Life In Ruins
In collaboration with Jesus Vassallo and Daniel Kuehn
Designed for the YAC University Island Competition
Given the absence of a single institutional client and the physical specificity and great architectural and natural value of the island of Poveglia, we find ourselves in a situation where we feel more than ever that we are designing for the site, that the island itself is the client. With these considerations in mind the strategy to follow seems clear and is embodied in a simple gesture: one of the boundaries of the existing compound is prolonged and becomes an axis of symmetry, across from which the footprints of the existing buildings are replicated in order to produce the new architecture. This approach based on non-literal symmetry produces a new island articulated around a linear circulation axis which delimits four quadrants, where two more densely built areas alternate with two zones preserved as natural spaces for the new campus and the inhabitants of the lagoon.
View of the pedestrian axis which connect all parts of the university campus.
View of one of the gardens which allow the existing nature to interact with the new scaffold-like follies.
One of the university courtyards created by two new buildings and the pedestrian axis, all of which use the language of existing buildings.
Island elevation as approached from Venice showing a dominant elements, the newly constructed water tower.
Island aerial illustrates the non-literal mirroring of the campus across the pedestrian axis.
Birdseye view of island.
Proposed site plan showing the preservation of existing buildings, and a development of a similar distribution language of new buildings.