Interior design and furniture designed with a transformative and collaborative approach, reusing materials from the district area
The Castelfranco Veneto fablab project was the second opportunity for us, after the Broel School Demolition project, to put into practice and improve our transformative approach and therefore to test new circular development processes. The area in which we worked was in this case an industrial area, the fablab was located at the center of this area.
Over the past decade entire industrial areas have been subjected to a rapid and profound transformation. They changed function, purpose, typologies, people flows and products, but they kept almost unchanged their architectural structure. This transformation created a gray area, composed of large and complex structures, special machines and obsolete equipment, currently not in use, machineries designed for a long-lasting production cycles and special processes, with high wear resistance. This and other characteristics make them very close in term of quality and resistance to noble metals such as titanium, bronze, gold.
From the 2008 crisis onwards the industrial areas have completely changed, they have transformed starting from within, this is probably due to a series of factors: the transfer of some production activities to other places, probably also various technological steps at an industrial level, the cost of labor and energy. This set of factors has therefore changed the structure of these areas.
The change process followed two main lines: the first was linked to the internal sale and purchase of the machines, specialized companies and dedicated websites managed this part, while the second line was real estate, i.e. the purchase and sale of laboratories, which from production sites they have become gyms, nightclubs, logistics warehouses, etc.
The project conceived for Fablab CfV arises from this premise and from its particular position at the centre of a middle size industrial area. In collaboration with fablab community we obtained, from different companies in the area, big machines components, protective devices, staircases, floors, carriages, etc. From these materials we started the re-invention and transformation phase giving them a new function. We built a flyover infrastructure for the workshop, a protection for the machine areas which also became a stair for the upper levels, following the vertical development of the space.
Our development process was inserted within this series of factors, identifying a sort of area. grey, i.e. a bug in the transformation system that escaped the two main threads, i.e. the presence of some of these buildings in the process of transforming machines, and large structures which for logistical or technological reasons or because they were built for a specific process , were not part of a possible sale, therefore becoming a problem, a waste to be disposed of.
-
We therefore began to dialogue with the various actors identified in the territory and together with them we found a very convenient solution based on a project we developed, a project that did not start from a blank sheet of paper but from a series of notes, from a mapping of the materials and the structures present in the various laboratories.
-
A very important aspect to point out is that the project was possible thanks to the close collaboration of the person who founded the fablab, Mirco Piccin, who believed in this type of circular action and who collaborated with us closely in all phases of the project involving the already large community that has arisen around this special place.
From this first phase of design, mapping and dialogue we have obtained a series of elements, parts of machines or production lines, which are no longer useful and have become a problem, therefore material to be disposed of, at zero cost. Our project therefore allowed us to use industrial elements on an architectural scale, solid steel elements, sized to support trolleys loaded with material, or production lines, to build our intervention. and at the same time it allowed the owners of the spaces to save on the costs of disposing of them
In summary: the cost of purchasing the materials was able to be invested in the work of people who helped us recover the various materials and transform some of these elements to adapt them to the new necessary shape. The supporting structure of a large industrial robot therefore became the main structure of our intervention, an aerial structure, an elevated mezzanine which allowed us to better structure the available spaces.
The raised surface was created using a series of galvanized industrial gratings, recovered from the various factories undergoing transformation, which allowed a solid support surface and at the same time good lighting for the machine area below.
The total raised surface area is 25 square meters
The stairwell, which allowed one to reach the raised part and also to reach a second floor of offices, was created by transforming a series of metal elements present in one of these factories together with all the yellow fencing elements which we simply dismantled and reassembled on the base of the our project and with specially designed support elements.
The steps, however, were made using the same gratings used in the floor, appropriately cut and resized.
Alessandro Mason, Alice Cazzolato, Alessandro Guagno
FabLab CfV
Alessio Guarino, Studio GISTO