Opposites rule: light and darkness create an ideal separation, so the same space can serve the two souls in Japs! – fast and slow. This was a 360° project that went from interior decor to branding, connecting every aspect: for example, the decorative motif in the logo became a graphic and architectural element, in a relationship of perfect symmetry between image and architecture. Now each Japs! restaurant offers a different Japanese specialty, effectively connoting the chain’s different venues and sparking clients’ curiosity.
The project consists in the renovation of a residential unit, part of a prestigious 19th century building. The area is located on the right side of the old town of Cuneo, enjoys a fantastic view over the surrounding the city, and over the mountainous arc of the Maritime Alps.
The surface of the entire unit is about 220 square meters. The rigid structure with load-bearing masonry in solid bricks, typical of those years noble palaces are difficult to modify, and often does not allow easy adaptations to contemporary living.
As solution, we used the concept of “decomposition” of the walls as a generative element.
The project is aimes to achieve the functional restoration of the former Saint Rocco’s church, for cultural purposes, while transforming it into a permanent theater and a multi-purpose hall.
Mildly maintained over the years, the building has been affected by general renovation works on the roof with the addition of a reinforced concrete curb stiffened by transversal steel tie rods and the replacement of the original roof with a concrete and masonry structure.
Being the building bound and of secular construction, however having a public non-religious theatrical destination from an earlier period to 1967, the works of stage adjustment, maintenance of the installations, safety and furnishing were necessary to make the hall functionally suitable to be used as a conference room and theater hall.
The geometry takes up the planimetric shape of the existing cemetery, reinterpreting the architectural elements that characterize the area in a contemporary key. The perimeter wall is the generating system of the composition. The intent is to create a clear contrast that allows to highlight the emblematic historical cemetery and to create a synergy with it, so as to enhance the ancient \”Kirchhof\”. From the old cemetery the visitor enters the courtyard and an arcaded area where cinerary urns and the ossuary are located. To emphasize the sacredness of this space, a large skylight was inserted which acts as a pivot between the space of the columbaria and the retaining wall to the north. The zenithal light that comes from the large truncated pyramid on the surfaces of concrete walls create a changing and ephemeral geography of shadows. The boundary wall is extruded, and the various functions are organized in its thickness. The projections above the retaining wall create a portico that, in full local tradition, embraces the courtyard for interment, offering to visitors a sheltered place. The contrast between the concrete and the bronze of the panels and lamps represents the only stylistic note in an austere and deliberately abstract context.
The building is a single-family residence designed specifically for an archaeologist.
The volume is a simple parallelepiped with a rectangular base in which other blocks of cubic form, completely covered with stone, have been inserted and fixed.
From a material point of view, the building is reminiscent of the brick textures from old walls and the large cut stones that often interrupted the frame as lintels or cornerstones.
In this house, we replaced the bricks with reused fluted concrete block and the stone with marble slabs and travertine blocks.
The educational environment must be a sort of aquarium where the ideas, the morality, the attitudes, the cultures of the people who live there are reflected.
Loris Malaguzzi
The enlargement of the Zanti Infant School in Brescello is born from the Administration's desire to bring together the sections currently located in various municipal offices into a single structure. The idea of the project is the reinterpretation of the stylistic features found in the children's drawings, where the landscape, the simplicity of the geometries and the sun, primary source of illumination and psychophysical well-being, are always represented in evidence. The archetype of the small house located in the green takes shape in two independent volumes, as the number of enlargement sections, with pure geometries and surrounded by the existing park. The sun exposure, the presence of numerous valuable trees and the desire to break down the least possible, generates the rotation of the volume of a section. The result is the creation of opposing overviews where the threshold between inside and outside is very weak.
The project to refurbish the central building of the office complex at Cassina dè Pecchi, in the northern outskirts of Milan, is part of the complete reappraisal of services for the companies present on the site, and also involves improving the spaces outside the complex that so far have been used exclusively as parking lots.
The building that is the object of retrofitting is given new spaces for catering, event areas with two new meeting rooms seating up to 25 and 99 people respectively, a fitness area, as well as new socializing and smart working spaces, with a view to becoming a pioneering example and a pole of attraction for new activities in the area.
Article source: GEZA Gri e Zucchi Architetti associati
Z House is an alpine house, a holiday home.
A place to live an intense relationship with nature and the mountains.
The site on which the house is placed is a complex place, with a steep slope, access uphill, a few buildings around and full of panoramic “frameworks”. The approach path is thus one of the key points of the project, the arrival is a precise and inevitable sequence: the road climbs steeply, the house shows itself from afar in the middle of other buildings, then hides and then reappears in a scenic perspective from the bottom where you can feel the whole size of the building. To enter inside, however, it is necessary to turn around with an obligatory, necessary path, in which the perception of the house gradually loses the built context and fits into the natural one. During this journey of “passage” it becomes gradually smaller, the scale is reduced and from a volume of three floors then you get to a small and solitary monopiano volume, framed only by the landscape.
In the digital era, architecture has become a global communication tool with wide scope and reach. No longer resting solely in the hands of the experts, nowadays architecture draws on its tangibility and concreteness to become an, expression of general culture at all levels and a collective argument for debates. As a temple devoted to 360-degree diffusion of architectural culture, PRESS BOX, the installation by SET Architects, encompasses a selection of international publications curated by mint LIST.
It opened in Milan, the third restaurant of the brothers Matteo and Salvatore Aloe, creators of the clubs from Bologna dedicated to the artisan pizza, that brings up to 10 the number of pizzerias opened in Italy, which can be added to the two in London.
After two restaurants in Isola and Navigli, Berberè expands also in Milano Centrale, in a dynamic block, active heart of the Milan business, in order to represent a further growth of the brand of artisan pizza, supported by the increasing recognition of the food critic, as for example the reconfirmation of the Tre Spicchi in the section “Pizza a degustazione” of the guide Le pizzerie d’Italia 2019 by Gambero Rosso.
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