Riconversione di ex sito industriale in abitazioni. Venezia
Working in a context like Venice, means understanding how the urban density had been developed since nowadays and how it faces the problem of water, making it not more a problem but the most important quality of the city and of the life in it. This analysis makes possible the definition of important specific rules for the general approach of the project, a sort of guidelines that as to be respected to make the intervention coherent with the urban context. Buildings all around Venice form a compact facade on water, having inside almost always a courtyard that solves the problem of the access to many housing units. In addiction to this, the singular method used for the realization of buildings due to the strange context in which they are realized makes them typologically divided inside in rooms and spaces that became even littler and littler during the time. For this reason the project tries to reinvent this urban shape through an aggregation of a defined type that represents a good combination of private need and the possibility to distribute it in relation with the common ground and the public spaces.
This cell is balanced to adapt itself in different cases, facing the need of different housing typologies, not modifying at all its outside features. In this way we have a new compact urban structure generated by a sort of "hidden" diversity: as it already happens in Venice, the compact urban front developed through siècles appears uniform at the first sight; only a more analytic point of view allows to catch the singular features of each building. The cell is characterized by a squared plan (5 x 5 meters) and by the overlap of three storeys in which standard housing facilities are distributed. From the second floor, a little wooden stair, integrated with a furniture system lead to the third and last level where a terrace is conceived referring to the venetian "altana" typology which allow inhabitants to have little private outside space and a top view on the city. This use of the roof is not unusual for Venice, but also recall the industrial typology, where coverings are partially glazed to let the sunlight come in: a new coherence type which still has a strong relationship with the industrial nature of the site.
