Beijing, 2014/12/11 - Led by Ma Yansong, MAD Architects won a competition to lead the rebuilding for 71 Via Boncompagni in the heart of Rome in early 2010. After four years of design development and hearings, the project was recently approved by the Rome Planning, Programming and Implementation Department, and Rome City Council. The project now enters the implementation phase, and will become MAD’s first realized project in Europe.
Built in the 1970’s, the existing building is a commercial courtyard building attached to an early 20th century chapel located on the street corner. The primary challenge posed by the competition stage was how to transform this incongruous modern building into a deluxe residential complex.
In modern buildings beams, pillars, and floor slabs have replaced walls as the core elements of architectural structure. While freed from their structural obligations, facades still remain canvases for expression and style. Instead of demolishing and reconstructing the entire building, MAD will simply remove the existing facades, retain the structural framework, and insert new living units to transform the building’s function. New balconies and gardens will emerge from the “gaps and voids” between new residential units and the original framework structure. The boundary between the building and the street blurs as the new design peels away bulky facades and replaces them with a more open, transparent scheme.
After realigning the existing structural system, the building will contain a “bookshelf” structure. 145 residential units of various sizes and layouts, ranging from studios to urban villas with facades made of custom metal and glass, will be intricately inserted into this 8-level concrete “bookshelf” system. The full height curved glass windows shift and protrude in a controlled choreography between the floor slabs. The “voids” between the glass and the framework will be transformed into gardens and balconies, bringing natural elements and sunlight into the living areas.
Residents can see the interior courtyard through a hazy façade made of translucent metallic curtains. The existing modern garden will be transformed into an abstract one with a vast pond at the center that reflects the bordering trees and the sky above. Natural sunlight filters through voids in the pond and the surrounding garden, streaming through to the ramp of the underground garage below.
Contemporary living in a museum-like city like Rome is often hidden behind its historical facades. Through this adaptive rebuild project, this “open” building will be able to return vitality and urban living to the traditional neighborhood.
Rome, Italy
2010 - 2017
Type: Residential
Status: Design in-progress
Site Area: 6,268 sqm
Building Area: Around 20,000 sqm
Building Height: 28.5 m
Directors in Charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano
Associate Partner in Charge: Andrea D’Antrassi
Design Team: Zhao Wei, Achille Tortini, Gustavo van Staveren, Giannantonio Bongiorno, Jei Kim, Elin Thorisdottir
General Coordination: Ing. Sergio Schisani (ROBUR PM S.r.l. PROPERTY MANAGEMENT)
Urban Planner: Studio Busnengo
Local Architect: I.SI. Engineering s.r.l.
Structural Engineering: Tecnic Consulting Engineer S.P.A.
---
FROM THE IDEA TO THE CONCEPT: Local Architect’s role (Text: I.SI. ENGINEERING s.r.l.)
The “Boncompagni” Project rises from the will of the client to gather the experiences of international artists, like Studio MAD (Beijing), Grimshaw (London) and Studio CMR (Milan), for the urban concept, I.SI. Engineering (Rome) and Tecnic Consulting Engineers (Roma) for an all around engineering of the task. [...]
The following step was taken by the A.T.I. ISI-Tecnic in order to obtain the needed licences.
The role of the A.T.I. was thato of Local Architect and proved to be crucial troughout the whole process, as it was able to proceed with an in-site feasibility assessment from both a technical and an administrative point of view.
It was only through a continuative cooperation between all the participants and a day-to-day contact with the various components of the Local Administrative Offices that we achieved the drawing of a project fully shared by all the parties involved in the process.
In this case, the Local Architect skills in strategy outline and elaboration contibuted to the approval of the idea of modern and innovative construction placed in a historical urban setting, like the area around via Boncompagni
INNOVATIVE PROJECT MAKING
Sustainable Renewal.
Promoting project efficiency was one of the challenges we faced when we accepted to participate in the integration and engineering of this concept in one of the most important Renewal Projects ever made in the City of Rome.
The project concerns the renewal and promotion of an entire block in via Boncompagni (at walking distance from via Veneto).
The estate, which was originally a Capuchin Monastery adjacent to the San Lorenzo da Brindisi Church, had already been subject to a deep transformation process during the '70s, when it became partly residential and partly destined as offices of an important financial institution.
This is an important challenge for us, as it concerns the introduction of innovative elements in a complex texture like that of the City of Rome.
The interested area has already been part of a project of continuous renovation and transformation, in order to be able to fullfill at best its socio-economic role during the evolution of the City of Rome throughout the years
THE SHAPE AND THE MATERIALS
The main strenght of this project consists in its innovative shape, accompanied by the use of non-conventional materials in a prevalently residential estate, like glass and steel.
The estate will be mostly realized in Curtain Wall. The opaque structures will have the same setting as the window and door fixtures: constant modular structure, sandqich pack (Gyproc composite walls externally covered with stone enameled glass panels).
For further details see the enclosed tables.
The concept includes the exacerbated use of curved lines (which were subsequently broken into smaller panels during the engineering phase) , coupled with plane elements (floor slabs and non-walkable projecting terrace extensions and differently shaped), which interact together in an irregular flow of protrutions and narrowings, different in each floor.
This is done in a way so that the observer must continuously turn his sight in order to comprehend the true shape of the building in all its complexity and completeness. The estate thus gains a stongly dynamic character in a portion of the city mostly formed by block-buildings of post-unitary realization.
Another strongly significant element is the use of green areas both in the facade, which will see the realization of flower boxes and other green elements functional to the build up of bioclimatic greenhouses, and in the design of the internal court, which is currently used mostly as underground parking lot entrance ramps.
The projects proposes to cover those ramps almost entirely to sight through the realization of a shared garden, which will only leave the archaeological finds in the yard uncovered. This will as well increase the usability and contribute to the valorization of the latter.
↧