Ex Arena Braga

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

Project details

• Project Name: Ex Arena Braga
• Client: Di Ferdinando Costruzioni
• Project Type: Multiple housing
• Principal Designer/s: Giovanni Vaccarini
• Contractor/s: Di Ferdinando Michele
• Date of commencement of project: 2000
• Date of completion of project: 2003
• Location of site: Teramo, Italy
• Site Area: 450 mq
• Built-up Area: 1100 mq
• Cost of Construction/Execution: 8,00,000 Euro

Words from the Architect

The site is part of an urban extension of one town from a long conurbation along the Adriatic coast. It is located behind one of the oldest and most glorious recreational buildings: the Kursaal.

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

The building houses holiday flats, lies upon a rectangular lot along the east-west axis, and borders the sea.

It was a challenge to club together the following key parameters and elements into the project:

• The impressive length of the site, and the shape of the building affected thus
• The use of ground floor (equipment and services for the cinema), resulting in the need for a completely free connection to the ground
• A very heavy presence of a tall and closed building on the southern side of the site

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

The project tries to reinterpret all this by giving these aspects architectural significance:

• The vertical distribution was placed close to the main facade, so as to have an uninterrupted ground floor space
• The glass skin, wrapping the building emerged due to the light adjustment/capturing influenced by the adjacent buildings. It thus becomes an interface between the inside and outside, and acts as a unifying element of the design.

Ex Arena Braga - Diagram of the skin [39 Kb, opens in a pop-up window]

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

The flat complex "floats" upon a ground floor which is totally empty and dematerialized, connected to earth by means of a long glass wall.

Since the building shape is elongated, the idea was to conceive these spaces as boat-like rather than set on firm ground. The access to all flats is provided via a long "bridge" on the last floor, linking to living areas of the flats.

The open space living room-kitchen is connected to the rooms downstairs with iron and wood stairs (below deck); upstairs is the deck/terrace.

Photographs

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects.

Credits

• Text by Giovanni Vaccarini, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects
• Photographs by Alessandro Ciampi, Courtesy of Giovanni Vaccarini Architects
• Edited by Varun M Ajani