While studying abroad in Florence, Italy, this travel studio emphasized the analysis of building typology. The final design prompt was to adapt part of an old monastery-turned-prison complex on the edge of Florence’s old city into a new programmed space using our knowledge of typology. This complex, with parts already having been converted into public housing, small shops, exhibition space and restaurants had public courtyard punctuating its interior world. But the complex was lacking in certain types of public space: particularly performance and play space. Using the Villa Giulia and the Campo in Siena as precedents, we produced a project with multiple zones of space, with their own specific interior and exterior programs. The Campo became essential to our concept of both the sequence through the complex and to the relationship between the city and the interior world of the complex. This informed our relationship to the street with this frame-and-loggia filter as well as to the complex and downtown Florence with the viewing loggia which is arrived at after passing through the retained memory of the half-panopticon of the prison.
The final model was completely hand cut; I was primarily responsible for the assembly of the base, ground plane, playground, cloister and central object-building. Jonathan was primarily responsible for cutting the pieces for the central building and for the assembly of the street-side buildings. There is a strong grain and directionality in the project emphasized through the model's materiality and developed from the structure of the previous cell walls. The ground plane changes reference the memory of the prison wings and are used as a directional threshold between the side courtyards (playground and cloister and the central performance space.
All drawings were produced in a reciprocal nature with initial layout completed by one partner and then traded to the other for further development multiple times. Therefore, both design and final representation were heavily influenced by each of us directly. The plan drawings above emphasize the three-zoned design as well as the programmatic bent-bar with extended housing and public program. The longitudinal section highlights the relationship between the city and the complex through the design of the sequence. The site collage shows the relationship in plan and section to the rest of the complex and the city.
These digital collages highlight different aspects of the project. The two upper images aim to display the two different types of outdoor space which are built into the complex: the cloister typology which is a place of refuge and quiet hidden in the city, and the playground which opens up to the rest of the city for play and pleasure.
