area 111 | zero volume

architect: Studio Archea

location: Potenza, Italy

year: 2010

The project area covers a volume bound by large apartment buildings in the working-class neighborhood of Cocuzzo in Potenza. The space is that left between two rows of buildings, covered by a street that greatly limits the amount of free space on the ground, minimizing the availability of parking and nullifying the existence of greenery and pedestrian paths. Rejecting a mere cosmetic face-lift, the design takes the context as a conflict between the artificial environment, the “cement canyon” of the façades of the buildings across each other, and the natural environment, in which the space between the two windowed walls is treated as a ravine, a valley floor. This space is defined by boulders and rocks that give life to a large straight stretch of park that is free of cars
and streets. The natural slope lets a new ground surface be created that brings some parts underground, hiding the parking areas and creating raised scenic terraces. On the ground, asphalt was replaced by a spreading green field, animated by a series of blocks that emerge along the promenade, multi-faceted masses of cement pigmented with iron oxides.

Laura Andreini, Marco Casamonti and Giovanni Polazzi, architects who graduate from the University of Florence, founded Studio Archea in Florence in 1988, and later joined by Silvia Fabi in 1999. Studio Archea is today a network of more than 80 architects who work in the 5 branches located in Florence, Genoa, Milan, Rome, Beijing and Dubai. The interests and research activities of the firm range from the landscape to the city, from construction to designand the projects vary from graphic design to publishing, to exhibitions and events. The complementariness and transition from a variety of scales ranging from criticism to the building site, makes it possible to operate in a manner that contemplates all aspects and elements of architectural design. Each partner combines his or her principal interest with the activity of teaching and research within the architecture faculties of Florence and Genoa. The founding partners were joined in 1999 by Silvia Fabi who coordinates the design activities of Studio Archea in Florence. The most important projects of the firm comprise: the Municipal library of Nembro, the new Cantina Antinori in Bargino (Florence), the municipal library of Curno, the residential tower in Tirana (Albania), the KPM tower in Dubai (EAU) and the UBPA pavilion at the international EXPO 2010 of Shanghai (China).