Transformation and functional recovery of the first floor of the Mercato Annonario into spaces for teaching.
A few years ago we were asked to design an initial recovery intervention of the sales area of the Mercato Annonario in Sanremo, a building built in the mid-1950s by the Fera and Grossi Bianchi studio of Genoa. Now we have designed the redevelopment of the spaces located on the first floor of the building so that training activities can be carried out there to facilitate the entry into the world of work of young people and adults with disabilities.
It was a matter of intervening in a space that was strongly characterized both in terms of size and architecture: more than 30 meters long and less than 4 and a half meters wide, with one side completely made of glass overlooking the entrance portico of the Market and the opposite side enclosed by the extrados of the reinforced concrete vaults that close the large sales room.
The most appropriate response to a design circumstance that made a very limited budget available was to create a fluid and highly flexible space. The space is scanned by large reinforced concrete portals that become the “measure” of the classrooms, divided by large sound-absorbing accordion doors, in colored fabric like the rooms themselves. The path through the spaces is identified by a bar code, positioned on the ground along the axis given by the iron window frames, now restored.
