The course focused on the study of Large Forms: proposals addressing the question of
architectural form through what we called Fat Buildings.
A Fat Building is a large-scale residential building with a wide section and extensive ground floor area, where the distance between the facade and the geometric core exceeds the standard. Any building sufficiently massive in section to require unconventional solutions to problems of ventilation, lighting for units, and user circulation fits this definition.
The course began by studying architectural forms derived from tombs, mausoleums, and castles as containers of use. Thus, the working hypothesis started with form as a solution for collective housing, addressing current problems and demands. Can buildings designed as containers actually work? Does it make sense to consider these solutions nowadays?
Attempting to densely inhabit a Fat Building raises several evident contradictions. How do we achieve natural ventilation for the units? How do we illuminate the interior? How are circulations organized? How do the vertical cores function? In general, how does the interior relate to the exterior?
Case study: Castel Sant’Angelo
The Castel Sant’Angelo, located in Rome on the banks of the Tiber River, was built in 135 AD as a mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian and his family. Over the centuries, its purpose changed significantly: from an imperial tomb, it became a military fortress in the Middle Ages, a papal refuge during sieges, and later a prison. Today, it serves as a museum.
These changes in function transformed the original massive earth structure, which housed the tombs, into a circular pedestal serving as the base for the successive upper buildings constructed over time for these changing purposes.
The project is located in Famagosta, a neighborhood on the south outskirts of Milan. The site is delimited by a park and to major roads. Despite its localization, the area is well connected to the city through one of the cities ring and green line metro.
Famagosta
Similarly to Castel Sant’Angelo, the project consists of a large circular pedestal that elevates the housing program to the upper level, where it develops primarily in a horizontal layout as a neighborhood with its own circulation, piazzas, and collective spaces. Additionally, the tower and the palazzo adds much density to the community. The contrasting housing typologies offer a wide range of unit sizes, accommodating diverse family structures and lifestyles.
Below, the pedestal houses various volumes with municipal facilities, storage spaces, offices, work spaces, workshops a swimming pool, an auditorium and parking for the bus terminal. This intersection of volumes within the drum of the pedestal also transforms what happens above. In the section view, we see how the seemingly massive drum is, in fact, pierced by these elements that mercilessly cut through the slabs. The immense scale of the overall prevents these elements from being prominently visible in the building’s overall image, aside from the forms and colors imprinted on the translucent circular facade.
