architecture civic center • competition • school
Location_Ceranova, Pavia
Year_2023
Area_2200 sqm
Client_Ceranova city council
Service_ Design competition
Architectural and pedagogical concept
The school is designed to be, first of all, a public place.
The investment that the community faces to build a new school couldn’t merely be justified by the need for new learning environments lined up with the evolution of pedagogy, but also by the ability to donate new spaces to local communities. For this reason, schools must be authentic civic centers, open to all citizens in the afternoon and evening hours.
In contexts of atomized and low-density urbanization, public schools must perform the function of aggregating communities of citizens, without any social barriers.
In the latest generation of educational architecture, is quite common the use of two terms: “Civic Center” and “Agorà”. They often refer to a single spatial environment. Our project instead arises from a very simple postulate: Civic Center ≠ Agorà.
The Civic Center is structured as a large public gallery, serving as the school’s atrium, but also as a distribution space for a variety of functions for both the school and the community. This space should not be confused with the specificity of the Agora, which is instead dedicated exclusively to children. The Civic Center and Agora have a double connection on both floors, but through sliding doors that disappear, they can be compartmentalized, closing the Agora during extra-school hours.
In order to simplify the building as much as possible and contain construction costs, the architecture is not composed by adding volumes, but arises from a simple parallelepiped volume and proceeds by subtractions. The set of places of relationship and connection configure a spatial network similar to that of historic centers, where space is perceived as an excavation starting from a full mass.
Spatial subtractions are generated by flows that intersect in space to define a helix structure, capable of imparting a particular concentric dynamism to all internal and external paths.
The first spatial subtraction, namely the entrance portico, with its double height and chiseled façade skin to highlight the entrance, is precisely that void that generates a movement destined to propagate throughout the building. A full-height glass window invites you to enter the Civic Center.
Large and airy, it can host temporary exhibitions and distributes various functions including the auditorium, multipurpose rooms, and the educational management.
The vertical distribution is part of the Civic Center and also allows you to reach the roof level. Foreseeing a possible future expansion of the school, it was in fact decided to bring stairs and an elevator up to the roof to raise it instead of building on the ground.
The result is a practicable roof that can be fully used for both scholastic and extracurricular activities.
Brightly lit by large zenithal skylights, the Agora is the center of the learning spaces. It unifies the school community, as all the classrooms and laboratories overlook it, without exception, creating a sense of community in which the division into classes and sections becomes a mere organizational fact. The library is designed to be entirely open-shelf facing the Agora. Arranged on two levels, on the ground floor it merges with the stepped space, on the mezzanine it has a long table-balcony overlooking the double height.
Urban context and outdoor spaces
In a context of widespread urbanization and atomized building fabric, the project aims to generate spatial and functional density, aggregating volumes and recreating in vitro the environmental and relational qualities of traditional historic centers. Access is via a wide pedestrian avenue equipped with long benches. A new sidewalk, built by sliding the size of the parking lots, allows a safe connection with the gym without affecting the swimming pool lot. The feverish vibration of the facade cladding creates a single urban backdrop together with the trees of the recently planted grove, representing the dynamism of the young lives that animate the school.
The relationship with the open spaces of the lot is not only formal-metaphorical: the Agora extends towards the courtyards and the grove, where in a clearing there is an outdoor classroom and a greenhouse, also with independent access.
Regarding the outdoor spaces, the peculiarities of the project are the two courtyards created in the back. The large one is stepped and allows for outdoor lessons, the smaller one is directly related to the canteen, can accommodate fruit trees and potted aromatic herbs. An external staircase connects the large courtyard to the roof. This works like a large periscope. It raises the children’s gaze above the roofs of the houses, towards the vastness of the landscape. The project of the outdoor spaces is a true path of spatial discovery that stimulates in the students a desire for exploration and research.
Under the large canopy that surrounds the skylights it is possible to organize any type of open-air educational activity, while the uncovered areas are available for educational horticulture and the creation of playing fields that can be used as an alternative to the gym.
Sustainability and technical construction aspects
The environmental sustainability of the project, pursued through active and passive solutions, aims to obtain a nearly zero-energy building (NZEB), capable of guaranteeing maximum comfort with reduced operating costs. Main aspect are:
1_Reduced form factor
Designing starting from a simple parallelepiped allows to minimize the dispersing surface. The decision to organize the school on two levels is part of this strategy, in addition to allowing a substantial reduction of the building’s footprint, to the advantage of the conservation of draining virgin soil.
2_Thermal inertia
Thermal inertia represents the building’s ability to delay over time (phase shift) and reduce the size (damping) of the incident thermal wave. The abundant thickness of the perimeter walls allows to achieve a considerable thermal inertia, reducing the need for thermal production.
3_Advanced air conditioning
Low-temperature heating is planned with radiant floor panels powered by a geothermal heat pump, with the possibility of also using it in cooling mode. A centralized controlled mechanical ventilation system guarantees constant and perfect air quality and humidity, without having to operate the windows. To cover the energy needs, there is space on the roof for 6 strings of 10 monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic panels. With a single power of 400 W, they allow the production of 24 KW of electricity.
4_Water recycling
The large quantities of rainwater collected by the roof are conveyed into an underground cistern and used for flushing the bathrooms and for watering the garden.
To give continuity to the vast program of renewal of Italian school architecture, there is no need for a few extraordinary projects, but rather for many realistic projects. Our project humbly aims to respond to this national-scale request by proposing a simple and economical building that can be built by medium-sized local companies. A building with no possible critical points, therefore able to respect a tight construction schedule. The construction technique, of low-tech philosophy, includes a cast-in-place reinforced concrete frame and infill in multilayered thermally insulating blocks based on expanded clay with an internal insulating panel. Ensuring that the insulating panel is always protected on both the internal and external sides gives the wall solidity, strength and durability over time. The facades are finished with prefabricated fiber-reinforced concrete (GRC) panels, in a sandy yellow shade that is very common in the Pavia area.
This technology is intended to provide the school with the facade finish with the highest durability and ease of maintenance available today. The perimeter frames are installed flush inside deep recesses, have anthracite-colored aluminum/PVC composite frames and are fitted with triple glazing. To ensure solar screening, adjustable to perfect darkening, an electric venetian blind with aluminum slats is mounted on the outside of the frame.
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