New Middle School
The Gradara middle school fits into the existing built context of the school and sports campus. The elevation profile and the morphology of the terrain define the compositional layout of the project and its connection to the ground, with the intent of reorganizing the area.
The school building, composed of two lateral volumes—two wings that bend inwards downstream towards the view of the medieval castle village—has its connecting volume in the central, glazed, and transparent hinge, which enhances the indoor-outdoor relationship of the educational spaces.
The connecting and relational areas of the school characterize the building's floor plan.
The result is a school that is open in its internal spaces, facing the light, with a strong connection between inside and outside, with the trees and greenery, and with a close physical and visual relationship to the hilly landscape, the sea, and the medieval castle village.
The brick wall backdrop defining the school's entrance threshold enhances the building's image in its relationship with the history of the castle walls and borders the outdoor area in a mutual interaction with the educational environments.
The interior of the new building is accentuated by a reinforced concrete wall supporting the main staircase, around which the double-height entrance atrium revolves.
The irregular layout of the walls in the distribution of the internal environments, along with the color schemes characterizing the various horizontal and vertical planes of the connecting spaces, facilitates student orientation and school activities in applying the teaching methodology for learning environments.
The two-level library designed as a study and reading space, the conference room, the computer lab, and the music lab are designed as permeable environments; they are accessible to the community beyond school hours and can be used independently, benefiting not only the local community but also the surrounding territory.
