photo by Iacopo Boccalari

Our last entry about the project ZUM was posted in July 2010, and that’s quite a long while… Nevertheless we have been constantly busy with the development of site works, so we think the time has eventually come to show some progress.
During the past months different persons collaborating with us have been shooting a good deal of photographs.
Take a look at them after the break…

On the  22^nd of June Francesca Pozzi came on site. The steel structure of the so-called ‘Block B’, an independent new construction placed on pilotis along the Eastern boundary of the courtyard, had already been completed and workers in white suits were busy painting black the bearing elements that will remain exposed. Demolition works were still going on in ‘Block A’ – the existing building – on the top floor and the old roof had been completely removed.

On the 29^th of June the new reinforced concrete beam on top of  the boundary walls of Block A had been completed. Everything was then ready for the installation of the new steel trusses of the roof. The steel frames for fixing the new windows were also ready to be walled up in Block A.

On the 13^rd of July, under the most unbearable Milanese heat, Carla Vitali was brave enough to show up on site after noon, climb the scaffolds and shoot these pictures describing the steel trusses being assembled and installed. More progress in Block B is also visible at this time with the completed montage of the outer sandwich panels.

On the 20^th of July Francesca Pozzi was back on site and shot some more pictures on Block A second floor as the steel trusses montage continued.

On the 26th of July, when everybody was leaving Milan in search for some shadow, the black structure of the roof was completed and casted its shadows on the second floor surface. The trusses, designed by studiometrico and developed by Ing. Marco Clozza, have been conceived not only to support the roof, but also to carry the weight of the new hanging mezzanines.

After the holiday break – on the 14^th of September – the sandwich panels had been placed and the Block A was eventually covered providing some shade to the workers. The hanging mezzanines corrugated iron sheets had been also layed out.

These pictures from the 21^st of September show the installed steel structures of the stairs leading to the mezzanines of Block A top floor. To transfer all the weight of the roof structure onto the existing pillars, the mezzanines are hanging from the steel trusses and the stairs are suspended by steel tubular elements.

On the 24^th of September Iacopo Boccalari, a talented student and a great handyman that was doing his internship at studiometrico giving an important contribution to our project KOSHO, showed up on site with his camera and its wide angle lens. His photographs render the size and proportions of Block A and Block B interior spaces. Thanks Iacopo! You are really able to provide the right tools in the right moment…

These photographs were shot by Carla Vitali with a beautiful autumn light on the 20^th of October and show for the first time the exterior of Block A after the removal of the scaffolds as well as the newly installed galvanized steel structure of Block A’s staircase toward the inner courtyard.

During her last visit on the 22^nd of November Francesca Pozzi depicted the progress of Block A: the galvanized steel structure of the stairs, the outdoor corridors and the elevator, the newly assembled sandwich panels façade toward the courtyard and the black framed windows on the street. By that time gypsum boards had already made their appearance on site as demonstrated by few images shot inside Block B.

The completion of this project has been postponed by few months, but we are confident everything will be done before Easter!

Design Team:

Lorenzo Bini
Claudia Brunelli
Michela Fancello

Design Consultant:

Gennaro Postiglione

Structures:

Marco Clozza (Atelier LC)

previous posts about this project:

ZUM – 1

ZUM – 2

ZUM – 3

The images featured in this post are part of the presentation that studiometrico issued to Nike Italia on the 1st of April 2010. Download the COMPLETE PRESENTATION (5.800 KB) to find out more about our proposal. Check out FRESHNGOOD to see pictures of the shop – designed by Sartoria Comunicazione – that has opened in June.

studiometrico team:

Lorenzo Bini
Francesca Murialdo
Claudia Brunelli
Giorgio Diegoli
Cristina Foglia
Egidio Iovene
Valeria Vitali

To describe the development of our project ZUM, we are very happy to publish a new set of pictures that Francesca Pozzi has been shooting for us on site in the last months.

Design Team:

Lorenzo Bini
Claudia Brunelli

Design Consultant:

Gennaro Postiglione

Structures:

Marco Clozza (Atelier LC)

previous posts about this project:

ZUM – 1

ZUM – 2

Few weeks ago American artist Dan Colen presented Karma, his first solo show in Italy. The exhibition, held at Massimo De Carlo, features the installation Oh Shit, a 15m long and 5m tall wooden structure that resembles a skateboard ramp and frames the painting Moments Like This Never Last (No. 2) through its large holes.  To develop and build the daring construction Dan Colen asked advise to studiometrico and Atelier LC. See few images of the installation after the break.

Last June we published a first post about this project for the transformation of an industrial building into offices to rent in Milan. Then we have been silent… but not idle.

Last fall we have been busy with the tender, in October Cometal S.p.A. has been appointed by the client as the main contractor and  in December the project eventually went on site! We are now able to publish some pictures showing the result of the main demolition phase and we hope to keep on posting as the works progress through the whole year.

Design Team:

Lorenzo Bini
Claudia Brunelli

Design Consultant:

Gennaro Postiglione

Structures:

Marco Clozza (Atelier LC)

previous posts about this project:

ZUM – 1

SEA – the company that runs Italian Airports – launched a 2 phases competition for the ‘new gate’ of the Airport of Malpensa. The brief, addressed to teams composed by architects and artists, defined a site between terminal and train station, a budget and some programmatic ambitions. The ‘Gate’ had to be conceived both as transit and pause space, function as infrastructure, be perceived as a landmark and behave as an exhibition space. Together with Massimo Bartolini and VudafieriSaverino we developed our (losing) proposal…

Premise

Novalis noted that “The curve is the triumph of the freedom on the rule”, and Oscar Niemeyer keeps on explaining: “I am attracted by the free and sensual curve.The curve I encounter in the mountains and in the rivers of my Country, in the clouds of the sky, in the waves of the ocean, in the body of the favourite woman. The universe is made of curves, the curved universe of Einstein.”

A gate for Milan

Our proposal is a permeable and autonomous space, defined and circumscribed by a curve with constant radius: a circle. The curve is strong in this context because is completely unusual among the surrounding infrastructures. The curve introduces a dynamic and relaxing ‘field strength’ that becomes the focus of its environment. The ‘perfect’ shape of the circle gains another significance at the architectural scale. The 2-dimensional perimeter carved on the territory is extruded into the flat volume of a 44 m wide and 5 m tall cylinder. The interior become organized space and, therefore, architecture: a circular room with a 30 m diameter flanked by two curved corridors that meet were the space opens to the terminal on one side an to the train station on the other.

Revolving door

This circular space is occupied by a revolving door tied to a structural pillar and constituted by 5 wings, each wing is 14 m long and features few colored glass panels. The revolving door is the metaphor of a transition, and of the world. It’s an open boundary and recalls the image of hotels, theaters, public spaces, meetings and travels… but it’s also the alias of a compass tracing a profile on a sheet of paper, of a radar scanning the sky and monitoring the airplanes traffic.

Fast curves

The curved corridors around the central room work – paradoxically – as fast connections. The outer boundary is composed by a bearing structure combined with colored glass panels. A screen saver is constantly projected onto the boundary of the central room: landscapes, movies, fragments and memories of Milan and the Milanese territory. The shadows of the passengers melt in this images as in a magic lantern.

5:PM

When the mechanical movement of the revolving door stops, 5 rooms materialize and become available spaces for art exhibitions, the ‘kaleidoscope-like’ space become background, the transit turns into pause. 5:PM is the name of our proposal for the ‘New Gate’ of Milan, it’s a revolving door with 5 wings, it’s the time when labor ends a leisure starts, it’s when computers are shut down and people goes out, it’s the right time for departures… and arrivals.

Plan (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

Competition panel (1.272MB)

The Competition Team

Massimo Bartolini
Lorenzo Bini
Claudia Brunelli
Roberta Rizzi

Berlin_los Angeles. A Tale Of Two (other) Cities has opened on the 12 of November at the Massimo De Carlo Gallery in Milan. The collective exhibition explores new trends in contemporary art through the work of young artists like Klara Liden, Josef Strau, Klaus Weber, Dan Rees, Kirstine Roepstorff, Maximilian Zentz Zlomowitz, Simon Fujiwara, Scott Olson, Frank Benson, Elad Lassry and Kaari Upson. studiometrico has designed a platform with two reading tables that allow visitors to browse through catalogs, books and magazine about the two cities.

The Project

The 4×5 m wooden platform divides the main exhibition space in two parts and features two reading tables (one for each city) and 8 small benches. The structure has been realized in MDF fibreboard panels that were pre-cutted according to given dimensions and quickly assembled on site.

the platform (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

The Construction

Once assembled, the platform, the reading tables  and the benches have been covered with a fibre glass wall covering to level and make uniform the surfaces. The material – called Gavatex – is produced by the Italian company Gavazzi and has been glued on the MDF panels and then painted with a warm grey color that matches the one of the concrete floor of the exhibition space.

The Opening

Are we going commercial? Could be… Matter-of-factly last autumn we have started to work on this very pragmatic project for the transformation of a 2.000 sqm industrial building into offices to be let out next year on the Milanese market.

Overall Plan

To transform the existing building and to optimise the usable surface, all the existing structures of the courtyard will been demolished. The Main building (Block A) will be preserved and completely refurbished while a new smaller building (Block B) will be built from scratch. Block A sits on the corner of two urban streets and is characterised by a pitched roof and a regular clean facade. Block B stands on pilotis to enable car parking, has a flat green roof and will only be visible from the inner courtyard.

First floor plan (click to enlarge, then right click to zoom)

Second floor plan (click to enlarge, then right click to zoom)

To comply with the planning regulations, the overall volume of Block A will not been modified. A new mezzanine will be inserted above the top floor and suspended from a the new steel structure of the roof to exploit usable floor surface. To provide access and light to each office a new external corridor with a steel mesh and a suspended fire staircase will be added.

Sections (click to enlarge, then right click to zoom)

The project will employ mostly prefab elements and reasonably cheap materials, Block B bearing structure as well as Block A corridors and staircase structures will be in steel. The new facades of both buildings will be clad with prefab sandwich insulating panels with metallic outer layer.

View of the courtyard (click to enlarge)

Block A - corridors (click to enlarge)

Block A - office (click to enlarge)

The fact that we don’t know our final users (the offices will be let out after the refurbishment) determined the overall ‘mood’ of the interior office spaces. Colours have been basically avoided, bearing structures, partition walls and floor finishing have been deliberately distinguished and characterised with different (mostly black and white…) materials.

Block A - office (click to enlarge)

Block A - office (click to enlarge)

Block B - office (click to enlarge)

Block B - office (click to enlarge)

After some months of work the planning application has been submitted to the municipality and the few contractors invited to tender. The project should go on site after the summer, the refurbishment is supposed to be concluded before summer 2010.

Block A - existing situation

Block A - existing situation

Block A - existing situation

Block A - existing situation

Block A - existing situation

The courtyard - existing situation

Design Team:

Lorenzo Bini
Claudia Brunelli
Roberta Rizzi

Design Consultant:

Gennaro Postiglione

Structures:

Marco Clozza (Atelier LC)

Only 48 hours after the successful ONLYWOOD (the COMVERT Headquarter Grand Opening Party) we went back to Casacomvert for the first skate-session after the completion of the Bastard Bowl, the first skateable spaceship ever landed on earth. It was not surprising to find out that there was a martian skating upthere!

Here few amatorial pics we shoot of Daniel Cardone:

Find out more about this project here.

Few months after their move into their new home, Those Lazy Italians at Bastard, with the help and guidance of Marco Clozza (a.k.a. The Engineer), are eventually busy with the construction of the Bastard Bowl, their spectacular and hazardous ultimate recreative device. Daily updates of the construction works are available here.

See also previous posts about this project:

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan | 2

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan | 3

Casacomvert!