Starting from after-war period the venetian mainland faced a sudden yet uncontrolled urban development. In less than 20 years over 200.000 people moved from the historical Venice to Mestre, looking for a modern lifestyle: a job in Marghera industries, a dwelling with elevator and, finally, a brand new car parked outside.
The new hostel lies at the entrance of this city, next to the station, in place of an existing structure used to be a car service. As much as the former VEMPA has been strictly associated to the surrounding road infrastructure, even in the local toponomastic, after more than 50 years the project decides to separate from the highway bridge.
Today the entrance opens, through a generous pedestrian public arcade, only to the ground level street on the other side and even the explicit hierarchy of the facades remarks the unexpected relation to a part of the city so far abandoned and neglected.
A building result of an extreme rationality of the spatial and functional organization, with the clear intention to transform the needs to reduce the construction costs into formal clarity and order. A big inhabitable object responding to precise requirements of seriality and efficiency, looking for the maximum hospitality capacity inside the admitted volumes, able to accommodate 1000 young guests, nowadays arriving by train, by bus, or by low-cost flights.
