Trailer Expressions from the Territory

The lesson traces the lines of an itinerary of design and continuous research starting from the province of Ravenna and the relationship between architecture and the territory it is set in, in an exploration that addresses critical thinking related to the figure of the contemporary architect, in connection with the client, the process of transforming urban reality, highlighting interdependencies and dynamics.

Research carried out through the project and narrated by the voices of designers Emilio Rambelli and Gianluca Bonini, founders of NUOVOSTUDIO, in the expression of an ever-changing profession and design, in its relationship with the client and its territorial and historical context. A dynamic excursus starting from Palazzo Affari, a symbolic building for the city of Ravenna, located on one of the main streets of the outer ring road of the city, built as an element of territorial connection. The building interprets and develops the urban planivolumetric project dictated by the public administration, it consists of four two and three-story buildings above ground connected by a giant portico. The latter joins and links the four bodies, with an elongated and slightly curved shape, so that overall the intervention is perceived as a single large arc of a circle.

A landmark building that narrates the relationship with the existing fabric, similar to what happens for the urban regeneration of the Darsenale, an intervention of renovation and urban recovery of a building, example of industrial archeology, at the Darsena of Ravenna. The in-depth study narrates the design opportunity to transform the disused space while preserving the material memory of the place and its compositional characteristics, making it once again usable by the community.

The theme of the relationship with the territory is also traced within the narrative, enriching the lesson with a further design typology, the one related to the residential composition of patio houses. The contribution of both professionals - an architect and an engineer - becomes a means to analyze a typology that finds its roots in Roman times with the Domus Pompeiana, distributing domestic rooms around a central space often used as an intimate and private garden, limiting the openings on the facade and enhancing the relationship between domestic microcosm and natural elements. Casa AG and Casa MR become the manifesto of the patio typology, proving to be a juxtaposition of simple regular volumes, glazed internally, marked by a great formal and distributive essentiality, characterized inside by spatial articulations and visual resources that put them in direct relation with the internal gardens.

The last two chapters of the lesson, focus on a public building - the Galleria Lercaro - and several retail spaces: two equally important case studies that explain the link with the territory bordering the province of Ravenna - the Galleria Lercaro is located in Bologna - and, as an antithesis, the link between the province and the international system of the world of design and composition connected to the commercial field. Crucial food for thought that binds the proximity of the province to the internationalization of architecture and interior design in retail realities spread on a global scale, in connection with clients of international stature requiring cutting-edge solutions that can give value to the visual component, not only as an aesthetic choice but as a true artistic experimentation capable of merging architecture with art.

Architecture that reveals itself through its buildings, colors, materials, compositional choices, large-scale and detailed design, the selection of furnishings and finishes on site, in a tale of images through a photographic communication and representation aimed at combining a gesture with an emotion, a volume with a detail, in an engaging and constantly evolving architectural and design narrative.

Learning objectives

• The lesson turns its attention to the relationship between architecture and the territory it is set in, in an exploration that addresses critical thinking related to the figure of the contemporary architect, in connection with the client, the process of transforming urban reality, highlighting interdependencies and dynamics.
• Starting from NUOVOSTUDIO’s urban and territorial context, through case studies of different types of architecture, the opportunities and advantages of a design process carried out in close relationship with the territorial context are defined, including architecture aimed at creating new buildings and architecture applied to what is built, in a relation with the existing.
• The lesson includes an in-depth study of the patio residential typology, as a starting point to reflect on contemporary living and its transformations over the years, from the demands of the client to the historical and cultural context it is set in.
• Starting from the concept of internationalization of the province, an excursus on the design of public and retail spaces, as a starting point for a material, detailed and “dimensional” research on the relationship of architecture between the original context and the final site.