Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA and PRÌA

Engineering: Tribù

Photographs: Rory Gardiner, Daniele Molajoli

Collaborators: Matteo Fabiani

Status: Built

Aquifère is an experimental prototype installed in Villa Medici’s orange garden. The project is grounded in the interaction between porous materials and water, activating elementary physical principles to produce cooling without mechanical energy.

The mineral plinth is made from by-products of travertine quarried in Tivoli, 30 km from Rome. Set into this base, a series of terracotta vases (ollas) forms a system of communicating vessels that distributes water evenly throughout the installation. By capillary action, water spreads across the entire surface of the ollas, moistening the porous stone before evaporating on contact with the warm air. This slow and discreet process absorbs heat and contributes to lowering the surrounding temperature by at least 2°C, in dialogue with the shade of the orange trees and the movement of the air. Travertine behaves like a reservoir rock: its porosity allows it to absorb, retain, and release water, preserving the mineral memory of the flows that shaped it.

Aquifère explores a passive urban cooling system that could be replicated in other contexts, while also questioning the capacity of public space to become an infrastructure of thermal comfort.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA

Landscape: Marta Fegiz Landscapes

Engineering: Cesare Lupi

Lighting Design: Viabizzuno

Photographs: Simone Bossi, Davide Curatola Soprana

Collaborators: Riccardo Martino, Vito Esposito, Matteo Fabiani

Status: Built

A Villino at the Edge of the City
This project occupies an early-1920s villino built for the cooperative of Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato employees, in the decades following Rome’s designation as national capital. It belongs to that phase in which state employment did not only structure administration, but also materially shaped the city through housing initiatives for an emerging middle class. Set originally amid the Roman countryside, the house is at once sober and carefully articulated: four levels with a private garden, load-bearing brick masonry, and restrained ornament typical of the so-called barocchetto romano.
A century later, the setting has been radically re-scripted. The area is now fully urbanised, with Villa Ada as the notable exception nearby, and many comparable villini have been demolished and replaced by the post-war palazzina—a denser, plot-intensive typology that redefined much of Rome’s residential fabric. The house under renovation is therefore an outlier: one of the few survivors still legible as a detached domestic artifact, retaining the scale, construction, and spatial promise of its original urban moment.

Reconstructing Legibility
The spatial strategy begins from an archaeological condition: decades of incremental alterations had produced an interior that was functional in fragments but conceptually unreadable. In the basement, the original vaults had been concealed to carve out additional rooms. On the main floor, service spaces—most notably the kitchen—had been reduced to small compartments with weak connections. Above, former open terraces had been enclosed into verandas set on mismatched levels, losing any memory of their exterior origin. Most critically, between the first and second floors, level offsets and ad hoc insertions disrupted vertical continuity, rendering the attic sequence and uppermost rooms both inefficient and difficult to inhabit.
The intervention operates through selective demolition of partitions and portions of slab to restore spatial clarity while acknowledging a century of lived modifications. The ambition was not to “freeze” an original state, but to re-establish an intelligible villino logic: clear hierarchies, continuous circulation, and coherent sectional relationships. The key gesture is a new curved stair linking the first and second floors, replacing a cramped spiral stair and acting as a calibrated hinge—simultaneously a functional connector and a spatial device that reorders the house around a readable vertical promenade.

Continuous Surfaces, Calibrated Light
Material choices amplify this regained coherence through continuity rather than contrast. On the lower level, a travertine floor acts as a light-bearing field, laid with minimal joint expression so that the surface reads almost as a single pour—an engineered continuity that brightens and stabilises the plan. On the upper floors, timber forms a continuous mantle that ties rooms and landings into one atmospheric register, reinforcing the sense of a unified domestic volume rather than stacked fragments. At ground level, plaster produces a soft skin that merges walls and mouldings into a single plane, reducing visual noise and allowing profile and shadow to do the work of articulation.
Upstairs, lime-based finishes developed with specialist artisans introduce a subtle mineral depth—less a “special touch” than a controlled material vibrancy that changes with daylight. A new steel balustrade completes the sectional narrative: it reprises the ellipsoidal geometries recurrent in the house, and it stitches together the new curved stair with the main stair as one continuous element across levels. Lighting is designed as a site-responsive system, tuned to the building’s geographic orientation and its interface with Via Bizzuno, while all built-in furnishings are designed ad hoc to fit the renewed spatial order—turning construction, surface, and light into a single operational language.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA

Engineering: Studio Anav

Status: Ongoing

We are currently transforming the former atelier of American-Norwegian sculptor Hendrik Christian Andersen into a contemporary loft.

Located on the ground floor of an 18th-century courtyard block in central Rome, the space is crowned by a 7-meter-diameter glass dome dating from the early 20th century.

Location: Milan, Italy

Architecture: VELIA

Photographs: Nicolò Panzeri

Collaborators: Riccardo Martino

Status: Built

Conceived by Studio Pesca and designed by VELIA, ERIS is a hybrid space that balances permanence and change. At once bar and pop-up retail platform, the space is conceived as a stage for transformation, where architecture itself provides the conditions for evolving programs and identities.

Three Systems
The design is structured around three complementary systems, which together give material expression to the project’s motto: “Always here, forever changing.”
A suspended system of dry-mounted joinery allows wall panels to be replaced and reconfigured. Initially realized in aluminum laminates, the system allows to radically shift the visual identity of the space with each new installation.
A vertical grid of tubular supports organizes the bar and storefront, making full use of the generous interior height. Through an interlocking mechanism, shelving can transform into seating or display, enabling fluid transitions between hospitality and exhibition.
A continuous backlit frieze of polycarbonate panels runs along the perimeter, forming the core of the lighting concept. With programmable LEDs spanning a wide chromatic spectrum, the frieze generates atmospheres that range from subtle gradients to immersive chromatic fields.

Enabling Mutations
The street frontage, framed by two large windows and an outdoor terrace, extends this adaptability into the city. Each new intervention is staged as a living installation, visible to the public and in constant dialogue with the urban context.
Within this framework, the permanent bar - curated by Nudo micro-roastery with wines from Retrovino - provides continuity, while the retail front welcomes designers, brands, and creative ventures invited to temporarily inhabit ERIS. The result is not a static interior, but a mutable architecture designed to host change without ever losing its identity.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA

Photographs: Davide Curatola Soprana

Status: Built

Urban Horizons
The project transforms existing urban, architectural, and structural conditions into primary design drivers, leveraging constraints as opportunities for spatial redefinition.
Located on the fourth floor of a 1961 palazzina, the apartment sits along a natural green corridor where dense vegetation and an elevated topography buffer the neighbourhood from the highway and railway infrastructure below. From this privileged position, the apartment opens onto a wide, uninterrupted view of Rome’s northern urban sprawl. Revealing and framing this panorama from within the domestic interior becomes the central ambition of the project, establishing a renewed visual and spatial relationship with the city.

Spatial Operations
This operation is achieved through a direct engagement with the building’s original post-and-beam concrete structure, transforming structural expression into an active spatial tool. By exposing the building’s bones, the renovation unlocks a new spatial order, introducing depth, openness, and visual continuity. What was once a dark, narrow corridor is reconfigured into a clear visual axis that frames the city skyline upon entry. This gesture also redefines domestic hierarchy: the kitchen, formerly enclosed and positioned on the opposite side of the apartment, is relocated to anchor the living space, responding to the needs of a young family while recalibrating the threshold between public and private realms.

A Roman Palette
Material articulation plays a central role in reinforcing this new order. Travertine and timber define the project’s material palette, operating simultaneously as threshold and ornament, while grounding the intervention within a longstanding Roman architectural tradition. In the entrance corridor and main living space, the exposed concrete frame traces a cruciform geometry across a floor of alternating cross-cut and vein-cut Roman travertine slabs. In contrast, the bathrooms adopts a more intimate atmosphere, defined by Persian Red and Guatemala Green marble custom designed elements, resin-coated walls, and backlit polycarbonate ceilings.
A continuous timber boiserie with integrated flush doors lines the entrance corridor, mediating between day and night areas. This system culminates in a folding partition that allows the kitchen to be either absorbed into the living space or fully screened off, offering spatial flexibility and adaptability to everyday domestic life.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with Carolina Vaccaro

Photographs: Simone Bossi

Status: Built

Civic vs Residential
The project area is located in the south/east of Trastevere, where the dense urban fabric meets the Monumental complex of San Michele a Ripa. An area of Rome that explicitly dialogues with systems on a more urban scale and whose functional destination is not strictly residential but mainly civic. The project overlooks Piazza Santa Cecilia, a unique and suggestive square whose identity is entrusted to the facade of the Basilica; in front of this, a series of heterogeneous residential buildings form a continuous front that extends along the opposite longitudinal side.

House and Workshop
The house finds itself between two taller and historically more significant buildings; originally, it housed a space for horses and carriages on the ground floor and a space for storage and residence on the upper floor. The typology is the ancient and popular one of the ‘house and workshop’; such ‘minor architecture’ has a privileged and exclusive dialogue with the convent complex of Santa Cecilia, exactly in front of it. The functional program confirms the historical mixed destination: office on the ground floor and residence on the upper one. The internal distribution system, as well as the choice of materials, were determined by the context. Entering from the square, the historic doors initially open onto a loggia, separated from the actual interior by a large window whose design records the more general partitions of the project: the distribution corridor and the large study room. Crossing a white cube, which is necessary to support the heavy glazing and acts as a filter between the inside and the outside, a long double-sided bookcase marks the longitudinal path towards the staircase and acts as a screen, making access to the first floor partially independent. The whole system is developed according to a longitudinal procession from the entrance to the ending staircase, which connects the two floors.

Irregular Ornament
On the ground floor, the bichromatic Timpa Stone flooring changes in size and direction depending on the functional destination suggested by the space. It is inspired by the materials recurring in the basilica complex of Santa Cecilia and by the cobblestones of the square, as well as by the large geometric and polychrome flooring of the Roman period. Geometries and recurring measurements have defined the internal design of the rooms and objects.The geometric structure of the project (sometimes explicit and sometimes hidden) was confronted with the irregularities and inaccuracies of the lot; this has often suggested eccentric connection solutions. On the first floor, one finds a completely free and open space, that entrusts its identity to the spectacular external view through the three windows which form a triptych of the facade of the church in front.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA

Status: Ongoing

1920s apartment renovation in Rome's Esquilino neighbourhood.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with 4051, Ortus

Landscape: PROAP (Joao Nunes)

Engineering: Bucci & Partners

Sustainability: EcoBIM

Images: Filippo Bolognese Images

Status: Competition, Honourable Mention

Environmental strategy
The environmental strategy focuses on mitigating the impact of climate change on the city.
By maximizing drainage areas and permeable organic lands through a system of artificial topographies, it reacts to the heat island phenomenon and contrasts the negative effects of increasing rainfall intensity. The landscape design of the entrance square and the public citrus roof garden draws inspiration from iconic Roman natural sceneries, blending the untamed beauty of romantic parks with the controlled aesthetics of aristocratic Italian gardens.

Flexibility and Programme
The building articulates its two key functions - archive and research hub - through a simple stacking mechanism. Below, a concrete structure clad in rammed earth forms the podium, housing the archival rooms. Above, a lightweight timber structure wrapped in glass serves as a transparent container for research and educational activities. The use of a standard 7 x 6 meter structural grid allows for extensive spatial and programmatic flexibility, opening the building to a wide array of future uses.

Connective and communicative gestures
The building is articulated through connective and communicative gestures. In terms of circulation, two sculptural elements - the lift tower and the external staircase - characterise the main façade, ensuring inclusive access to the public roof garden and separating the flows of visitors and daily users. A generous balcony overlooks the entrance plaza, wrapped in a digital LED rolling banner. This revisited frieze allows the display of moving images and text, revealing to the public ongoing events, exhibitions and, more generally, the activities of the MAXXI institution.

Location: Ex-Mattatoio, Rome, Italy

Promoting Institution: Palexpo, Rome

Curatorial team: Warehouse for Architecture and Research

Architecture: VELIA with Lukas Ingold

Images: Luce Atelier

Photographs: Alessandro Nanni and DSL Studio (Piercarlo Quecchia)

Spolia
Architectural fragments do not share the same qualities, especially in a layered city like Rome. Alongside renowned ancient ruins that stand the test of time due to their historical meaning, we find anonymous remains that persist by acquiring new functional purposes and re-used elements that continue to exist by transferring their value from one structure to another. In an era marked by scarcity of resources, economic contraction and environmental crisis, we question how buildings are produced, especially concerning the extraction and consumption of materials.
Taking the pre-existing pillars of the Bailey Bridge as a starting point, Spolia celebrates the Roman custom of re-using materials and the inherent notion of future potential that this implies by combining ancient memories and future conditions. Granite columns and marble slabs traditionally re-employed in the past give way here to industrial fragments from today's infrastructural world, forming a new aesthetic of re-use.

A Bridge over the Tiber
The research project was developed on the occasion of the exhibition 'Roma Novissima', curated by Warehouse for Architecture and Research. Each participant was assigned a section of the Tiber and was asked to propose a design for an imaginary bridge crossing it. Our site lies in northern Rome, close to the Milvian Bridge, on what remains of the Bailey Bridge built in the 1960s - a temporary military infrastructure realized in order to cope with structural issues of the adjacent Flaminio Bridge.

Location: Prato Ottesola, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with Ortus

Engineering: Bucci & Partners

Images: Luce Atelier

Status: Competition, 3rd place

Mistadelli's and Open-Air Learning Sites in the Val d'Arda Hills
The new kindergarten in Prato Ottesola is a small education center for approximately 15 children, positioned in the hilly landscape of the Arda Valley, within a small hillside village inhabited by a few dozen people. Situating the structure in the area, the design drew inspiration from the architectural heritage of the region, specifically echoing the presence of ancient mistadelli; rural and self-contained chapels that dot the surrounding Emilian territory. The building is conceived as a self-contained entity, whose circular configuration not only pays homage to regional historical precedents but also serves as a geometrically distinct and easily identifiable form for children. Beyond its historical resonance, the circular shape maximizes transparency, fostering a harmonious connection with the natural surroundings. The design establishes a pronounced architectural identity, believing this can trigger a deeper connection with the local community.
The organization of the outdoor spaces adopts macro-areas resembling 'teaching islands.' These defined spaces feature distinctive natural and artificial elements, serving as venues for various educational activities for both students and educators. Each macro-area is characterized by simple geometric configurations—circles, lines, triangles—corresponding to specific activities.

On Flexibility and Transparency
The structure features two distinct entrances: a prominent one on the south-eastern facade, clearly discernible from the street, and a service entrance on the north-western side dedicated to the loading and unloading of goods pertinent to meal preparation. The primary entrance grants access to the flexible teaching spaces, facilitated by movable folding walls, while the service area is concentrated on the north front. The functional organization of classrooms and other spaces prioritizes adaptability and reconfigurability within the circular framework, eliminating any distribution space and optimizing available spatial dimensions. Such arrangement transcends the conventional role of the building as a mere educational facility, transforming it into a civic catalyst deeply integrated within the social fabric. The design facilitates the hosting of cultural or community events, broadening its utility beyond educational functions. In essence, the school serves as a territorial outpost, fostering interpersonal and intergenerational exchanges within the community.
Architectural decisions, spanning functional distribution, openings, materiality and structure, are strategically oriented to maximize the interplay between indoor and outdoor spaces. The predominantly glazed curtain wall, with exceptions in the services and dormitory areas, ensures extensive transparency, enriching views of the surrounding nature. Modules of French doors, fully operable, extend the educational activities into the outdoor garden, particularly during the warmer months. A veranda space envelopes the perimeter of the building, mediating the relationship between the indoor environment and the garden, beyond extending the learning space outdoors. This space, sheltered by the overhanging roof pitch, features an adjustable curtain system for solar shading and rain protection, and seamlessly integrates with the garden during the summer. An exterior bench at child height further enhances the veranda, transforming it into a dedicated outdoor learning space.

Structural Trees
The building fits within the architectural typology of the pavilion: a pure and clearly recognisable element, with a circular plan and a conical 'solar roof'. The pivotal element of the composition is the large central pylon, the heart of the wooden structure that radiates outwards, metaphorically constituting a tree around which to organise the internal spaces and teaching activities. This structure branches outwards through a system of primary and secondary beams and represents not only an anchor for spatial organisation, but also a strongly recognizable symbol for the children; a reference that can settle in the memory and evoke the presence of the surrounding natural elements. Beyond the primary structural system that supports the roof, a subordinate system of guide beams acts as a track for the mobile folding partitions below and generates the possibility of creating a wide range of spatial configurations, easily providing spaces in which pupil's materials, mobile furniture and light equipment can be arranged.

Solar Shingles and Ventilation Chimneys
The glass curtain wall with adjustable external blinds allows for the collection and exploitation of heat in the winter season, reducing the energy required for the heating system by 75%; in the summer season, solar radiation is blocked externally by the shading elements. The decision to adopt a single power source for all active plant solutions, opting for machinery and devices powered by electricity, maximizes the share of energy produced on-site by renewable sources. Around 50% of the elements cladding the roof are solar shingles, which cover approximately 99% of the total electricity demand. The ventilation system is hybrid, combining natural and mechanical ventilation. The double-glazed curtain wall is made up of two sectors, integrating a transom window system that allows stale air to escape. A central, mechanically operable circular oculus works as an evacuation device for stail air through a chimney effect, exploiting both the temperature difference between indoor and outdoor and the conical geometry of the interior space.

Location: Rome, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with Studio Tropicana and VS Associati

Engineering: Manfroni Engineering Workshop

Images: Luce Atelier

Collaborators: Matteo Fabiani

Status: Competition

Mineral Monolith
Shaped by workflow, logistics, and lab performance, the building’s reverse-stepped massing derives from the brief’s programmatic requirements, with each floor corresponding to a specific functional cluster.
Conceived as a mineral monolith, the facade is clad in split-face tufa stone blocks. Articulated by long, horizontal window strips with integrated external curtains, the envelope modulates natural light to provide optimal working conditions for the scientific activity happening within the building.

Connective Gestures
Beyond its role as a logistics node between the various campus components, the underground floor introduces a generous public dimension, hosting a multipurpose room and a café overlooking a sunken green courtyard.
At the heart of the building, a sculptural oculus marks the termination of the full-height atrium, revealing itself upon entry and flooding the space with zenithal light.

Location: Padova, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with 4051

Images: Luce Atelier

Collaborators: Lyric Barnik

Status: Competition

One urban front, three public spaces
The project is located in a strategic position in the city, in one of the development areas already identified in the intervention plan and in the document ''Padova, città dei Rioni''. By demolishing the existing dilapidated buildings, with the exception of the one next to the church, the new complex - made up of two different buildings, one above the town centre and the other parallel to Via Adriatica - minimises its footprint on the ground and contributes to the recomposition of the urban façade. In this way, three highly permeable public spaces are created that integrate with the existing and planned green system in Padua: a pedestrian square in front of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, a new tree-lined promenade parallel to Via Adriatica, and a regenerated and accessible green area in the southern part of the site.

Flexible Dwelling
The presence of services on the ground floor, not only for the cooperative's residents but also for the city's residents, acts as a catalyst for the development of new neighbourhood centres. In order to maximise flexibility, the apartments have been designed in a modular, non-hierarchical way. Only the vertical distribution cores, together with the toilet and kitchen areas, are fixed. The other spaces can be easily adapted, both in terms of their internal distribution and the number of modules that make up each apartment. This flexibility makes it possible to respond dynamically to changing market needs, co-operative preferences and emerging trends in living, ensuring a versatile housing solution that can be adapted to the diverse needs of a heterogeneous range of users.

Location: Rimini, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with Ortus

Engineering: Manfroni Engineering Workshop

Images: Bruno de Almeida Martins

Status: Competition

Multisensory gardens
Located in the suburbs of the seaside town of Rimini, this single-storey school emphasizes the longitudinal character of the surrounding countryside in its unfolding along continuous horizontal lines. The flat open landscape in which it lies is designed in order to accentuate the appropriation of outdoor spaces and their transformation into learning environments, within a new vision of teaching methods. The large scale of the field is broken down into thematic areas by a series of linear paths, defining more intimate moments for a wide array of activities including outdoor lectures, recreation, farming, harvesting and pollination. These green corridors eventually penetrate the building, forming lush patios which reach deep into the floor plate and articulate its spatiality, providing extensive visual porosity throughout the whole complex. The educational use of the garden intends to encourage a multisensory approach to learning, liberating teachers’ didactic possibilities and fostering deeper connections between children and the natural realm.

Hybrid flexibility
Avoiding the presence of corridors, the inner distribution space is designed in order to generate a constellation of moments with varying degrees of intimacy, reminiscent of the alternation between compressed and open space in the ancient city centre of Rimini. Holding the potential to be used according to a variety of needs, this environment represents an extension of classroom activities, generating a hybrid condition. The modularity of classroom and lab units, defined within a 7x7m structural grid, together with the presence of foldable partitions, provide ample flexibility and allow for a series of different spatial configurations, potentially hosting larger communal events.

Perceptive gestures
Beyond the presence of an extensive glazed façade, providing visual transparency towards the outer natural environment, a series of skylights are placed above the hybrid breakout spaces, enhancing the way the architecture interacts with natural light. This condition is thus turned into a playful sculptural gesture up on the green roof, where a series of emerging geometric forms represent perceptive tools which, due to their recognizability, establish a deep psychological connection with the fertile minds of young children. Within a low-tech approach to the theme of energetic performance, these skylights act as ventilation chimneys, fostering the possibility of using natural ventilation to meet indoor climate and air quality standards.

Location: Falzes, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with Studio Traccia

Engineering: Faces Engineering

Status: Competition

Territorial Integration
Situated on a gently sloping terrain in the picturesque alpine scenery of the Val Pusteria valley, this Elderly Housing facility intends to establish a close dialogue with both the urban and the natural landscape surrounding it. With its linear East-West orientation, the building on the one hand maximizes its exposure to the qualities of southern light and, on the other, connects the city to the East with the new landscaped park to the West through a new public green corridor. Engaging with the latter, a generous southern facing entrance courtyard on ground level embodies the main public gateway to the building, thus literally opening it up to the adjacent city. Together with a pocket park to the North, defined by the stepped articulation of the building’s footprint, all of the above-mentioned outdoor spaces play a part in grounding the project within the wider public realm of the town of Falzes.

Architecture for Care
Catering mainly to users with reduced mobility, the horizontal nature of the architecture provides increased accessibility and encourages longitudinal circulation. A semi-public podium mediates with the topography, providing direct connectivity through the eastern and western hemispheres of the building site. In the same way, the two floors housing the residential units are laid out on a single level, minimizing the need for vertical circulation of patients on a day-to-day basis. Four lush courtyards, three in the residential wards and one opening towards the southern axis on the podium level, weave the architecture both physically and visually to its stunning natural surroundings. Thus, the building takes the shape of a porous infrastructure for care, where patients and staff can exploit the consistent dialogue between indoor facilities and outdoor break out spaces, maximizing both their physical and mental well-being.

Contextual Specificity
With the intention to break down its large scale while creating a sense of familiarity by playing with people’s collective memory, the design takes its cues from recurring vernacular alpine precedents and translates them into an architectural language which reveals the nature of the program concealed within. On the ground floor, a public podium clad in local stone contains the entrance lobby together with all administrative, staff, therapeutic and technical facilities. On the two upper floors, a lighter timber structure houses the residential units, where generous southern balconies provide ample outdoor space for each patient and are used, together with a double exterior curtain system, as natural shading devices. The porosity achieved through the use of courtyards provides qualitative natural light to the indoor circulation spaces, beyond a condition where cross ventilation is easily used for summer cooling and air quality control.

Location: Aosta, Italy

Architecture: VELIA with 4051, Ortus

Engineering: Manfroni Engineering Workshop

Status: Competition

In Continuity
Replacing a 70’s Brutalist school building, obsolete in terms of its adaptability to contemporary functional, structural, and energetic requirements, Aosta’s new Arts and Music High School is a building which engages the form of the city. Its L-shaped mass on the one hand extends the directionality of the northern historic urban fabric, while on the other confirms its strong presence on the main street, offering classroom views towards the stunning southern mountain panorama. A green corridor flanking the building to the East provides a generous recreational space on street level and establishes a connection with the future southern park envisioned by the city.

Building On Existing Traces
Through a surgical excavation tracing the exact footprint of the pre-existing building, the design exploits the tight conditions given by the brief and generates space to host two key public pieces of the programme, the auditorium and the gym. This move results in two leftover spaces defined by the geometry of the retaining walls, which turn into open air courtyards and independent access points to the underground level, detaching private and public circulation flows within the building and facilitating operational management during non-school hours. A sculptural stair runs like a vertical thread through all levels, connecting with a single gesture the sunken spaces, the ground floor atrium with administrative offices and the private world above. Here, a single loaded corridor with break out spaces providing views towards the Alpine natural context hosts a regular sequence of classrooms and laboratories for creative production and didactic activities.

Below & Above
Complying with the strict local seismic regulations, the structural choices follow the programmatic articulation of the building’s functions and their individual spatial requirements. Above, classrooms and administrative levels are organized within a regular grid of lightweight timber columns and beams, visually expressed on the façade together with fixed sun-shading cornices and a multistorey steel cable bracing system. When meeting the city at the ground floor, a thick concrete transfer slab redistributes the loads to the structural cores below and liberates the organization of the underground level, allowing for larger spans and meeting the need for open, column-free spaces for the auditorium and the gym.