2001
MIDDLE SCHOOL
a middle school in the
former Breda industry
zone - Pistoia
national competition
|
project start
date |
2001 |
|
location |
Pistoia -Area ex
Breda, Italy |
|
promoter |
City of Pistoia |
|
architects |
Marco Meozzi -
Massimo
Lastrucci,
Architects |
|
structure |
Mario Ciatti ,
Engineer |
In 2001 the City of
Pistoia launched a
competition to design a
new middle school for
the areas of the former
Breda industrial
workshops.
The aims and objectives
of the project presented
were :
1- to favor the school
building's integration
into the city and into
physical outdoor fabric.
A simple typology of
building bodies, in a comb arrangement, similar to thepre-existing
industrial loft
buildings located
nearby.
The loft building
typology recalls the
forms of the greenhouses
present in Pistoia's
territory.
2- to create a system of
new relations with the
structure.
New spaces of relation
were created (squares,
streets, pedestrian and
bicycle paths) which are
usually located outside
the school building and
belong to the city.
On the basement floor an
urban square was created
to constitute the main
“gate” of access to the
city for anyone arriving
from the large
underground parking lot
for city use.
The idea was to create
an urban life underneath
the building and
independent of the
schools.
3-Favor the permeability
and accessibility of the
people not connected to
the school.
Be able to facilitate
use by external
subjects, in fact many
spaces usually designed
for a school' exclusive
use, such as the gym,
the cafeteria , reading
rooms, laboratories,
have here been made
available to all the
townspeople.
The entire area is free
of fencing to allow and
favor the crossing of
the space both on the
ground and underground
floors.
4-Favor an aconomic
approach to the
management costs via
methods of passive
bioclimatic control.
Relying on renewable
energy, the heating
system uses solar energy
as much as possible and
insulates against the
transmission of indoor
heat to the exterior.
The system mainly
exploits the thermal
inertia of the shell and
of the “greenhouse
effect” employing the
"Trombe wall” system in
which the outside wall,
protected by a
continuous glass surface
forms an interspace thus
acting as an
accumulator. In the
winter the air of the
interspace is warmed by
the sun therby
activating an
ascensional circulation
and, at the same time,
while receiving
gradually the heat from
the mass of walls.