Architetti PAlermo
Team project: JB&B
Project name: The Innovative School
Typology: Scholastic building
Location: Crema
Year: 2017
Surface: 3600 sqm
Client: Crema Town
The Innovative School
Within the remit of the open call for ideas isued by the Italian Ministry for Education (MIUR) the studio participated in the planning of “innovative schools”, with a specific project for the new site for the “Racchetti” college in the south-eastern part of the city of Crema. The zone has an important environmental value and represents a lungs of the city. This characteristic aspect was taken as a primary element within the project, to be protected and valorized.
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The project idea derived from the need to highlight typical elements from local tradition in both the form and the materials used. The choice of an eliptical shape for the school came from this idea, drawing on Crema’s surrounding wall (the ‘Venetian’ walls) and its towers, which make up a priceless part of the city’s cultural and historical heritage, strongly characterizing the city’s identity.
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The terracotta surrounding walls that covers the structures of the school, thus evokes a strong connection to the site’s building traditions, but also responds to the needs of a local economy connected to maintaining the structures.
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The school is made up of three buildings of different sizes that intersect with each other, creating points large recreational areas in the points of intersection as well as entrances and distributive connections on different levels, generating a careful spatial fluidity.
The underground level contains the gym, with a grass roof in order to reduce the environmental impact, as well as a two-story library. This has an access point from the the entrance hall, to the ground floor, as well as from the lower level, which runs alongside a mirror of artificial water.
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Two open-air gardens within the buildings constitute the green “heart” of the school, generating an area of well-being designed to emvrace moments of socialization during pauses between studying.
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The new building has been designed to organically integrate into the environmental context, respecting the arboreal heritage and wide grassy spaces, in a way that valorizes and includes the landscape, providing an urban park with open-air exercise equipment and cycle paths for the whole community.
