COOP Supermarket in Pordenone, Italy by Corde Architetti Associati

Article source: Corde Architetti Associati 

The risk one may run in adding a new commercial building in the centre of a small village is to subvert balances and prevail on the existing. This is intended to be a different kind of approach compared with the usual box-shaped shopping centre: an aggregation of volumes with different heights and rough concrete panelling attempts to confront with the old urban pattern. The massive presence of vegetation, both trees and climbers, is the unpredictable element guided by time and seasons as a moment of mediation.

supermarket volume, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

• Architects: Corde Architetti Associati 
• Project: COOP Supermarket
• Location: Porcia, Pordenone, Italy
• Photography: Alessandro Ruzzier

the entrance, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

Despite the difficulties of the dimensional constraints imposed by laws and client’s needs, we designed a building with a complex volume avoiding to create a simple and banal box that’s a common “design” used in the commercial field. Each facades in fact is different from the others both in shape and size.

Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

detail of the facade texture subdivision , Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

The building was built using a prefabricated system both for structures and cladding. Two main factors led to this decision: it guarantees wide open spaces, necessary for the functionality of a modern supermarket, and a faster construction that reduces times and costs.

a long public bench was designed using concrete blocks, concrete blocks were used also to create a fountain and some plant pots, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

open spaces are designed in continuity with the urban context, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

Being conscious of the aesthetic limitations of prefabrication, we used a new cladding system made by concrete panels insulated inside that ensures higher energy performances and it allows also a great freedom both of shape and of the internal and external finishing design.

view of the near mountain juxtaposed to the peculiar mass and texture of the building, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

A simple system of stainless steel cables becomes a support for climbing plants, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

The line pattern realized hides the vertical joining point between panels (that’s one of the most obvious limits of prefabrication) and, as a classic horizontal subdivision of the facade, it’s denser at the base of the building and wider going upwards. This design produces a richness of lines and of light and dark contrast, creating an all day long vibration.

sun reflection becomes a sort of “light blade” that highlights the texture change, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

In order to evoke the tonality of local land and stones we added porphyry and marble powders, coming from the local context, into the cement mixture of the cladding panels. The result is a grave building intentionally far from the colourful and formal yelling of too many commercial buildings built out there in our territory:  building colour will be defined, according to the season, by plants life.

detail of the interaction between plants and the concrete line pattern, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

The use of impermeable surfaces were reduced as more as possible in the outside paving creating a permeable public space characterized by green areas. For that paved parking areas were minimized to the essential manoeuvre space while the resting space was covered by river pebbles and where it was possible by flowers beds and planters.

All the vegetables species used, different for each side of the building, were the result of a careful analysis of solar radiation as well as of the need to have lower maintenance costs.

detail of the prefabricated concrete panels, Image Courtesy © Alessandro Ruzzier

The area in front of the entrance, actually a small public square, was designed with great attention: the smooth basement shifts out from the building volume creating a flowerbed and a public seat, and a long bench, developing along the sidewalk, turns into a small fountain supplied by an existing artesian well.

site and section,Image Courtesy © Corde Architetti Associati

Tags: Italy, Pordenone

Category: Market

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