Acciaio Arte Architettura | English Version

It is not by chance that tower buildings, skyscrapers, were born and developed thanks to the increasingly widespread and refined use this iron-carbon alloy. From Sullivan to Mies van der Rohe, from Burnham to to Johnson, from the Chicago School to the skyscrapers of New York, this architectural style has developed without pause, giving increasing importance to its modern character. It is this modernity, this union between the tower and steel, which the architectural work of Furlan, Jansen and Bagnasacco refers to and was inspired by for construction in Collegno in the province of Turin. Transparent architecture, diaphanous, that visually relates with a landscape that oscillates between the typical industrial appearance of large urban production areas and the uncontaminated areas of the natural agricultural land around the Dora Riparia. In this building, the union between steel and glass reaches such high levels of symbiosis that the weight of matter of a building that covers an area of 950 sq.mt. and which is five storeys high, completely disappears. Light, through reflection and refraction, plays a decisive role in creating spatial and scenographic effects, creating constantly changing emotions in the spirit of those people who have to frequent places that are normally anonymous, like office blocks. These suggestions have without doubt conditioned and guided the planning choices of the group of experts called upon for the design and construction of a complex formed of two buildings, the office tower and restaurant, which characterise the creation of a pedestrian square which will become the fundamental element in the urban reorganisation plan for the new industrial area.
Steel, fundamental element in this project, with is shining splendour seems to remind us that in the future of new architectural creations its use will become increasingly indispensable. The lightness and changing colour effects of its structure can, once again, fascinate anyone with a spirit that is sensitive to beauty.

By Manuele Elia Marano (”Acciaio Arte Architettura” n. 14)
Project: Edificio a torre per uffici
Location: Collegno, Torino
Design: Arch. V. Frlan, M. Jansen, C. Bagnasacco
Time of construction: 2000-2002
Photographs: Daniele Regis, Lior Sholomo, Maarten Jansen

The frames have been completely rethought here, throwing aside conventional design ideas: for example, the entrance door which runs the full height of the building and is slightly rotated on its axis to give an east-west passage – once you pass through it – that creates a scenographic frame to the linear stairway to the top floor. The use of steel for the large door and its hinges was indispensible to guarantee the necessary stability and strength to the door.
A series of windows runs around the entire building just below the roof, which, when it is evening and the lights are all on, creates a distinct line of light that the roof seems to be detached from as if it is floating.
There is then the intuition, imagination and genius of having transformed the southern wall into a single large frame (30ft x 20ft, or 9.14m x 6.09m). However it is not a traditional facade with an opening, but a wall which, thanks to the large steel frame and a special moving system, fully opens and lets in all the light and air and, once it is closed, gives excellent safety, heat and sound insulation.
The movement mechanism for the door is the result of an ingenious system of pulleys, reducers and force deviators which is entirely on view.
The outer box of the building is formed of concrete blocks; the greater part of the curtain walls are made from plywood panels. The large central steel chimney is clearly visible on the axonometric plane and both figuratively and physically is the hinge that unites all the building components.
The materials used (cement, steel, plywood) all require a minimum amount of maintenance as further support to the vocation of this “refuge-home”, which is only occasionally used and is left empty for long periods, which is both comfortable and spartan and fits in naturally with its environment, seemingly having taken on the patina of passing time that transforms but never destroys.

By Marina Cescon (”Acciaio Arte Architettura” n. 42)

Project: Chicken Point Cabin
Client: private
Location: Northern Idaho, USA
Architect: Olson Kunding Architects
Project team: Tom Kundig, FAIA, design principal; Steven Rainville, project architect; Debbie Kennedy, interior designer
Consultants: Turner Exhibits; Monte Clark Engineering; Moser Inc.
Craftspeople: All New Glass; Star Steel; Steve Clark
Contractor: MC Construction
Photographs: Benjamin Benschneider

The Nebuta Festival is one of the most important in Japan, and is a narration when the mythical heroes, demons and animals are reborn in powerful lantern sculptures of rice paper and light, which parade through the town to reawaken the spirit of the townspeople, which is slumbering due to the heat.
The building was designed by the Canadian firm Molo Design, and is a house for these mythological figures, to ensure that this unique art and culture are handed down to the future generations.
The building looks like a vibrating tent at the end of the street on the Aomori waterfront, like a curtain separating reality and myth.
820 strips of red steel (to recall and pay tribute to the traditional production of items in sealing wax), standing 12 meters tall delicately embrace the perimeter of this impressive glass and steel structure. Given the specific nature of the port area, the architects realized right away that a lightweight structure was needed, hence glass and steel, that was placed on piles that are deeply buried in the ground.
Designed using physical models and entirely hand made by expert craftspeople, the strips that hide the structure give extra protection from the very cold winter and hot summer temperatures.
Each strip is bent slightly differently from the others but with a totally harmonious and unified effect. This has created different colour effects and plays of light during the day. These bends have also recreated the corridors around the perimeter, where visitors can enter the museum.
Inspired by the vertical models of light and shade in the primordial beech forest around Aomori, this house protects and conserves the delicate paper sculptures.
The Nebuta are creatures of light, who live in shady places where they float in the dark. This is the place of imagination where we can enter and meet the giants; a place for narration and imagination from a different point of view. From a raised platform visitors can challenge the Nebuta looking them straight in the eyes, which is a very different experience and view from the Festival parade when we look at them from below.
The platform leads to the workshops where the production phases of the Nebuta can be seen, which last all year round, which means that each visit to the Nebuta House offers something different to see.
The functional partitions inside the museum are formed of large black sliding panels, treated with a special patina that emphasizes the colour but leaves the galvanized texture unchanged (the same finish has been used for the steel profiles that form the bearing structure for the building). These moving panels recall a typical feature of traditional Japanese homes – the engawa – and the Nebuta House offers a truly unique view of daily life in the town.
The theatre is a like a “ black box” and has enormous sliding doors to divide the functional areas, meaning the different sections can interact offering the chance of numerous different uses and unexpected views, for example in the dark we can see the enormous suspended light sculptures, whose vibrant colours ripple over the “watery” surface of the floor.

By Chiara Centineo

Project: Museum and Culture Centre
Designer: molo design (Todd MacAllen+Stephanie Forsythe), d&dt Arch (Yasuo Nakata), Frank la Rivière Architects Inc (Frank la Rivière)
Location: Aomori, Giappone
Photos: molo design

Piccolo animism is a work of engineering and poetry, fully cognate to his previous works, which recreates a dialogue and a much closer bond with the place it was conceived for: the Enel Macro Hall, the new museum in Rome.
The work encloses all the post-industrial tension of architecture, and it work exalts and is nourished by its “container”.
The installation is preceded by Untitled (2006/2007), a black and white video where an enormous industrial remain is removed from its habitat, and seems a stylised mechanical octopus which, with its slow painful movements, contracts in its attempt to find itself an opening, grasping at nothing, and it reawakens a sort of empathy with the spectators, who feel pity for the pain it is suffering: the same “mechanical poetics” that we find again in this new work inside the hall.
Piccolo animism is a large parallepiped made from stainless steel sheets welded to each other, a monolith that is only apparently static.
Through a cycle of injecting and subtracting pressurised air, the volume of the work breathes and changes. Once again the matter is taken to its extreme, discovering new and unexpected forms and sounds, sounds that are created by fiction, impact, collapse, pressure and decompression reveal a matter that sings, and suddenly thunders – it is alive.
The spectator is carried along by the nervousness of the mechanics, experiencing personal emotive tension, feeling vulnerable and anxiously waiting for the action, the change and the song.
“Through this sculpture, I create a phenomenon where conscience and reason react when the action happens or has already happened. If you want to experience it again, you must wait for the next action and in the meantime there is just the memory of the previous one and expectation of what is to come”.

By Chiara Centineo

Project: stainless steel artistic-engineering installation
Designer: Arcangelo Sassolino
Location: Museo Macro, Roma
Photos: Altrospazio Roma e Pamela Randon

One of the most interesting projects was the reconstruction and improvement of the former market area, which recently was used as a car park by the residents and the nearby employees of the regional council offices. The project also involved converting an old building into an important public structure that goes beyond the local confines: the Mediterranean Multimedia Library.
Situated in a strategic part of the city near the main entrance to not only Cagliari but Sardinia itself, and also close to the main infrastructures that link the city to the rest of the island, the Mediterranean Multimedia Library (MEM) aims at promoting the culture of books and other media, being a new reference meeting place for the town. It spreads over an area of 7,500 square meters divided over three floors, plus an outdoor area of 800 square meters. The second floor currently houses the archives, while the first floor is entirely dedicated to the library and the ground floor has been designed for maximum use by the public, with the opportunity of a whole range of cultural, commercial and educational initiatives, such as meetings, conventions, temporary exhibitions, installations, or the newspaper library, film library, recreation centre and much more besides. However, the undisputed protagonist of the entire project and the feature that distinguishes the Multimedia Library as a meeting place is the courtyard, which all the internal rooms overlook through the large windows that frame the perimeter.
During the reconstruction, all the areas were redesigned with a more rational layout, and the entire building was demolished with just the outer walls conserved. The decision then to organise the complex around the courtyard is not only more innovative but also solved the bioclimatic problems, reducing the glazed surfaces that were exposed to direct sunlight, and guaranteeing greater privacy to the surrounding residential buildings. The facades around the courtyard are formed of large windows measuring approx. 4 x 2 meters, made from steel uprights and transoms with an aluminium clicked on cover. This system enables creating very large windows, which improve interaction between the multimedia library and the bustling lively area of the outside courtyard, making the entire construction much brighter inside, and reducing the construction costs. The external area is partly covered by a strong glass and steel roof, which also offers weather protection and filters the natural light, which therefore never directly penetrates the rooms inside the multimedia library. The internal courtyard is a cool and calm oasis, protected by the steel roof that enables controlling and carrying the air into the courtyard to create a very pleasant climate even in the hottest months. Originally the project also provided a roof structure supported by a series of trusses, but the last solution preferred the installation of a roof with the same steel frames as the glass modules which form the primary and secondary self-supporting weave for the roof, without the need for any bearing structures beneath.
The new courtyard has an elongated form, which widens towards the middle to mark the central area of the main entrances to the multimedia library, and then extends in two covered corridors that join it to the two pedestrian squares at the ends. The courtyard, with the lights, colours, places for studying and meeting, is hidden from the outside behind a building without any windows, which only reveals to the excellent cultural tourists the wealth of this construction dedicated entirely to the townspeople.

By Giulia Sartor

Project: New Mediterranean Multimedia Library
Time of construction: 2007-2010
Location: Cagliari
Client: Comune di Cagliari – Assessorato lavori pubblici
Architects: OP Architetti Associati di Venezia
Coordination: Ing. Patricolo,Ing. Pintor, Ing. Mossa,Comune Cagliari
Work management: Ing. Ibba, Geom. D’Alise, Geom. Iecle, Comune di Cagliari
Building firms: Karalis Vetro – ATI Ing. Pellegrini Srl-IMMA Spa
Curtain walls and steel window and doorframe profiles: Palladio Spa, Treviso
Photos: Fabrizio Palmas, www.fabriziopalmas.com