PORTFOLIOARCHITECTURE

ALESSANDRO MARTINELLIe - m a i l : a l e a r c h i 9 0 @ g m a i l . c o m

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ORIZONTAL SKYSCRAPER ............................................................................1EXPOitGO ................................................................................................................. 7HOUSE CAFFAR ................................................................................................. 12CHICAGO COLUMN ......................................................................................... 17GREEN NET ......................................................................................................... 22

O R I Z O N T A LSKYSCRAPERLABORATORY COURSE IN ARCHITECTURAL PLANNING 3

This project has been carried out by a group of 8 people, mine role was that of the group leader, I had been chosen to lead the group because the basic idea is my own, but the final solution contains a contribution of the whole group.

The demands of the project include: the creation of a students dorm and community services within an area located upon the Isonzo, a river near Gorizia.

June 2012

Project for the city of Gorizia, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

Group Project

Professors:Prof. Stefano Gri e Prof. Piero Zucchigeza@geza.it

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PLANIMETRY AND CONCEPT

The idea behind the project is a building consisting of a single block that rests on the banks of the river, which creates a inhabited bridge, al-ters the surrounding land and con-nects two districts of the city of Gori-zia. The initial project concept ori-ginates from the desire to create a new polarity in the city, creating a tie with the river: in the current situation, the city is completely alien to the river. The project has evolved in stages whi-le maintaining the formal characteri-stics of the initial idea and developing gradually more and more issues. The building changes the surrounding landscape and the two blocks ends in contact with the banks are treated in two different ways: to the east side the horizontal skyscra-

per stands on a square, creating a fil-ter space and opening up towards the city; to the west, on the other hand, the building faces the mountain, dril-ling it and creating a relationship of full-empty. This difference also affects the design of the two shores: ordered and stiff the east, natural and roman-tic the west. In addition, to contrast the grandeur of the horizontal skyscraper, a volume. In addition to this, I imagined some trees to contrast the volume of the horizional skyscraper: its lightness and similarity in size and shape is in contrast with the massive volume of the building. The volume is positioned relative to the guideline of the histori-cal neighboring buildings, which rule the entire composition of the east bank.

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INTERIOR LAYOUT The building is divided into 7 le-vels, which are divided into 3 areas: the mobility area -the automotive (-1) and cycle and pedestrian (0)-; the area of public services (1 and 2); the area of residence for students (3:04) and the green cover an the upper level. The appearance of the building is unified by an outer skin made of me-tal mesh, which provides both shading for the inside and view to the outside. The internal structure is characterized by solids and voids, because of the de-sign choice to create spaces with diffe-rent functions inside the building.

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STUDENTS DORMAND SERVICES

The Student House is loca-ted in levels 3 and 4 and has a mo-dular arrangement with the com-mon areas positioned between two blocks of rooms. Throughout the building we find four residential are-as connected with the rest of the building by four lifts (one for each area) and two vertical connections that also act as meeting and rest places (represented in the render below). There are single or double rooms; each room has its own toilet and study space, while the remai-ning part of the services, such as the kitchen and living room, are located in the common area. The blocks of rooms are made up of eight rooms per floor on two levels and they all overlook the inner gardens, that are meant to bring in enlightenment. These gardens are located at Level 2, togheter with the services (the render below shows an example of the study classroom).

View of the library View of vertical connections 4

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E X P O i t G OLABORATORY COURSE IN ARCHITECTURAL PLANNING 1

This project was my first approach to architecture, developed in the second semester of the first year, I still arouses the in-terest for the topics covered.

The demands of the project include: the creation of an exposition area near the historical centre of Gorizia.

June 2010

Project for the city of Gorizia, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

Individual Project

Professor:Prof. Gianfranco Guaragna gguaragna@units.it

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It is evident from the plan that the lot is very small and this factor he-avily influenced the design of the buil-ding, because it was necessary to take advantage of the vertical instead of the horizontal expansion. Another key aspect of this project is the study of light and views. As it can be seen from the the plan, the lot is flanked by two houses, with five and three floors above ground respectively; the side facing the road is oriented nor-th-east and the only side that receives direct sun light is on the back of the bu-ilding, enclosed in a 9 meter high cour-tyard building. Therefore, this situation origi-nates the basic requirements that the project must fulfill.

PLANIMETRY AND CONTEST

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Planimetry

Plan of the lot Elevation of the existing 8

EXPOSITION PROJECT From this perspective section, the internal arrangement of the stairs can be easily observed: it is deliberately articulated to give the visitor a sense of disorientation and to break up the dul-lness . The visitor, in fact, becomes unconsciou-sly more attentive to what surrounds him: the architecture affects and involves the visitor befo-re everything else, regardless of what he/she is being exposed to. In a situation like this, the space problem is definitely one of the main points to be solved, and for this reason in the project the elevation of Formica street is extruded to the outside. This extension allows the creation of an in-ner and empty triple-height space, so it transform a small volume into something more complex, whi-ch creates surprise to the visitor who enters.

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Floor 4

Floor 0 Floor 2Floor 1 Floor 3 Floor 4

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LIGHT PROJECT The intended use of the building -the exhibition- makes essential the use of natural lighting, so it was decided to obtain the openings by moving outwards gradually the walls on each floor of the south side, allowing, in this way, the direct light to reach also the ground floor.

In the render below you can see the three openings in the wedge sha-pe, which bring the light in indirectly and the main of these brings light to the tri-ple-height space.

The openings morphology cau-ses the light to enter and to be reflected, hence creating an inner uniform illumina-tion, which is an essential element for an exhibition.

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W O R K S H O PG R E E N _ S P A C E SDIGITAL AND MODEL WORK

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HOUSE CAFFARPROFESSIONAL PROJECT

This project was my first work experience, it taught me how to relate with the client and how to design thinking about the realization phases. My task has been the architectural design and supervision during the construction work.

The demands of the project include: - accommodation for 4 people, 2 adults and 2 children.

September 2012

Project for the city of Villesse, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

Chief Engineer:Ing.Lorenzo Marini marini77@lorenzomarini.191.it

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The building is located between residential and in-dustrial areas; in the lot of the project there are two pre-exi-sting homes of other clients fa-mily members. The concept is very simple: the creation of openin-gs, oriented to favour the view

of the countryside and limiting those to the industry and to the neighboring houses, in or-der to ensure the privacy of the family. Due to the presence of disturbing elements of mode-rate height, the floor was rai-sed to allow a view over them.

PLANIMETRY AND CONCEPT

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EXPLODED DIAGRAM AND PLANT

The client set a limit on the size of the project to 120 square meters; the spen-ding threshold was placed to 200,000 . The budget did not allow the building of a two le-vels structure, hence the need to design everything on a uni-que floor. To take full advanta-ge of the space,I designed an

open space that embeds the living room, dining room and ki-tchen, and which is illuminated from the large window that al-lows the view of the countrysi-de from the living area. The sleeping area has 2 single rooms and one double bedroom; the client has also required 2 bathrooms and 2 service rooms.

Ground floor slab

Load-bearing brick masonry

Continuous foundations reinforced concrete

Internal partitions in brick

Roof slab

Glulam beam structure

Roofing tiles in cement

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SECTION AND DETAILS

From the section we can see that the foundations are continuous and a sanitary va-cuum was created by raising the ground floor. Foundations and sup-porting beams are made of rein-forced concrete, the perimeter walls and the partition walls are made of hollow brick, the roof covering is supported by Glulam beams and Boarding, and it con-sists of concrete tiles. The highlighted executive details show the more complex parts of the building, represen-ting the materials used and the building elements stratigraphy.

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1- Structure 2- Insulation3- Interspace ventilated4- Ridge beam

Ventilated interspace

Outer insulating layer

Inner insulating layer

Window frame

Continuous foundations

Boarding Curb

Concrete and masonry flooring system

Lean concrete Copper roof gutter Load-bearing brick

PlasterConcrete tiles

Glulam beam

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PICTURES OF THECOSTRUCTIONSITE DURING THEVARIOUS WORK STAGES

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C H I C A G O C O L U M NFINAL THESIS

The thesis has been a very formative experience, I appre-ciated the research work and the in-depth analysis of an interesting architecture like this.

ADOLF LOOSS PROJECT FOR THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.Geometric analysis, typological references

and digital representation

May 2013

Individual Project

Supervisors:Prof.Alberto Sdegno and Prof. Denis Mior sdegno@units.itdenis@media-network.it

Title:

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The purpose of my thesis is the analysis of the project for the Chicago Tribune by Adolf Loos, obtained through the study of drawings by the same ar-chitect, documents and sources found. The project by A. Loos was not chosen as the winner of the competition but, thanks to its morphology and its use of an architectural order as arketipo, stands out for its uniqueness and inno-vation. The lot of the competition is located in Chicago, specifically in an al-lotment owned by the Chicago Tribune, placed at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Austin Avenue. Its is 100 feet wide and 130 feet long, with a hei-ght limit set at 400 feet.

The thesis starts from the stu-dy of Greek and Roman architectural orders, especially focusing on the pro-portions of the ancient Doric column, and then it starts with the research and then continues individuation of the pro-portions used in the composition of this building, highlighting the similarities or differences with the classical orders.

The digital reconstruction -ba-sed only on the documents of the front elevation, a type-plant of the shaft and a perspective, submitted for the com-petition in 1922- was created using Autodesk Revit, a parametric design software, which has been a fundamen-tal tool, because making possible to manage a very complex project and to represent adequately the drawings.

PERSPECTIVECOMPARISON

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With the architects inten-tion to reintroduce the theme of the Greek Doric column, is natu-ral to wonder how the figure of A. Loos, openly against the ornament, can review the ancient orders, al-though it is clear that in the project there are many points in contrast with the classical order. The first point to deal with is the presence of a base that re-calls the function of a socle, which was not foreseen by the Greek Do-ric order, but it is not even com-parable to the proportions oo the Roman one. In fact, it is without cyma-tium or plinth, and it has a ratio between height and base that is unbalanced compared to the other orders: the latter usually is about 2/2.5, while the A. Loos order has a ratio of 1.4, that is very squat.

E L E V A T I O N The shafts height is another aspect to be analyzed: the Doric order defines the height of the column to 7 or 8 modules, whi-le the projects column measures 3 and modules, so this is also very stocky compared to the classicals proportions. In the event that in the competition announcement height limits was not fixed, the architect imagined the total height of the building would had been more than 200 meters -maintaining the clas-sic proportions and using the same diameter of the designed column-.

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Is it clear how the propor-tions of the Doric Greek order are not observed. The motivation for this is given in the competition no-tice, because it demanded a mini-mum height of 175 feet for the en-tire surface of the lot: this is, in fact, the height of the base volume. Therefore A. Loos has used (non un present perfect, used - past simple va benissimo!) the gre-ater height restrictions-225 feet- permitted by for the building and, to avoid a sudden change in width between the base and column, he has thought of designing the final

part of the base with terraces, thereby increasing the visibility of the column from below. The choice of such a squat column is definitely influenced by the competition notice, which re-quired large office spaces, and a thin column-as from classical pro-portions- would not have been adequate.

EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC VIEW

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AUGMENTED REALITY

The term Augmented Reality refers to a set of technologies that enable the fu-sion/merger of real and virtual. Augmented Reality allows the visuali-sation of a three-dimensional object by filming a marker -a printed image associated with the object- with a video camera and it allows the interactions with it by moving it physically. The camera recognizes the marker, and the software reproduces on the screen the image of the associated object. Moving the marker will cause the projected image of the building to move as well. Presenting a project, a client (who is usually profane in the architectural represen-tation) could hardly understand with the tradi-tional methods of representation. Despite that, the Augmented Reality could be a turning point: it could really overturn the idea of canonical representation as the client could simply interact with the three-di-mensional model of the building just by turning the marker or approaching it to the camera.

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GR E E N N E TLABORATORY COURSE IN URBAN PLANNING 2

This project has been carried out by a group of 3 people, we did not choose a leader, because we have found it very useful to openly discuss our ideas in a democratic manner.

The purpose of the project is to analyze in the first place and then to determine a development plan for the city of Gorizia.

March 2012

Project for the city of Gorizia, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy

Group Project

Professors:Prof.Paola Di Biagi and Prof. Maurizio Bonizzimaurizio@ufficioxarchitettura.itpdibiagi@units.it

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ANALYSIS AND

PLANNING STRATEGIES Our work began with the analysis of the city of Gorizia, where we obser-ved in particular the rela-tionship between different elements: the study of the buildings, the cataloguing of the green materials, the historical development, the relationship with the sur-rounding area, the infra-structure analysis and the distribution of productive sectors. From this analysis of the main solid volumes (the buildings and the river)

it is possible to see that how Gorizia has develo-ped primarily in the space between the river and the border between Italy-Slo-venia. These borders have caught our attention, prompting us to seek the causes of the urban deve-lopment. The first step was to identify a strip of urban fabric containing the main green spaces, which would create a connection over the two borders and resew the city. The second was to identify some green areas that, overlapped with the road networks, created a link along the way: the Gre-enNet. Finally, we have themed these areas to link them to the urban context.

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This table shows the project on a territorial scale in which the most important ele-ments are represented: the starting and ending points A and B -which serve as a link with the Great Parks system of paths-, the GreenNet and the green spaces inside the urban fabric. The thematic edu-cational area will be further explained in detail, because it is central and representative of the project concept, which we believe to be applicable in the other areas.

MASTERPLAN

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The study of this area shows that it is pos-sible to adopt a territo-rial scale concept even on the small scale: the link is seen as a tool for interaction of the urban fabric with the different thematic areas.

IN-DEPTHEDUCATION

AREA

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Woonerf composition

Woonerf entry

Woonerf sketch

Woonerf concept

DETAILS AND URBAN ELEMENTS

The study of the project has led us to investigate the fun-ctioning of the Woonerf. We researched a modu-le that will facilitate the realization of the project; we studied the va-rious possibilities and necessary combinations; we looked for new methods of the roadsides design, investigating the citizens habits, needs and requirements.

The project aims to create a new synergy at the urban level, starting from solutions such as the woonerf, which allows the citizens to rediscover new spaces, to iden-tify the street as a meeting and rest place -and not just as a mere infrastructure- and, above all, to reconsider the pedestrians main role in the street.

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Table of ContentOrizontal SkyscraperHouse CafarChicago ColumnExpositionGreen Net