2005 

SCHOLASTIC CLUSTER

Project for a combined Nursery School, Primary School and Gymnasium

Casalguidi is a classic single-street village of about 8000 people near Pistoia with houses constructed shoulder to shoulder on both sides of the main road.  In villages like these, the geometry of the village follows the tortuous geometry of the road.  In this project we wanted to reconstruct a piece of the city.  To do so, we designed a new pedestrian street creating a new access to the center of the town.  To the right and left of this new walkway, we placed the program components: nursery school, elementary school and gymnasium in a contorted alignment to mimic the nature of the village.  The forms of the buildings themselves and the nature of the facades of the school are intended to recall the typical houses of the village.

The new pathway, complete with benches, trees and exterior lighting, widens at a certain point creating a small piazza (also to recall the form of the city). In addition, a raised walkway carries pedestrians across the village street and connects the gymnasium to the rest of the school. We wanted this new urban street to become the organizational backbone that both carried the school structures and at the same time to made an urban space (not just a schoolyard) that communicates with and recalls the nature of the historic center of the community.