PUBLIC HOUSING AND CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY

The project aims to reconnect San Valentino neighborhood, a spoiled and isolated context, to the center of the city of Terni, through the construction of new volumes and additions to existing buildings. The project also rethinks vehicular and pedestrian circulation and rearticulates the open spaces.

In the Italian context, public housing plays a role of extreme importance, characterizing the Italian cultural and architectural history from the mid-90s until the early 2000s. It was therefore essential try to understand how today an architect can intervene in these parts of the city that already have their own identity, but which in many cases are in conditions of strong degradation, restoring quality to spaces, both internal and external, to adapt them to the new needs of society and residents. The question to be asked is therefore how to intervene within a pre-existing and already consolidated context. The project consists of three main changes: insertion of new volumes, reorganize open spaces and intervention on the existing The unused buildings are replaced with new volumes that resume the alignment with the context by creating an open courtyard facing the neighborhood and aligning with the heights of the existing defining a sort of INTERMEDIATE SCALE. Through the design of a way that accompanies the resident from outside of the context to inside of his accommodation, as real HOME WAY, we pass from a LIVELY GROUND FLOOR to the residence, thanks to the use of a WELCOMING DISTRIBUTION, consisting of a walkway system. The functions included in the new volumes try to make the residence coexist with small businesses, such as shop houses, developing a FUNCTIONAL MIXITÉ. Being social housing, intended for people in difficult economic situations, another main theme was to use a WEIGHTED MATERIALITY, with simple materials and clean lines, to emphasize the quality of the spaces that are articulated through elements of UNPREDICTABILITY, thanks to the DYNAMISM of the gallery that at different points takes different dimensions or the possibility of CUSTOMIZING some elements of accommodation, strengthening the bond between the resident and his home.