2016 SECONDARY SCHOOL

This project, based on a strong relationship with the context, it develops around two big “empty spaces”.

The classrooms and the library (that are the purely educational spaces) are arrenged around a indoor garden, of which dimensions (20 meters x 20 meters) allows a real use of the open space for educational purposes or, more simply, as a place to enjoy recreation in total safety.

The other big “empty space”, around which develops extracurricular functions, is the assembly hall, conceived as a large area with a single span, capable to host events until

400 people.

The gym is the only feature to be located at the first floor and in correspondence of the assembly hall, with which it shares the vertical structure; the positioning at the first level allows to isolate it in case of use by customers.

The project aim to create a kind of “city metaphor”, which is expressed through relationships generated around the two large empty spaces (the square/garden and the court/assembly hall). These two places offer the opportunity for a shared educational and open and open to dialogue and discussion. From here radiates a series of relationships involving other functions until you reach the outdoor spaces, where south and west collective gardens teach throughout the course of the year the care and dedication to the Earth’s soil. Here is where the “city metaphor” finds his completion, where every part of the school complex contributes to represent one, of his important appearance: the square, the court, the sport, the job, the care of the Earth’s soil. Also the same structure with which the building is imagined, tries to educate young people to the use of truly renewable construction materials like, in this case, the wood. The possibility, furthermore, to use  the workshops in extracurricular school hours, get used the students to a more consistent and responsible stay, without taking time to play and experimentation, and to mark the first steps to the job world.

The relationship with the landscape and with the urban space has guided the drawing of the basic’s project idea; the educational spaces and those usable in extracurricular school hours are organized on a single level (except for the gym), so as to favor, in different forms and quality, the direct relationship with the context. At South the classrooms opens onto the magnificent landscape of the vines. At North the relationship with the town is mediated by a linear square 20 meters deep that, in addition to being the big outdoor atrium of the school complex, it’s available to organize educational, playful and artistic events. At East the classrooms and retail spaces open onto the sport field. At West, the collective vegetable gardens, arranged to become a filter between educational spaces and the landscape, offers the possibility of experimental and innovative learning.