Location_Salerno
Year_2022
Area_2845 sqm
Client_Ministry of Education
Service_ Design competition – Third prize
As part of the national maxi-competition “Scuole Futura“, financed with PNRR funds, we designed the reconstruction of the “ProfAgri Salerno” Agricultural Professional Institute.
Within the vast, predominantly agricultural sector of the school, the project, after demolishing the current degraded school building, inserts a circular-plan complex, fulcrum of a large landscape project. In a territory tormented by an overflowing human presence, the new Profagri wants to be first and foremost an oasis of Campania Felix, an expression of harmony between man and nature that over the centuries was expressed in the ancestral order of the countryside, but which today appears broken by an unstoppable urban expansion. The project envisions an educational agricultural park: the Profagri Oasis. A place for a renewed and authentic resonance between human agricultural activity and the natural landscape. Not just a school campus, but a public agricultural park, organized to host educational activities for children and local citizens.
The landscape project of the Profagri Oasis is structured through a kinetic line that arises from the peculiarity of the plot: a single and narrow access, which then opens like a large petal. Within this figure, a succession of spaces are outlined that lead from a rather chaotic context of the State Road 18, to the triumph of the countryside, with its vastness and its silences. The system of paths configures a real effigy, composed of the compact nucleus of the school and a halo that sews it to the landscape. The architectural volume of the school is only a part of an overall cartographic redesign, which links spatial thresholds with a precise liturgy:
1_Landmark. A totem structure with the Profagri logo, makes the presence of the Institute visible from the State Road 18.
2_Access road. From a shapeless widening, it is equipped with a protected lane for students who arrive by bus, reaching the school on foot.
3_Piazza Profagri. An uncovered pedestrian space with a funnel shape to direct the flow of incoming people.
4_Loggia, a covered pedestrian space that empties the mass of the building, allowing a glimpse of the landscape of the fields behind.
5_Courtyard. The spatial heart of the school, towards which all the rooms overlook.
6_Atrium. A double-height space, in which the connection between the floors finds in the steps an element of a still landscape nature.
7_Body of the classrooms, laboratories and all the other teaching service functions.
8_Pergola. A connecting element between the classrooms and the outdoor activities.
9_Large Multipurpose Hall. Can be used as a gym, assembly hall or event space.
10_Portico. A perspective opening space towards the large central basin of the fields.
11_Open-air classrooms
12_Pavilion in the pond
The architectural project of the school building has its figurative genesis in the observation of the beauty of those school activities in which boys and girls stand in a circle.
Symbol of a new teaching method, which is no longer based solely on frontal lessons, the circle
strongly defines a place. The school building aims to be iconic and intriguing, as well as able to fascinate the student, drawing him inside like an engaging whirlpool.
A magical and gentle enclosure, whose interior is protected but also permeable to local community activities to be held outside of school hours. Designing a school with an agricultural specialization in a peri-urban context requires the conception of a building that is different from the usual school container. The large lot open to the countryside strongly calls for a building with an organic soul, mainly in wood, capable of fitting into the crops with tact and lightness.
Its curved edges fade towards the vast open spaces. The angularity of the building to be demolished is replaced by a volume that accompanies the gaze towards the countryside.
With a view to optimising resources and reducing land consumption, the foundation of the new building is grafted onto a small portion of the one to be demolished.
The agricultural school is the nursery of a generation that will have to try to solve enormous global problems related to the protection of the Planet. In this sense it should be a place of criticism of anthropocentrism and incubation of new practices of harmony between man and nature.
A wooden building with a circular shape is therefore the ideal antithesis with respect to traditional construction, where mineral masses based on right angles and materials from non-renewable resources are arranged in contrast to the natural world.
With the same intermittence of light and shadow that nature offers us through trunks and leaves, the façade has a vibrant, iridescent score that softens the bulk of the building.
A school with a number of students that almost reaches two hundred units is first of all a public place. Like any public building, it is essential to make the hierarchy of spaces and the functioning of the building clear. There is a public dimension of the space, arranged on the entrance axis, which from the access square, leads, through the courtyard, to the multipurpose room.
This, which normally serves as a gym, can easily be used as a lecture hall, but also as an events space, as a farmers’ market and any other function that over time should become useful to the activities of Profagri. Then there is a more private and protected dimension of the school that begins in the large double-height atrium and develops circularly all around the courtyard.
In it, the laboratories are located on the ground floor, so as to be directly connected to the outdoor areas. They are very large and can be joined in pairs if necessary, thanks to sliding doors. On the first floor, on the other hand, there is space for the more traditional classrooms, in a sort of division between practice and theory that structures the moments of learning.
Description of the spaces
Agorà_The project merges into a single spatial space: the entrance square, the covered loggia, the atrium and the internal courtyard. The latter is accessible without having to cross any internal space, making it suitable for extracurricular activities of all kinds.
Using the building as a community aggregator, in a neutral place like the school, where differences in wealth or ethnicity remain outside the gate is in fact a primary objective.
Like a plant organism, whose a-hierarchical functioning sees a plurality of paratactically arranged organs, almost interchangeable, so the school is a crown of environments, all visible, easily reachable. The staircase that connects the two floors is partially stepped, so that it can also serve as a place to rest and not just a passage. The elevator is positioned near it, making the structure 100% accessible.
Teaching area_Starting from the fulcrum of the courtyard, all the spaces of the school are geometrically generated, designed following the theory of the learning landscape. The environments are structured for innovative learning and the classrooms can be completely opened towards large and bright connective spaces, with a view to maximum flexibility. The door of the classroom for daily use is associated with other mobile panels, which can be opened like a book and packed laterally if necessary. The transformability of the teaching environments is total, reaching the point of being able to conceive, for particular moments, a completely open-space configuration.
This “learning landscape” is based on transparencies and visual connections capable of activating the gaze of the students who also learn by observing others.
In the spirit of the ancient motto Ludendo docere, the school works like a large board game, it opens and changes according to the most varied needs.
Library_Not a closed environment, but a “widespread library” that extends across the entire length of the galleries that overlook the courtyard. Comfortable and unstructured seats, multimedia stations, large tables, encourage a dynamic and creative approach to the use of books and multimedia material of the school.
Cafeteria_Conceived as a large open space, it is designed to be used even outside of school hours, by families, for parties or activities of the local community, through a secondary door, located under the entrance portico, but on the opposite side to the main entrance.
A compartmentalization in the distribution corridor makes it separable from the classroom cluster.
It opens directly towards the courtyard and the external garden, imagining that in the summer you can have lunch outside.
Bathrooms_Concentrated in a single block per floor, they are compartmentalized by doors to be used even outside of school hours, with access from the canteen/multipurpose room, but also directly from the external courtyard, inhibiting access to the latter and the teaching area.
Teachers’ Area_Positioned in a separate area, thanks to the dedicated access from the outside, it functions as a real office, where parents or third parties can access without intersecting the more specifically teaching spaces. It consists of a secretary’s office with a front desk, meeting rooms for interviews, closed offices and a refreshment area with a kitchen.
The area is equipped with toilets divided by gender, with changing rooms and showers.
Gym_A real multipurpose space, it can quickly be transformed into a lecture hall, a place for the market of agricultural products, a screening room, etc.
It is volumetrically detached from the main building, allowing for optimal acoustic insulation. The connection with the school is via a metal pergola that can also function as an entrance hall for those who use the structure in an extra-scholastic context. The changing rooms are positioned before the playing field, also serving as services available for outdoor activities. Inside the same building volume there is space for a small infirmary and the teacher’s changing room, as well as storage rooms for gym equipment and a storage area for chairs and tables.
With access from the outside, additional storage rooms for outdoor activities are created.
Technological and construction features
Organizing a construction site in the presence of agricultural crops requires the use of lightweight technologies and dry assembly construction processes, capable of generating the least possible amount of dust, noise and vehicle traffic.
Structure in laminated larch portals and floors/walls in self-supporting continuous wooden panels (X-LAM type), make the school a substantially prefabricated building that can be assembled in a few weeks, satisfying the criterion of absolute temporal speed dictated by the PNRR.
The anti-seismic performance of the laminated wood structure, mechanically connected with metal elements, is of the highest level.
The perimeter walls and the roof combine the X-LAM panels with a high-thickness insulating coat in rock wool, in order to offer a degree of insulation, thermal phase shift, breathability as well as acoustic insulation comparable to the best passive buildings.
To ensure maximum durability, the frames are installed in deep recesses, have anthracite-colored aluminum/PVC composite frames and are equipped with triple glazing. To ensure solar screening, adjustable to perfect darkening, an electric Venetian blind with aluminum slats is mounted on the external edge of the frame.
The facade cladding is based on a score of thin wooden slats.
To ensure maximum durability, this wood will be an industrial product chemically modified by acetylization (Ref. Accoya).
The roofing will be made with a pre-painted aluminum sheet covering with moderately sloping slopes that are hidden by the top part of the facade.
By decoupling the upper wooden closing slab from the roof covering, a ventilated roof is obtained that can cope with the heat waves that now appear well before the summer season.
Mounted on a slide on the sheet metal there will be strings of monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic panels for the entire extension of the roof (1200 m2 main building + 500 m2 gym), making the building able to give energy to the grid, rather than requesting it.
Regarding the heating systems, underfloor heating and cooling powered by a heat pump is planned. Thanks to the fact that it is in an open field, it is considered easy to carry out drilling for the installation of geothermal probes. A centralized controlled mechanical ventilation system will guarantee constant and perfect air quality and humidity, without having to work on the windows.
Regarding fire safety issues, the circular plan typology, when opened by a large entrance gate, becomes similar to a sort of linear building, although curved. According to this logic, the stairs were arranged, which being on the opposite edges of the closed volume guarantee a perfect location of the escape routes.
