Città Universitaria della Conciliazione Location: Grugliasco (TO)
Project by Massimo Crotti, Marie-Pierre Forsans, Antonio De Rossi, Liliana Bazzanella (Dipradi - Turin Polytechnic) Carlo Novarino, Sebastiano Ciavarella (Atc Projet.to srl)
A project and process of "civil value", that is innovative and genuinely "European", the Città della Conciliazione (literally, City of Conciliation) makes up an area of almost 9,000 square metres and it stems from the idea coined by citizens and institutions attempting to provide a concrete solution to the needs of the university and city population called upon to "live and enjoy it".
Closely tied to the new Science Faculty Pole of Turin University and to the City of Grugliasco, this structure, marked by a large "concertina" roof, is situated in close proximity to existing school complexes, and to the university science pole faculties. Combining one's private life with one's professional life is finally possible: all the personnel involved in the university centre, as well as the citizens of Grugliasco, have at their disposal outstanding structures and amenities: a crèche for 60 children aged between 0-3, a nursery school based on the Steiner approach, multi-purpose facilities, a spa, bar and restaurant.
This project demonstrates the core appeal of setting up a network between institutions, and the importance of an architecture capable of building itself concretely in relation to surrounding players and conditions.
Functions:
crèche, nursery school, multi-purpose facilities for family amenities, spa, bar and restaurant.
Quantitative data:
surface area of work 14.130 sq.m.,
covered surface area (including porticoes) 4.852 sq.m.,
gross floor area 3.525 sq,m.,
sexternal surface area 9.339 sq.m., of which 4.099 sq.m. for greenery;
Photos: Giulia Caira, Michele D’Ottavio, Crotti+Forsans
Timeline: 2003-2006 project; 2006-2009 construction site; January 2010 public inauguration.
Prizes:
- Winner of the “Architetture Rivelate 2010” Prize by the OAT – Ordine degli Architetti di Torino (Turin Register of Chartered Architects);
- Project selected for the In/Arch Award - Ance 2011
- Finalist project in the Medaglia dOro all’Architettura Italiana (Italian Architecture Gold Medal) Award, Edition IV, 2012, Milan Triennale.
http://www.cittadellaconciliazione.it/
1. A project (and process) of “civil value”
This project almost came about by chance and it became - in its implementation - a conscious action and strategy by several players and institutions.
An Equal Opportunities Committee from the University of Turin which, starting with a questionnaire handed out to lecturers and researchers, PHD students and students from the new building in Grugliasco, highlights the need for a structure for the conciliation of work time with family commitments. This need was intercepted by the administration of Grugliasco and by other bodies, who then devised three work groups on the topic. The arrival of the I Faculty of Architecture of Turin Polytechnic, which contributes to fine-tuning a morphological and functional idea in keeping with the innovative character of the initiative. A one-week workshop with lecturers and students of a variety of disciplines, which led to four visions that went on to become the basis of the request for EU funding. An intelligent lobbying action that made it possible to obtain further economic resources from the Piedmont Region, the Province of Turin and the University. The start-up of the final and executive project - with the technical contribution of ATC Projet.to under the direction of the Architectural Planning Department of Turin Polytechnic - by means of a specific "participated" work that led all future users of the structure to liaise and discuss the design hypotheses. Specific action during the construction phase, in order to guarantee the quality of the public work.
Hence a project (and process) of "civil value",that is disorientating - and perhaps disorientated - in modern-day Italy. This project demonstrates the core appeal of setting up a network between institutions, and the importance of an architecture capable of building itself concretely in relation to surrounding players and conditions. A focus on the process that nonetheless does not wish to be routinely solved by the process itself, in pursuit of an external self-legitimation of design. From this perspective, the project for the Città della Conciliazione is also a tiny fragment of reflection on the myths of participation, on the pros and cons of what is "public", on the impossibility of quality - despite the thousand cunning tricks implemented - on contemporary public work sites. Yet at the same time it is a demonstration of the power of morphology in ordering requirements, needs, and at times contrasting expectations. Behind the physical project, a few choice moves.
2. A fragment of attempted order
After perusing several sites, the decision as to where to locate the project lay on a challenging, ragged and marginal site, which does not face the urbanised countryside of the metropolitan area, but yet another fragmented edge, i.e. the outskirts of Turin. Around an urban penetration avenue, a secondary road network supports a discontinued low quality urbanisation, a few public premises and a lot of shapeless and pointless open spaces.
Hence a classic problem: introversion or an attempt to build order? The project for the Città della Conciliazione makes a specific choice, and it accepts the challenge of reinventing a hierarchy of space, or rebuilding a portion of the city. The possibility of separating the many functions envisaged within the structure, of articulating and distributing the "masses" built, enables the construction of an urban "fabric". The decision is made to complete an existing road, and immediately lots of attention is placed on fine-tuning a road network system. The Città della Conciliazione is configured as a piece of the city, with its own main road, the porticoes that guide the open-air routes and in which the access ways to the structure are located. All in a pursuit of links with the surrounding discontinued fabric and mesh. But not in a camouflaged way. By re-using routes and trails, the Città della Conciliazione pursues its own distribution order and its own geometric shapes: a sort of fragment of attempted order.
3. An interior that wants to be a "city"
“Città della Conciliazione” is not only the name of the initiative. It is the very essence of the design idea. The presence of multiple spaces with different functions and users made it immediately possible to focus on a well-articulated idea of organising the internal spaces.
While on the outside the project defines a new urban space, on the inside it is configured - in keeping with perhaps some of the most interesting contemporary architectural experiences - like a sort of metaphoric city, a miniature city, made up of streets, squares, both open and closed, architectural façades, mediation venues.
The need for the privacy and safety of the spaces intended for children is managed by caring for and articulating the mediation spaces, the lobby and route system. The hierarchical tree-structure of the distribution is mediated by the overlooking premises and functions onto communal areas, which manage the passage from the outside in.
At the heart of this idea, the referral to a settlement principle which is dear to Modern cities and certain experiences - think of Ivrea by Adriano Olivetti – on the subject of crèches. Indeed, the entire complex revolves around certain courtyards and internal patios along the perimeter of which the various functions and building sections are distributed. In practice, a sequence of courtyards around which, in a C shape - looking out to the South, East and West - the lecture theatres, rooms and premises are arranged. A protected space which comes about around certain existing trees, but also and most of all a sequence of porticoed squares where activities can be carried out both inside and out.
4. Sequences, transparencies, goals
This “idea of a city” transferred to the internal life space reverberates to the construction and distribution scale in a series of very specific architectural choices. The "rooms" are volumetrically filled, leaving room for a game of colour-coordinated planes. This way, recesses and extensions are created, along with stopping areas and thresholds, adorning the sequence of internal routes. Large and small glazed surfaces make it possible to look in from the outside and vice versa, through the courtyards and the various settings. The slight difference in the level of the plot, which is a little over one metre, also becomes an opportunity to articulate the internal and external space, creating routes that "go down" or "go back up" the architecture. A task for the creation of minimal yet fundamental living spaces for the everyday running of the building which has been established in the dialogue with the future users of the structure and in relation to its pedagogical ends (one above all others: to stimulate the spatial perception on the part of children) of the Città della Conciliazione. But also, after all, a glass House which allows socialisation and sharing the multiple activities it contains.
5. Modularity and individuality
Constructively - and spatially - the building is defined on a simple element, a hybrid portal in galvanised steel and limed Glulam, which makes up the Modulor of the entire structure. This element is repeated all along the length of the two buildings, albeit modifying its span and slope of the beam in relation to the spatial requirements of the underlying settings.
Length-wise, the construction is therefore the result of this reiteration and local deformation. This reiteration ad libitum of the "upside-down C" module, to adapt to the individual places and the specific functional and spatial requirements, is cut along its edges by a series of broken lines, which make this architecture extremely nervy and taut, in a game of geometric shapes that appears to refer to the expressionism or to certain experiences of recent Piedmont architecture.
The modularity, the "dry" assembly sequence - all the elements necessary in a public work site of considerable dimensions -, are then enriched by the longitudinal profiles of the architecture. An architecture that accepts the challenge of repetition to redesign it in the individuality (and domesticity) of the places, of the routes, of the settings, of the views.
6. Construction quality
Ancora, questo tema del rapporto tra standardizzazione e individualità ritorna nell’approccio tecnologico e costruttivo che sta dietro il progetto. Non si tratta più ovviamente di un mero problema di disegno di raffinati particolari costruttivi. L’attenzione per la qualità costruttiva si gioca semmai nelle modalità di assemblaggio delle componenti costruttive industrializzate, nelle modalità di accostamento e di messa in relazione tra le singole parti e elementi (il portale strutturale, la relazione tra pilastri in legno del portico e sporto della copertura, tra grandi vetrate e intradosso del tetto a vista, ecc.), all’interno di una dialettica che viene a legare performance tecnica e significazione architettonica.
7. The large roof
Last but not least, the Città della Conciliazione could be described as a project for roofing first and foremost. A double irregular extended roof, which is pierced by the geometrical spaces of the green courtyards. Aside from the possible analogies, looking from East to West, between the silhouette of the nearby Alpes Cottiae and Alpes Graiae and the skyline of the architecture, what counts is that the large roof is first and foremost configured like a kind of strategic move, and a morphological organisational principle. The roof as the fundamental theme of morphological infrastructuring and determining a place, an identity and welcome, along routes crossed several times by Piedmont architecture from the second half of the 20th Century.
