Historically, islands have always been entities closed in on themselves, fully
separate from the mainland.
On many occasions, islands have been used for different aims, sometimes as
fortresses, sometimes as places of exile, and other times as prisons. Designing
a University on the island of Poveglia is a great challenge: previously used
as a place for quarantine, as a place for plague victims and later for the insane,
this island was always dedicated to isolation and until now has kept to itself.
My design approach therefore is based on the concept of a place that can live
completely in autonomy.
My idea relies on exploiting all the features that the Island provides: ruins and
dense vegetation, aiming to valorise this magical environment. The project
is the superimposition of different levels, each one with a different function:
five new buildings cantilevered over a catwalk, which works as a communication axis.
These new buildings, sustained by pillars merged with vegetation, leave space
for the pre-existing buildings and host spaces dedicated to the university.
The main goal is to preserve and respect the essence of the island.
The buildings are spread in such a way as to maintain natural light; two of
them are built over a part of the ruins in order to retrain and emphasize their
importance; the other three are in the northeastern part of the island and
are purposely higher. Here we can find student accommodation, classrooms,
library and multi – purpose areas. The latter also have the function of being a
filter between different spaces and create a tangible gap between the different
parts.
In order to recover a link to the past I chose to reuse the preexisting buildings,
which are renovated and assigned to university functions: inside them,
you can find offices, laboratories, a canteen and exhibition areas.
The octagon is the sixth entity in the project. A spot, apparently unused,
where the open-air Auditorium will be located. All the new parts of this
project are touched by a catwalk, which becomes a ring around the island,
functioning as a main communication axis.
At the same time, it is an apparent border; on the ground level the pillars that
support the catwalk merge with the vegetation, while at the main level we
have a distribution of movement.
The catwalk is a pier closed in on itself; a terrace over the sea, yet still inside
the Island.