RENOVATION AND ENLARGEMENT OF THE CANTONAL INSTITUT OF ECONOMICS AND COMMERCE
The project for the enlargement of the teaching spaces of the Cantonal Institute of Economics and Commerce (ICEC) in Bellinzona is part of the overall concept of renovation of a complex originally used as a military barracks - a work dating from 1964 by the architects Jäggli, Brunoni, Beretta-Piccoli and Tallone - later converted into a school in the early 1980s.
The approach is conservative as regards the rehabilitation of the existing, while the addition of new spaces seeks to correct the defective orientation of the school complex by turning it to face the floodplain of the Ticino River. The new building consists of a long body raised from the ground and connected precisely by the stairwells of the main block.
The location finally gives the school a main front facing the river, which no longer flows past the rear of the complex but becomes its favoured setting.
