Careful to address the delicate relations of cohabitation especially with the near cemetery, the architecture of the new primary school chooses the path of simplicity, rejecting any unnecessary formal presentation, and set up in a relationship of dependence and exchange rather than assertion.
Saving a pre-existing precious garden from destruction, a border-building is generated by the composition of elementary volumes made of exposed brick and white plaster, showing massive fronts onto the streets.
A discreet and essential architectural language builds up the old impression of a "defensive" construction with a compact and seemingly impenetrable basement in touch with the urban land. In the very heart of the project, a green court, protected and safe, is exclusively dedicated to children, free to run among the saved trees.
Reversing the logic of the street fronts, the project builds on the court of the trees transparent surfaces and glass walls that give all the main spaces (classrooms, foyer, common areas, dining hall and gym) the straight view of the garden and hills beyond.
Getting into the foyer, visitors have immediate perception of the overall shape of the building: from the large double-height lobby the court of the trees, the first set of classrooms, the core of the offices administration and teaching, the mineral patio (an outdoor south-facing patio, shaded and paved), the control location, the vertical distributions and then, beyond the window overlooking the garden, the volumes of the dining hall and gym are straightly visible.
Classrooms visually communicate with the garden through large windows protected by a diaphragm. Refectory and gymnasium, in kind of "hidden" positions to minimize the acoustic load connected to their functioning, can be reached from a second clear path.
The refectory is designed as a hybrid and multifunctional space freely equippable for joint activities. A large warehouse, specially crafted, can accommodate furniture and temporary partitions enabling diversified interior configurations.
Distributions on the first floor, facing on cantilevered entrance hall, illuminated by a long horizontal cut framing the hills, allow to reach the second classrooms block and the special labs. These ones, positioned within a long plastered volume leaning on the brick base housing administrative and management activities at the ground floor, provide students with interesting atmospheric spaces where a spectacular three-dimensional ceiling catches light and air from the sky.
These rooms, enclosed by massive walls carved only by an uninterrupted horizontal opening that frames the view of the south-horizon, are flooded with natural light: parallel skylights, north-facing, ensure conditions of homogeneous illumination avoiding direct sunlight. A large outdoor terrace offers children an attractive outer room for educational activities, recreational and playful. While overlooking the courtyard and facing the hills, this belvedere offers a wide dry artificial soil usable even in winter.
A simple system of collection, regimentation and conduct of dominant natural air currents within the spaces of the building has prevented the installation of an expensive mechanical forced air replacement plant.
This critical choice, recovering one of the traditional slow ventilation systems belonging to the knowledge of Mediterranean architecture and, more generally, to many of the pre-industrial civilizations, has allowed the building to get the better of technological sophistication and achieve a sustainability first and foremost intended as reason, consciousness, sensibility, good design.
Ultra-thin solar panels positioned on the facing south sloping roof of the gym provide 100% of hot water, while a photovoltaic integrated system, completely invisible, produces clean electricity for a power of 40 kWp, giving the complex a complete energy independence and the possibility of selling the surplus energy to the national network.
