Kid`s Factory

architecture camping collage Competition contest factory kids reconstruction Transformation visualization

KID’S FACTORY - A COURTYARD IN LAVENO-MOMBELLO

Contest (Awarded a Gold Mention)

Young Architects Competition
Teamwork with Matteo Lucchini and Anna Proskuriakova
Laveno Mombello, Italy

2018 | 2019

Chapter I

CONCEPT

A courtyard in Italy is a safe place: it is protected by the buildings where the children and their family live; it’s in open air but the people who live there can immediately find a shelter from rain under the porch of the houses, or get immediately upstairs to find some rest. A courtyard is much more than a closed space, it becames a universe where the children experience friendship for the first time, where they learn how to play games and sport, where they share energies and imagination.

The idea for the Kid’s factory is to create a wide courtyard in the center of the old industrial complex, a wide courtyard open to all kind of activities, and to children of all the ages. The project gives an important role to sport activities and to education, in order to provide also the Municipality of Laveno-Mombello the opportunity to live the structure, with a covered swimming pool, a multifunctional gym and a wide area for the primary and secondary school.

The wide, central, one-floor open space, cleared by the roofs that will be demolished, becomes the largest courtyard any child had ever dreamded about, colonized by trees and green areas, a small lake, an open air pet center, a labyrinth, different kinds of children playgrounds, a multifunctional pitch for sports like basketball and volleyball, a skate park, a climbing wall and a big open-air stage, for any kind of shows and concerts. This explosion of activities is underlined by the coloured floor and will find a defining rule in the existing grid of the pillars: the memory of the old factory becomes a forest of coloured vertical elements that can become lamps and supports for the activities; the grid becomes sometimes just a reference on the ground, where a wider space is required (for example in the basketball pitch).

Main Axonometry

Portaluppi fashinating architecture, the high vaulted building on the west side of the plot, the peculiar V shaped structure on the south, and the long high wall parallel to the railway on the east side, are preserved and refurbished; they surround and protect the new playground (just like the houses in the italian courtyard); in these buildings all the activities required by the program of the competition find place: open air and indoor sport facilites, schools and classrooms, research center, camping area, administration offices with small shops and deposit for renting bicycles, skates and all the other games and activities the fantasy of a child could imagine.

The project creates new coloured paths, terraces, colonnades and covered walkways, to let the courtyard colonize all the areas of the plot and let the guest move in freedom through all the areas and through all the levels of the Kid’s factory.

The new functions introduced in the preserved buildings are realized creating independent volumes that combine together and move through the grid of the existing pillars, to match the difference between the original factory structures and the new multipurpose building: the kindergarden, the classrooms of the schools, the dressing rooms for the sport activities, the balcony on the mezzanine above the swimming pool and the gym, the houses of the camping are designed like a sequence of coloured volumes combined in different shapes; all the shapes are a declination of cheramics graphics.

A round bridge and three circular towers connect the terraces to the groundfloor, standing high above the forest of the pillars as a landmark; the bridge can easily be connected to the Railway’s main building, creating an additional and direct access to the area for the guest coming by train.

Diagram

Chapter II

CENTRAL PART

Kindergarten

Skate Park & Ice Rink

Chapter III

CAMPING

Camping

The “Societa’ Ceramica Italiana di Laveno” was originally a ceramic factory; it’s memory is mirrored in the in the project. Patterns from Gio Ponti tiles were applied as a cover of the courtyard and also on the facades of the preserved buildings. They also inspired and prototyped the creation types of tents, houses and cafe areas at the campsite.
On the ground floor of the camping there are 2 types of tents. The first type accommodates up to 3 people, the second type has a module for 2 people and can be mobile and combined with any number of modules, depending on the size of the group and needs.
On the first floor there are small houses, the type of house number 3 houses also has a modular structure and can accommodate up to 4 people. Type 4 is a birdhouse house, access to which will be carried out on a stretched grid or a ladder from the ground floor, also accommodates up to 4 people. The campsite also provides standard rooms with private bathrooms.
The tiles of Gio Ponti were also the basis for the creation of a cafe, all forms of tables and their layout are sent to it. This tile is also used as a coating for courtyards and facades of a preserved building.

Accomodation in the camping:

•   Tents: 62 guests
•   Houses: 140 guests
•   Classic rooms: 23 guests
•   Summer time: 225 guests
•   Winter time: 163 guests