In this article, we continue our series on Competitions.archi, presenting a collection of articles on different architectural competitions. Today, we will be featuring the winner of the Hangar Ticinum by Terraviva Competitions.
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THE HOUSE OF LIGHT
The aim of the project was to bring life back to an abandoned building, respecting the historical values that it represents.
The existing Idroscalo building has always played an important role in the life of the city, being a transit point, a shelter, a terrace and a landmark in the panorama of Pavia City, where life has revolved around the river since its beginnings.
The hangar stands on a strong concrete platform by the river. The structure of the building is good quality, but the filling of the brick walls has been damaged. The project involves removing damaged bricks from the wall structure and replacing them with glass blocks. This procedure allowed light to be brought inside during the day and released outside at night. Thanks to this, Idroscalo becomes a landmark on the city map again, attracting visitors with an interesting form, and it invites people from all sides like a lantern at night .
The towing rails for hydroplanes become a stair structure that enables people to meet the river. The structure is symbolically put inside the building, thus creating a new space hierarchy. The stairs enable various activities. They become the audience of the theater, allow you to enter the terrace, which is a perfect vantage point for numerous water sports and the nature of the Ticcino River. Terraces in the interior are creating new perspectives for the perception of the city.
The form of the building is inspired by the typology of Shakespearean theater. The stairs at the facade and terraces surround the central space, which is a platform with mobile elements. Movable elements make it possible to obtain various stage-auditorium configurations, as well as to create a workshop space. In Shakespeare’s theater, the sky was an additional setting for the performance, while in our project the background becomes the river.The original structure of the trusses and curtains enables the organization of theatrical performances on the background of the river, the installation of lights and decorations.
Visitors of the building create a game of shadows on the facade, which makes them participants in the performance and the object of interest of people from the outside.
TEAM
We met while working as part of the same team in an architectural office and quickly came to the conclusion that we had a similar perspective on architecture – its creation and critique. It turned out that we were just as passionate about taking part in architectural competitions outside of academia and that we worked well together as a team, which only strengthened our conviction that it was a good time to try our hand at a joint competition project.
COMPETITION SELECTION
At the outset, we naturally proceeded to select the competition. The theme was one of the most important factors, but not the only one.
We chose the theme of the ‘Hangar Ticinum’ in Pavia because of the task of dealing with the subject of a difficult architectural heritage and bringing it ‘back to life’, which is what the organizers wanted. In addition, the subject is real and important, having existed in the discourse of the city’s inhabitants and experts for decades – ever since the building ceased to serve its function and began to fall into disrepair. At the same time, it is an icon of the rationalist modernism movement, which developed mainly in Italy, and we considered this an important and interesting topic to address.
We believe that an equally important factor is the way in which the competition is organized – for you can tell by a well-written brief the seriousness and stature of the competition.
Gathering and compiling the necessary materials for the brief, inviting experts in the field and eminent architects, as well as an attractive prize, is a sign of respect for the effort and time devoted by the authors of the submitted projects, who often need a month or more to create their work. Student competitions are often the first contact with the work of an architect, and therefore we should also demand respect for our work and skills when choosing them.
By participating in such a contest, we can be sure that the competition among the participants will be high, which will translate into a high level and rank of the contest.
We usually approach an architectural competition like a problem or task that needs to be solved to find the right solution. The next steps of the design process are therefore for us a sequence of analysis, research, asking questions and searching for answers. The starting point, then, is always an in-depth analysis of the brief, which already at the outset raises a lot of questions and indicates certain paths of thought to be analyzed. It shows the context, the organizer’s assumptions and expectations, constraints and requirements for submitting a project. Reading “Hangar Ticinum” we learned, among other things, about the historical context (Idroscalo is monumental, iconic and an extraordinary example of synthesis between two different styles: the first still Secessionist, the second almost fully Modern), about its abandonment and deterioration.
One of the key tasks was to program the new building to serve the local community, to be socially and culturally attractive, open and create the potential for long-term transformation, while at the same time the organizers encouraged bold proposals and experimentation. So we started with general analyses of the site and the context: analyzing needs, functions, potential audiences (what age groups, social groups), communication, history, the role of the river in the city, cultural events and much more. We collected historical photos, read articles from the times.
The brief pointed to “The unquestionable historical and artistic value of the building, the uniqueness of the architectural typology and the worrying state of decay in which the structure has been for decades,” which inspired us from the start to think of the building as a testimony, a monument and important image forming the city skyline.
What’s more, we noted that the Ticinum River has always played an important role in the city – it has been a means of transportation, a means of communication, a venue for cultural events and the organization of major sporting events on the water, a meeting place. The Idroscalo building, on the other hand, stands on a bend in the river and at a crossroads, making it a kind of “gateway to the city.” This fact inspired us to decide on the expression of the building – it will become a lighthouse that will be a navigator for people heading to the city from the river and also an attractor for the neighborhood – a point of visibility from afar. These two ideas – a lighthouse and leaving a permanent structure seemed to complement each other perfectly and guided us to the ideal solution to create a translucent and illuminated building. We started looking for solutions to realize this idea – should we keep the original brick and only fill the cavities with a transparent material, or maybe enclose the whole thing with a mesh and let the structure slowly decay and dematerialize?
Sometimes we have to think through many options to arrive at the ideal solution that fits our intentions and context. How do we recognize that “this is it”? At some point, the individual elements begin to be complementary and form one logical and coherent whole. Every procedure and design decision is logical and needs no explanation. This is the moment that cements the idea. The second determinant of this one and only idea is the emotions we get from imagining its realization – when shivers and excitement appear it is a sign that we are on the right track. We believe that architecture should always evoke emotions in the viewer, no matter how arbitrary its function.
We decided to preserve as much of the original shape and substance of the building as possible, and to emphasize its unique character and preserve the heritage of modernist architecture. To this end, the decision was made to fill the entire beam structure with a transparent material that would be durable and aesthetically pleasing and at the same time not detached from its context. So we replaced the traditional brick with glass block, which meets these requirements – it has the same module as brick so it is a flexible building block, thanks to its insulating properties it does not require filling or encasing the structure with other layers to maintain the functionality of the building, and at the same time it lets light through, which allows you to see at night what is happening inside the building. Thanks to this, the walls “bring” light inside during the day, while at night they bring it out by becoming a beacon for the neighborhood. So the original brick was replaced entirely with glass block while the windows were left in their original form. In this way we achieved a hierarchy and narrative in the space – from the entrance the user sees only the fuzzy, faint shapes of the surroundings, which creates an abstract scenery and background for the events happening inside, only at the end, after walking through the building, do we reach the terrace on the second floor, where we stand at the height of the windows and can admire the river as we know it. With this change of perception, visitors gradually come to the Ticino River and can rediscover it – from a previously unknown perspective.
While gathering information about Pavia, our attention was by the fact that the Ticino River still plays a huge role in the city. All of the city’s activity takes place right there – it’s a point on the route of the country’s most important water sporting events, and historically it’s also the aforementioned stop for hydrofoils. So preserving the connection to the water seemed natural to us for this location. Hence the idea to use the full potential of such a large and high “empty” volume – filling it with functional and adoptable platforms on different levels, which will thus create an arrangement of space for a wide variety of activities – a terrace on the +2 level by the windows for admiring events happening on the river, and a “natural” extension of the building over the water using the existing skids. This idea meshes with the historical context for which the Idroscalo building was created – a marina building, station and repair facility in one. The Idroscalo operated like a machine, where every element was an essential component – the skids pulling the watercraft from the water into the interior and onto land, the trains for repairs, the curtain as a gateway. Analyzing it in detail and in old photographs and creating an accurate model allowed us to understand how it worked. We wanted to bring this unprecedented process to people today – by recreating the path in a certain way, bringing the user closer to nature and literally experiencing “taking people out of the river.” We used the former skids to extend the building into the water itself, and placed stairs on top of them as a new meeting space and viewing platform.
The idea of watching activity inside the building seemed intriguing enough to pull it further as a design theme as well. We wanted to create a true two-sided experience – a building that becomes an audience but also a stage – literally and metaphorically. This was the slogan that gave rise to the idea of a theater. The users of the space moving through it will create a shadow show on the facade of the building, while thanks to the placement of the viewing terrace and stairs they themselves can become an audience for the events happening on the river.
Having already defined part of the design assumptions, we were looking for a space arrangement that would be functional, easily adaptable and correspond to the centric layout of the space. The traditional, approximately centric models of theaters we were familiar with did not fit with the contemporary, experimental vision of the space we saw here. We began a search for alternative typologies of theaters where viewers can enjoy performances from different levels of the room.
At this stage, we made a lot of interior design models. We thought a lot using a cross-section so as to imagine how it could be configured in different ways. While researching various historical theaters, we came across one that particularly inspired us. It’s a Shakespearean theater where the main stage is located in the middle on an elevated platform, and galleries surround it on all sides so that we view the play from different perspectives and heights.
“There were two kinds of public theaters in Shakespeare’s time. Playhouses, like the Globe, were outdoor theaters – they had some covered seating, but the yard in the middle was open to the sky.” The sky was, so to speak, an extension of the play’s scenery. In our case, on the other hand, the scenery was to become a river. With the help of existing curtains, we would open up to it and expand the stage, or divide the space and leave the stairs for others.
Programming the building proved to be the most difficult task and as part of the design process took a very long time. Using these accepted principles, keeping in mind the paths of movement of different groups We finally created several layouts of stages and auditoriums and a completely complex layout where the building is an open multi-purpose hall.
Authors: Paulina Pawlikowska and Paulina Górecka from Poland
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