P O R T F O L I O

A U R O R A D E S T R O

INDEX

EXHIBITIONS/PUBLICATIONS

2014 HIGH RISE - COLLECTIVE VISIONS ARCHITECTURE REPORTER

COMPETITIONS

2016 "MAMAFRICA"

2016 "ENTER THE VOID" CULTURAL SUPERMARKET

2016 "OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE"

ACADEMICS

2015 "OPEN EYES" THESIS PROJECT M.Arch. Politecnico di Milano

2015 "CALL FOR COMPETITION" DESIGN STUDIO II M.Arch. Politecnico di Milano

2011 EXTENDING OF THE GUGGENHEIM DESIGN STUDIO III B.Arch. Politecnico di Milano

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When I was asked to link some words to the concept of verticality I immediately thought about

masculinity. The “competition for height” can be seen in the buildings of every age that shape the architecture of cities. Buildings are symbols

and the vertical ones are males. A church, for instance, is made by two complementary parts, the tower as masculine symbol, and the dome that indiscriminately hosts the believers in a

mathernal way. This project focuses on Milano-Isola, a zone in which many male-edifices have been built. From this perspective the menace of this buildings is naively diminished, in order to stimulate new thoughts and ideas for the future.

BUILDINGS’ GENDER_______

“HIGH RISE”COLLECTIVE EXHIBITION

2014

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“MAMAFRICA”_______

UGANDAN LGBT YOUTH ASYLUMARCHITECTURE COMPETITION

2016

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Idea of semi-autonoumus settlement, small community, within a non-ban context. The

architectural shape follows a completely free approach. No barriers. The idea of protection is

natural and innate. No forcing. We born protected by our mother, her womb is our first house. We

are safe without being aware of it.

Buildings turn into wombs, rooms into cocoons. Individuals feel safe and related only

to themselves regardless their sexuality and sexual experience. Bamboo fence is a filter. No

separation. Different degrees of privacy. No division. Different levels of accessibility. No

exclusion. Playground as community meeting area. Local material to support local market.

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“ENTER THE VOID”CULTURAL SUPERMARKET

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TOKYO POP LABARCHITECTURE COMPETITION

2016

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In our vision the cultural center becomes a supermarket. Here people just go, pick and choose the kind of culture they want to take

and put in their trolley. The variety of cultural activities are hosted in a collection of iconic

pavilions, stored inside the cultural supermarket. It is a container of culture-makers-archetipes, that have an expiration date, so after a while (consumed or not) the pavilions have to be substituted. The result is an unpredictable

aggregation of volumes that contain and make culture. In a vision of abundance the distinction between high art and popular culture collapses and everything in social life can be said to have

become cultural.

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Olly olly oxen free!

The camera in my hands, I draw it near my cheek.

Looking in the viewfinder with my left eye, winking with the right one.

I find myself alone, in my dark room. It is a window on the world, always bright, constantly

letting the sunshine in. I set, I focus.

It is the best gift I have ever received. I’ll bring it with me everywhere, along with my memories of

Michelangelo.I met him when my town was still my home,

when my family was still together, when we still had a home. [...]

“OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE!”_______

FAIRY TALESVISIONARY ARCHITECTURE STORYTELLING

COMPETITION

2016

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The Fairy Tales competition invites architects, designers, writers, artists, engineers, illustrators,

students and creatives to submit their own unique architectural fairy tales. The scale, location, and program of the submission is up to each entrant. A successful entry crafts a text narrative, along

with 5 images, in the most spectacular way possible.

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[...] I find myself alone, in my dark room. It is a window on the world, always bright, constantly letting the sunshine in.

I see the trees, the garden, the green grass. All around, the buildings of my town seem to have lost substance, light pierces through the

holes. It looks like a structure made of light [...]

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[...] They are our homes, without foundations, yet their aspect is reassuring. They constitute an ephemeral and evanescent city made of frozen igloos, ready to vanish without leaving trace of

their existence. [...]

[...] It is a limitless and always identical surface, where we are gliding through with difficulty. The blue and arid sky wraps us like

an immense cover. [...]

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I see a giant rock, a lintel with no pillars.That is the limit, the border, an entrance.

Crossing it is like dying and being born again.Leaving this space where you changed for

something unknown is a relief and a new trauma at the same time. You must be ready. We are not

ready but forced to.

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Drachenberg is a 120 meters high hill, one of the few places around Berlin from which it is possible to see the city’s panorama. It is a natural site surrounded by forest, characterised by the contact with nature, silence, isolation from the city and a 360 degree view of the horizon. All these features make it a place of introspection and connection with the natural surroundings. The project brings into focus the natural landscape, the view of the city, the sky and its light through experience. Its references are the great examples of archeoastronomy around the world and their relationship with the circadian cycle of nature, and the works of contemporary artists who research on the theme profoundly. The design of the spaces is strictly connected with the natural light and how it changes with the passing of time, in this way architecture becomes the medium that makes the naked eye observatory work.The design of the project is based on elementary centric geometries. They are recurrent shapes that can be found in every natural element. Centric geometries are also present in every culture and they have been used in architecture since ancient times, especially in sacred buildings and those connected with spirituality. Therefore the spatial composition follows a geometrical grid based on the center and two main axis (north-south, east-west). The geometrical grid has been built on the orography of the site as well, so that it embraces and develops the volumes of the project within the volume of the hill. Eight hypogeal spaces connected by tunnels are disposed around a central element. They build up a sequence of rooms, each one of them shifts the visitors’ perception to a different aspect of the natural cycle of light and nature. The sequence ends in the central pavilion that finally reconnects to the totality of the 360 degree view.

“OPEN EYES”_______

A PLACE OF MEDITATION AND CONNECTION WITH NATURE AND

ITS RYTHMS

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GENERAL PLAN

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Politecnico di Milano |Facoltà di Architettura e Società | Corso di Studi: Architecture | a.a. 2014/15 Tesi di Laurea Magistrale | Relatore: Pier Federico Mauro Caliari | Correlatore : Carolina MartinelliOcchi Aperti - un luogo di osservazione e connessione con la natura ed i suoi tempi | Aurora Destro Giulia Maretti

Assonometria

AXONOMETRY

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“Going uphill”VIEW

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EXPLODEX AXONOMETRIC VIEW,SECTION, CELESTIAL AXONOMETRY

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16:30 h

5:00 h

8:30 h

15:00 h

4:30 h

SEQUENCIAL VIEWSJUN 21st

PAVILION II

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The goal of Lwd2018 (Leeuwarden as European Capital of Culture in 2018) is generating culture with a bottom-up initiative instead of imposing some monster-plans from above. Instead of building unused/unnecessary/then-abandoned constructions, we want to gift to the city something coming from its soil, a project that may not be so monumentally permanent and unreasonably costly.As landscape is such an important aspect of Leeuwarden personality, both from the cultural and the historical point of view, we decided to consider the regional territory as a whole. Hence Leeuwarden appears the capital of an anthropic lowland, a flat land scenery made by agricultural fields, grasslands and a dense net of canals, populated by villages, towns, cows and wind turbines.The main aim is to reinvigorate Leeuwarden cultural life through its territory, via ephemeral land art projects. It is a way to look backwards at its roots and simultaneously work on the physical reality.Land Art stimulates new approaches and unconventional ideas that take place in the landscape. Because of the materials and deep connection to nature it is submitted to a temporal process, something that doesn’t interest other disciplines (except dance and performing arts), so it evolves (or un-evolves toward death) with the surrounding.Land Art stimulates new approaches and unconventional ideas that take place in the landscape. Because of the materials and deep connection to nature it is submitted to a temporal process, something that doesn’t interest other disciplines (except dance and performing arts), so it evolves (or un-evolves toward death) with the surrounding. As Land Art has no theory and fails to attend any conceptual concern, it opens up to thought-provoking possibilities. It made possible to think about an ephemeral unfixed project, an entropic horizontal diffused city, a stage with a piece going on that needs time - day, seasons, years - and space - movement - to be perceived.

“100 PLACES OF LAND ART”CALL FOR COMPETITION!

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A COMPETITION AS ANSWER TO A DESIGN ISSUE

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METAPROJECT

STRATEGY

|.|The strategy is to create a Land Art installations system along the existing connection networks (spread city of Towns and Land Art sites) on the Frisian territory: a 25 kilometres radius park of Land Art. |.|The focal points of the system are the 11 cities and 4 islands which are connected by the already existing networks of road, rail and water connection. |.|The proposed 100 sites for Land Art are spread around these connection networks. |.|The connection networks to these sites are refined further by eco-friendly systems of shared vehicles, bicycles, boats and along with introduction off a one-year lasting temporary air networks of airships and hot-air balloons. This provides a freedom degree to the movement pattern in and around the Land Art Sites for the visitors along with inhabitants. |.|The connections between the 11 cities and the 4 islands are characterised by four different themes, so that one embraces a path made by installations both physically and conceptually related to each others. |.| As the Frisian landscape has always been characterised by devices that converts natural energy, as old windmills and wind turbines, the main axis is made by land art installations that capture green energy from nature in order to be visible by night, both from the aerial view and the more conventional land-ways. [energy, light] |.|In the second path the land art works establish a strong connection with the environment, so they have to be focused on the ecological aspect, by investigating the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. [ecology, environment, organisms] |.|A third route follows an aptitude that wants to be a gesture on the landscape, more than a mise en valeur of a biological/scientific quality of it. [entropy, ephemerality, declaration] |.| In the forth axis installations reformulate in the simplest way the

organic/inorganic materials. The starting point of the projects will be the elements of the site. [re-formulation, entropy, elements]

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MASTERPLANTHEMATIC OPEN AIR LAND ART GALERIES

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1 km

Renassance ‘smulticursal labyrinth

geometrical plan drawing with multiple choices

One’s pathindividual choice

the traveller needs to find his own guideline

Elements/archetypes:episodes

Alone by yourself

The unknown

Equilibrium

Cap in hand

Center

Forks/crossroadschoices

THE LABIRINTH OF THE TRAVELLER

The center has a magnoetic attraction.The center isn’t visibile from the labirinth path.

The center is a hole.. face it!The path depends upon everyone’s choices.The time depends upon everyone’s choices.

It values yhe free will.

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Flat landscape Wind erosion

Entropy

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WASTE MONUMENT

It breaks the horizontality of the Frisian landscape by reformulating waste material.

Each cone-mountain will be gradually destroyed by the wind action that passes through a hole.

Each hole’s orientation follows a different wind direction.The first mountain to be destroyed will be on the side

where the wind blows more.

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“The Extending of the Guggenheim Museum of Venice” concept is to bring Contemporary Art in the Grand Canal, and it is based on the fusion of the existing palace and its collection with a new removable structure showcasing contemporary art. Since it is a modular-removable steel struc-

ture, that can be build in a different way depend-ing on the exposition it hosts, I designed every detail as if it will be really assemble: thinking

about the real scale for the first time was certainly stimulating and instructive, because it drew me close the profession. As I has always been inter-

ested in Art, this project fuelled my thoughts and my passions, it inspires me thinking about how to present the art works to the public, to make it

than more accessible.

EXTENDING OFTHE PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

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VENICE

Peggy Guggenheim on the terrace

2011

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REMOVABLE STRUCTURE

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LARGE CONTAINER FORTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS OF

CONTEMPORARY ART

CONTAINER: exhibitions spaceSCAFFOLDING: service spaces

TOWER: view and vertical connection

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GENERAL PLAN

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SECTION, PLAN

EXAMPLE OF CLOSED SETTING(closed by woden pannels)

TEMPORARY EXHIBITION:The Hyperrealism

R. Estes, R. Mueck, D. Hanson, R. Stipl, J. Wateridge

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FRONT ON THE GRAND CANALAND

PROSPECT ON THE GARDEN

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OPEN/CLOSED SETTINGS

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THE BUILDING OF