2007. Teacher at the “Transient City
Workshop”, Urban Lab, Luxembourg.
April 2011- December 2012. Creative direction of
Domus Magazine.
April 2009 Participation to the DREAMING MILANO
exhibition, Milano.
March 2011. Exhibition Design for the Ariane de
Rothschild Prize, Palazzo Reale, Milano.
September 2010. Participation to Beyond Entropy,
XII Biennale di Architettura di Venezia, organized by
the AA School, London.
March 2011. Author of “Fog”, San Rocco 2, The Even
Covering of the Field, 12-15.
Working Experience
September 2010 - August 2012. Collaborator of prof.
Freek Persyn at the Accademia di Architettura di
Mendrisio.
October 2013, Curator of the “San Rocco Book of
Copies” exhibition at the AA School, London.
September 2010. Exhibition Design of the AILATI
Italian Pavilion, XII Venice Architecture Biennale.
September 2013 - Responsible and tutor of the 1st San
Rocco Summer School, Genoa.
June-July 2010. Teacher at “I cinque Atti
Fondamentali”, Workshop 10, Università IUAV di
Venezia.
September 2013 - Collaborator of prof. Kersten
Geers at the EPFL, Lausanne.
September 2013. Author of “An Architect, the Office,
the Pool and the Beach”, San Rocco 7, Indifference,
72-83.
June-July 2009. Teacher at “Dodici Isole Deserte”,
Workshop 09, Università IUAV di Venezia.
February 2009. Teacher at the “Progetto Sostenibile”
Workshop, ISIA Urbino.
September 2007- January 2011. Editor of the
“Instructions and Manuals” section of Abitare
magazine.
the sixth room
Copenhagen
The project is part of Techne, n.: A convergence between art, craftsmanship and architecture, an exhibition organized at the Den Frie gallery
in Copenhagen, in occasion of the 100 years of the Den Frie Movement
(the local equivalent of art Nouveau and Jugendstil). Through a synthesis of art, craftsmanship and architecture the exhibition aims to create new
spaces, forms and languages. The exhibition took place at the Den Frie
Gallery –the original wooden building of the movement, which at a first
glance appears as monumental and elegant as if it was built in stone, but
looking carefully one discovers its fragility and clumsiness.
Within the five perimeter rooms of five teams of artists and architects have
collaborated, creating projects specifically for and unique to each space.
The Sixth Room displays the archive of the five different process of collaboration and condenses them into one central piece. A row of five cabinets
is at first glance a row of abstract weird shapes loosely linked to the formal
principles of Den Frie decorations. Getting inside they reveal a complex
universe of images and objects, somewhere in between an archive and the
materialization of a mental thought. These places to accumulate exchanges,
research, words, maquettes, objets trouvée and hidden aspects of each art
work.
exhibition: 2014
place: Den Frie Museum, Copenhagen
a project for the exhibition Techne, n.: A convergence between art, craftsmanship and architecture
curators: KWY: Ben Allen, Ricardo Gomez
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Raf Geysen, Carlotta Capobianco, Emma Rigoulot, Tai Xin
drawings: Hiter Yon
wood construction: ZETUP
the cabinets content is by: Ben Allen, Jan Bünnig, Jesper Carlsen, Ricardo
Gomes, Gianna Ledermann, Akane Moriyama, Anders Hellsten Nissen,
Julian Stair, Hiter Yon.
photo credits: Lior Zilberstein
musée du lac leman
Nyon
The competition brief asked for an extension of the already existing Musée
du Lac Leman, in order to contain a wide range of boats hailing from that
specific lake: a range which is going from typical boats like the Tucan to the
America’s Cup Alinghi catamaran, which has been there built and tested.
The project consists of a big excavation around the existing building together with a monumental wooden structure which sits on the top of it. The
building plays on the ambiguity among a basilica, a barn, and a warehouse
space. Six timber volumes of different dimensions in length, height, and
width are filled with the public program of the museum – the boat hall
being the spine of the project. The exhibition spaces and public rooms are
connected through catwalks arranged at different levels, providing several
points of view on the boats and the exhibited material, always in connection
to the distant landscape of mountains, water and sky. The wooden structural frame is wrapped externally with diagonal shingles while the inside is
lined with timber boarding washed in lime, able to create a translucency. The existing museum building contains the administration and a small
structure protruding on the foreground, containing a boutique and supporting a terrace open to the lake and its immediate environment. The museum shared spaces are shaped by the arrangement of the wooden
buildings. The courtyard in-between the three buildings acts as an external
foyer connecting the public and private functions of the museum.
The boat hall sets back from the road and generates a square, which is also
the boats’ loading dock. The large doors of the boat hall can be opened in
order to have for the boats a direct access to the lake. The building is both
a museum and a warehouse, retaining the ethos of the project as a thriving,
living culture of the region. The surrounding landscape of the park, the
children’s playground, and plants of the area weave into one another forming a seamless connection to the adjacencies of the museum and to the
diversity of the place. The project can be seen as part or whole, an archaeology of the lake in time. invited competition: 2014. Fourth prize
in collaboration with: Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbai
local architect: Didier Leclerc
structural engineer: Jurg Conzett
landscape design: Nina Von Albertini
environment engineer: Jochen Käferhaus
jewel designer: Salome Lippuner
stone and lime mason : Ruedi Krebs
specialist in vault constructions: Sebastien Pittet
childhood pavillion
Milan
The plot of the Childhood Pavilion appears today as an urban room tightly
surrounded by buildings, walls and fences. The proximity of old and recent
skyscrapers, big infrastructures and residential buildings makes the site
appearing as a small and protected urban interior. This interior has one big
opening: a unique window towards the new park and the city.
The proposal for the Childhood Pavilion starts from this extremes and complex urban conditions: the building is a cloister that redesigns the heterogeneous limits of the area and on the meantime gives a new facade towards
the park: a new open and permeable front dialogues now with the facing
public space.
Inside its perimeter, a series of colonnades subdivides the plot into many
open-air and indoor rooms, different in dimensions, shape and degree of
protection: this are the playground rooms where the limits among the interior and exterior space remains ambiguous. On the higher floors - hosting
the library, the family space, the administration and the sleeping rooms, the
Pavilion is introverted and compact. Its specific shape and materiality, placed somewhere in between the Milanese tradition of Renaissance and the
60’s, Ettore Sottsass’s Totems and Sol Lewitt RIP - allows the air to flow
from the park to the railways and naturally ventilate the plot and the interior
spaces. In plan, the central stair and the service block leave the space free
and flexible to be rearranged.
2nd phase competition: 2014
competition promoter: Comune di Milano
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Carlotta Capobianco, Raf
Geysen, Emma Rigoulot, Costanza Soncini, Jia Xin Tai
landscape design: yellowoffice
structural engineer: SCE projects
environmental engineer: Luca Gattoni (Mutability)
calculations: Andrej Mikuz
mendes da rocha
Triennale di Milano
The exhibition “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha: technique and immagination” in
Triennale – the first complete retrospective ever dedicated to the work of
the Brazilian architect – deals with paper. Besides few videos, the exhibition
comprehend dated and contemporary pictures, old and recent technical
drawings, sketches, sections, plans and details, all supported by different
kind and sizes of paper: sketch, colored, translucent or white paper. Even
the models produced for the exhibition by Mendes himself are made out of
paper. The exhibition design starts from the specificity of this collection:
1. The big number of hand and computer drawings shows the big production of Mendes’ office though time. Drawings are therefore seen as working tools rather than precious art pieces. The decision has been not to use
frames or glass to protect drawings – setting a distance with the visitor – but
to “archive” them into acid free and transparent polypropylene bags, trying
in this way to approach the visitors to the – now tangible – drawings.
2. The way documents are displayed in the space wants to enhance the hierarchy in between plans,sections, models and pictures: all sections hang on
the wall following the same horizon line; all models are placed on stands at
the same height of the sections; all plans lay on tables facing the sections; all
original pictures are hanged on panels, all contemporary pictures are part
of freestanding paravent. 3. Exhibition furniture is made of a very thin concrete (2 cm): tables, panels and paravents which populate the space carrying plans, pictures and
sketches, dialogue in a certain way with the brutality of Mendes structures.
This specific materiality acts as a counterweight to the lightness and abstraction of the paper while the elements’ thinness and their reduction of
details produce the illusory perception of scaled up paper.
exhibition: 2014
place: Triennale di Milano, Milan
curator: Daniele Pisani
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Carlotta Capobianco, Raf
Geysen, Emma Rigoulot
graphic design: pupilla grafik
structural engineer: SCE projects
sponsor: Italcementi
prefabricator: Airoldi S.p.a
photo credits: Alberto Sinigaglia
u nconscious metropolis
Reading the Central Veneto Region
The isotropic landscape of Central Veneto has been traditionally hybrid, an
intertwinement of two ecosystems, the natural and the productive: an alluvial landscape structured by hydrography on one hand, and its productive
use since roman times on the other, in a constant process of reshaping. In
the last thirty years, the area has experienced a constant and unquestioned
growth, which turned it into one of the largest manufacturing areas in Europe. The balance gradually shifted towards a mono-functional, industrialized landscape.In the current moment of recession the friction between
systems becomes visible, forcing the area to deal with its inherent limits.
Unconscious Metropolis aims to provide a new reading of the Central Veneto Region showing where this diffused urban carpet is under stress to
the point of being dysfunctional. It also aims at pointing where housing,
production and agriculture allow and enhance each other’s presence, by
being close and interdependent.
Meanwhile, the current governance reform in Italy provides an opportunity
to rethink borders flexibly and according to relations rather than to old administrative subdivisions.
Looking again at the Central Veneto, zooming into its inherent characteristics and detecting its innovative experiments is a way to see new opportunities, germs of a future-oriented narrative. Unconscious Metropolis presents the territory as the result of its daily dynamics: Instead of looking just
at the physical outcome, the contribution rather focuses on the process that
produces it, giving voice to the living motor of the cumulative landscape of
Central Veneto.
www.unconsciousmetropolis.eu
a project produced for IABR 2014: Urban by Nature
project development: Silvia Fattore, PIOVENEFABI (Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Raf Geysen, Carlotta Capobianco, Emma Rigoulot, Martina
Motta, Jia Xin Tai), 51N4E (Freek Persyn, Johan Anrys, Sotiria Kornaropoulou), Architecture Workroom Brussels (Joachim Declerk)
project coordination: Silvia Fattore, Giovanni Piovene
webplatform: Folder (Marco Ferrari, Elisa Pasqual), non-linear (Manuel
Ehrenfeld)
strategic advice: Joseph Grima
documentary: Ries Straver - direction / production
drones: Elicka
photographs: Stefano Graziani
cartographic database: Alvise Pagnacco
scale 1:300000
scale 1:75000
scale 1:5000
scale 1:1000
scale 1:1000
scale 1:500
scale 1:500
piazza matteotti
Vicenza
The project is a self-produced proposal, which aims to improve the condition of a key square in Vicenza. Piazza Matteotti, upon which Palazzo
Chiericati insists, is today a neglected place, at the margins of the historical
center (and the pedestrian area), which nowadays hosts a parking and is
crossed by the main inner traffic ring.
A (Public City) : The proposed reorganization of Piazza Matteotti in Vicenza fits into a expanding vision for the public city. The projects, touching
several scales at once, moves the boundaries of what is today identified as
the city center according to the new Urban Mobility Plan. The new center
incorporates public functions as Parco Querini, the hospital , the Municipal Theatre, Campo Marzio and the Central Station.
B (Distance) : The scale of urban collective spaces is crucial in the collective civic representation. Piazza Matteotti, if freed from the obstacles that
prevent us from perceiving it as a whole, can become the second largest
square in Vicenza. To gain the “necessary distance”, thus affecting the
common perception of the entire city, a reconfiguration of the square limits is needed, as well a reorganization of its accesses.
The placement of elements of street furniture and lighting, forces brand
new perspectives on the main monuments.
C (Fragmentation) : Piazza Matteotti is nowadays a set of small squares. The
new Urban Mobility Plan partially intervenes tying the romantic garden in
front of Palazzo Chiericati with the square of the Teatro Olimpico and making Corso Palladio fully pedestrian. This first step, however, can be the
beginning of an intervention of integral unification.
D (space for pedestrians): If today the space for pedestrians is composed
by cut-outs from the hypertrophic mobility system, in the future the square
can become a fully pedestrian space where cars are a minor presence.
Self-produced proposal: 2014.
place: Piazza Matteotti, Vicenza,
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Carlotta Capobianco, Raf
Geysen, Emma Rigoulot
A
Public city
today
proposal
B
Distance
today
proposal
C
Fragmentation/Unity
today
p.u.m.
proposal
D
Pedestrian Spaces
today
p.u.m.
proposal
a p artment in trastevere
Rome
The apartment seats on a ground floor space in Trastevere, close to the
Tiberine Island. While on the road side the apartment presents just one
door, it opens up towards the interior courtyard – a garden of orange trees
– with two very big windows. The space, deep and dark, has hosted several programs (garage, art gallery, office), which have complicated its plan
with new walls, partitioning more and more a space with just two (very big)
windows.
The first move has been to demolition of all the unuseful walls, allowing
more light to enter the apartment. The space has been repartitioned positioning few masonry furniture, able to solve the need of storage of an house
in need of generous shared space.
The kitchen – once a closed room – has been opened up and split into
two facing elements. A light metal table has become the core of the whole
kitchen. As such, the kitchen could be at the same time an intimate space
for the owners and an appropriate support for big dinners and parties. The
project has taken always into account that the apartment is not just made of
the actual enclosed space, but incorporates the outer courtyard as an extra
wide room.
The apartment has become a big filter form the road to the courtyard, blending the hard contrasts among the public Trastevere neighborhood and the
very intimate courtyard.
project: 2013-2014
status: completed
client: private commission
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Carlotta Capobianco
budget:50000 euros
photo credits: Alberto Sinigaglia
book of copies
Londra
The bookstand produced for the San Rocco Book of Copies exhibition at the Architectural Association in London results from the
interplay among rational and pragmatic decisions together with irrational and formal choices.
Rational because its shape is a line crossing the whole room that allows just the minimum space to circulate around, its measures and
rhythm are dictated by the numbers of copies to be displayed on it
and its puzzle-like construction allows to dismantle, recompose, and
adjust it each time necessary. Irrational because the metal structure
is colored of a mysterious blue-black, its equilateral triangular section its hardly recognizable and a beautiful ornament is hidden inside its two heads; the skinny legs resembles feet of a walking crow.
exhibition: 2013
place: AA Architectural Association, London
a project for: San Rocco Magazine - Book of Copies
curators: Giovanni Piovene, Pier Paolo Tamburelli
promoted by: Vanessa Norwood, AA Architectural Association
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Carlotta Capobianco,
Andrea Zucchi
graphic design: pupilla grafik
photo credits: Teresa Cos
velodromo vigorelli
Milano
The proposal for the renovation of the Vigorelli Velodrome in Milan aims
at being visionary and pragmatic at once: pragmatic in doing the most with
the existing structure and the limited budget available, visionary in proposing the constitution of the Park of Wheels, a new enclosed public space
in Milano dedicated to wheel urban sports.
The proposal complements the vast and silent void inside the Vigorelli
Velodrome with an urban galleria on the outside. The mono-functional
cycle track is removed and the central field is made accessible and leveled
with the street, in order to get a continuous public ground. The bleachers
are made accessible directly from the central field. As such the former velodrome becomes one single public space (with a topography). The roof
is renovated and extended towards the outside. This is where the vision of
the project crystallizes: instead of investing in a new velodrome track, the
project proposes to invest the money in a new roof anchoring the building
in the urban fabric and offering an intimate urban space for all citizens
to use. Both simple in set-up and full of possibilities in use, this park has
the scale and size to become a public attractor adding up to the changing
metropolitan landscape and the future lifestyles of Milan.
2 phases competition: 2013
status: Finalist
competition promoter: Comune di Milano
in collaboration with: 51N4E
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Freek Persyn, Johan Anrys,
Tom Bealus, Filippo Cattapan,
Jacopo Vantini, Michele Marchetti, Andrea Piovesan, Pietro Mazzanti,
mobility: MIC, Mobility in Chain (It)
structural engineering: Bas (Be)
scenography consultant: TTAS (Be)
envirnomental engineering: Mutability (Ch)
acoustic engeneering: Dario Paini (Ch)
calculations: Andrej Mikuz (It)
management consultants: IDEA Consult (Be)
budget: 13.000.000 euros
archivo pavilion
Mexico City
The garden of the Archivo del Diseno has a double life, hyper-urban and hyper-intimate.
Its service door opens on the crowded Cunstuyente Highway while part of its surrounding wall faces an illustrious neighbor: Casa
Ortega together with Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, the highest local expression of the intimate realm.The project addresses to the
double nature of the site, whether local or metropolitan, intimate or
exposed, soft or hard. It aims to highlight the contrasts and ambiguities generated by this conditions.
The intervention tries to reveal and integrate the qualities of the
existing limits. A wooden yellow-cross-wall transforms the garden
of the Archivo into an open air sequence of Four Rooms. The Four
Rooms are connected by a central door. The Four Rooms look at
first sight all the same, but are instead all different. The service door
becomes a window to look at the city: a sequence of private outside
rooms in the metropolitan environment of Mexico City.
competition: 2012
competition promoter: Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Vincenzo Paternò
budget: 30.000 $
year: 2012
Scale 1:200
promenade de cretes
Géneve, Switzerland
The area of Carouge and Lancy appears today as an heterogeneous place,
a collage of disconnected urban fabrics, residential neighborhoods, sport
facilities, parks, industrial areas and railways surfaces. But each piece of
land has his own dignity and his own beauty. The project does not modify
any surface but rather intervenes delicately with lines and points. Lines
link the disconnected system of parks and the different urban fabrics while
points reveal the potential of strategic places. Lines follow the direction
of the railways, exploiting the potential of topography, crossing obstacles
when necessary. Points grow from the intersection of lines and landscape, when the latter needs to be revealed with contextual interventions on
different scales. Lines are two red-colored asphalt paths which run over
the area, parallel to the railways: a fast bike path and a mixed pedestrian/
bike path. When crossing obstacles, lines become white metal structures:
catwalks, ramps, bridges. Points are a series of micro public spaces: a netlabyrinth, a swing-row, a bleach, a space for wind-catchers, the new school square of trees, the station square, the belvederes, the fields of lamps,
orientation signs, benches, tables, barbecues... Lines and points never
modify the topography. They just lean on it. Lines and points are never
brutal but delicate.
competition: 2012
status: 4th prize
competition promoter: Republique et Canton de Geneve
in collaboration with: YellowOffice (landscape)
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Filippo Cattapan, Ludovico
Centis, Michele Marchetti, Paolo Migliori, Francesco Zorzi
civil engineering: One Works (It)
mobility engeneering: MIC, Mobility in Chain (It)
museum of underwater
antiquities
Athens, Greece
The intervention is part of a broader master plan for a strategic location: the
Cultural Coast of Piraeus. The area which is 12 km away from the center
of Athens – a 20 minute ride by metro – could be seen as part of a global
network of visitors and a natural extension of the city of Athens towards
the sea. The Museum of Underwater Antiquities, which would be placed
in the emblematic Grain Silo would sit on a public platform hosting cultural amenities (open air museum and cinema, educational spaces), sport
amenities (swimming pool, sunbathing areas), touristic programs (boats
departure gates, parking areas, tickets offices, information points), connective infrastructure (catwalks, monorail station, bridges, porticos) and
port activities. The intervention on the Grain Silo is at the same time silent
and brutal. While keeping the blind character of the emblematic industrial
facade, the building contains an hidden inner landscape; the cellular structure of the Silo is the base for the spacial structure of the museum, which
is divided in two contrasting systems: an excavated big void and a field of
rooms. Architecture is here made through structural cuts – being these the
new doors between the museum rooms or the big hall. The old distribution
tower hosts a sculptural staircase, connecting the ground floor loggia to the
panoramic terrace. New volumes are attached to the monolithic building:
the new entrance, the machine floor on the terrace, the security staircases
and the new rooms along the loading dock.
competition: 2012
competition promoter: Piraeus Port Authority
in collaboration with: Ioanna Volaki, YellowOffice (landscape)
project team: Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene, Armina Alexandru,
Filippo Cattapan, Michele Marchetti, Vincenzo Paternò, Filippo
Piovene, Francesco Zorzi
structural engineering: Myrto Tsitsinaki
environmental engineering: Mutability (Ch)
terrace
bar - restaurant - panoramic terrace
5th floor
field of rooms
mezzanine
educational - visit to laboratories - storage
2nd floor
big void exhibition space
field of rooms
1st floor
laboratories - storage - offices
temporary exhibition - auditorium
groundfloor
entrance - ticketshop - bookshop - portico
piata universitatii
Bucuresti, Romania
Bucharest is a cluttered city with little place to breath.The new University
Square, is an attempt to underline and clarify the existing qualities of the
University area: a monumental space overtaken by an overwhelming explosion of life. According to the project, a white-concrete central void hosts
and supports the existing historical statues: the national hero Mihail The
Brave and the two literates. The big white void does not just embodies a
monumental space; it becomes a threshold for the historic center, a buffer
in-between different urban scales, among empty order an crowded chaos,
visual silence juxtaposed to noisy mess. Surrounding the white urban void,
a paved surface connects the square within the rest of the city. As such it
allows the uncontrollable everyday messiness to take place on it. Two different surfaces trace the boundaries in between the monumental space and
the informal life of the city.
competition: 2011
realization: 2011-2013
status: first prize, under construction
client: Primarie Bucuresti
temporary association: A. Fabi + C. Lenoble + S. Dirvariu
local office: Cooperativa de Architectura
lighting consultant: Luxten
budget: 550.000 є
small house
Elba Island, Italy
Seccheto is a very small village on the south-west coast of the Elba Island,
probably one of the wilder and less touristic area. The site, a former donkey
grazing land, founds itself at a 10 minutes walking distance from the sea
and sits on the slope of the mountainy National Park –nowadays a protected
area for the specificity of the mediterranean scrub. The piece of land hadn’t
been touched for many years, overwhelmed by vegetation of every kind.
Once the wildness has been thinned out in order to enter the plot, a garden
with an incredible position has been re-discovered, surrounded by wild mediterranean plants and looking at the mountains and the sea at once.
The project tries to take full advantage of this potential, without overcoming the presence of the place. At a first sight the circular shape of the
house relates to the wider landscape without taking a clear position. But
a segment crosses the circle and defines two areas: the bigger part is a large shadowing arbor looking towards the sea; the other is the livable area,
closable when necessary. The house is spartan, there are no rooms but furniture, organized on the border between the two areas. From that line one
can admire both the ecologies: the mountains and the sea. Everyday life
becomes part of a bigger environment.
project: 2011-2014
status: ongoing
client: private commission
surveyor: Paolo Petrocchi
ground floor plan
rooof plan
school of construction
Como, Italy
The School of Art of Construction is meant to be built in the outskirts of
Como, a fragmented urban fabric of industrial and post industrial buildings.
The project doesn’t want to escape the ugliness of this environment but rather to establish a direct dialogue with it: the two squares - the Construction
Building and the Classroom Building - fragment the plot; the outside area
of the school is a leftover of the cut, without hiding form the surrounding;
The two buildings, very different one from each other, are just functional
tools made for working. The buildings are the places where to study and an
example of construction at once: the white prefabricated concrete is solid
and straight forward, but also thin and light; The Classroom Building has
a thin bone structure and is sustained by cross-shape columns, while the
glass facade is protected by movable metal sheds; The Construction Building is a cold container where one could literally learn how to build. The
walls and the roof of the building are made of prefabricated concrete sheds,
which are at the same time the main structure and the light receptacle, as
their direction allows to have specific kind of light during the different moments of the day. The buildings are a simple and direct expression of the
art of building.
2 phases competition: 2011
status: 2th prize
competition promoter: ANCE - Associazione Nazionale Costruttori Edili
Como
in collaboration with: Giacomo Ortalli, Anna Stoppani, Gaelle Verrier
civil engineering: Ing. Gaffuri, Ing. Claudio Corti
environemental engeneering: Luca Gattoni - CH
acoustic engeneering; Dario Paini - IT
ground floor plan
Contacts
PIOVENEFABI
Corso Indipendenza 14
i-20129 Milano
+39 02 36584547
[email protected]