The project concerns the design of a Cultural Centre for the citizens of Calderara di Reno, in particular for young people between 13 and 20 years. The building will be the result of both the recovery of part of the spaces currently occupied by the kindergarten in Via Roma and expansion, with the desire to become an attractive and aggregation center for the city in which to carry out cultural activities, or as a simple meeting point for all citizens.
The project stems from what was suggested by the preliminary and final design: create a public square that dialogues with the one overlooking the municipal office, recover part of the spaces of the nursery school in order to leave evidence of the previous building, expand and architecturally characterize the new structure in order to become a landmark building for the city, a link between the center and the new large park that will develop eastwards, in the large green area near the sports fields of the Media school.
The new structure will contain spaces to support the library (reading room and computer room), a laboratory-exhibition center, an auditorium, a rehearsal room for musical groups and an area for audio and video editing equipment. The spaces of the classrooms will be connected by a new central area with a rectangular plan that is wedged on the bottom of the square through a large glass facade facing diagonally towards the Piazza del Comune. This environment will not only have a connective function but will also have the value of protected parking space and therefore of social aggregation, enriched as well as by furniture from fixed seats to terraces to evoke public outdoor spaces. The large window of the facade on the square, plays a dual function: the first is not to create a clear barrier between the interior and exterior, the square enters the building as the building includes the square, the second during the evening hours will be perceived as a large luminous lantern that announces the entrance to the park behind. From this large space you can access the other element characterizing the composition, the auditorium. This environment was conceived as a wedge inserted into the vacuum created by the demolition of the existing structure. Also in this case the semicircular glass, at the end of the auditorium, does not want to be a clear separation between inside and outside, so much so that it has been designed to open up to the height of 2.60 ml. Next to the auditorium there is the foyer, the toilets dedicated to it articulated on a quarter of a circle, which communicates directly with the outside; this space allows the use of the auditorium independently from the Centre, It is possible to separate the room from the Cultural Center through a large door, ensuring maximum flexibility of use of the structure.
A characterizing element of the whole composition is given by a canopy that unifies and dominates the existing and new volumes. This element runs on the North-West side of the building characterizing the main access to the square and consists of a spatial reticular structure in painted iron supported by pillars that open upwards like branches of a tree. This structure, free-form, has now been designed as sunshades but has already been prepared to be enriched by the closure at the top with for example triangular glass plates assuming in this case also the function of a porch.
The geometry of the canopy and the building have shown us some "lines" that we have reported on the external pavements, grooves necessary to create expansion joints that become design of the floor surfaces by linking the building with the outside and with the pre-existing, Library and Elementary School.
