Location: Roma
Client: Porta di Roma
Completion: 2011
Gross Floor Area: 13.660 m2
Cost of Construction: 14.000.000 Euro
Architects: Valle Architetti Associati - Piero Valle, Ugo Tranquillini, Stefano Bindi, con Servizio Ingegneria Lamaro Appalti
Contractor: Ellepi
Consulenti
Strutture: SBG & Partners - biggiguerrini ingegneria
Impianti: ENETEC
Fotografie: © Giuseppe dall’Arche
Valle Architetti
Valle Architetti, with offices in Udine and Milan, comprises thirteen architects involved in architectural design and urban planning. Set up in the early 1950s by Nani and Gino Valle, the practice has won several international awards for its design of commercial, manufacturing and residential complexes in important Italian and international cities, including New York, Paris and Berlin. Since 2003, Pietro Valle and Piera Ricci Menichetti have headed the firm, which is now involved in several large-scale projects in the tertiary and public sectors in various Italian cities.
In recent years, the practice completed the final design and construction of the new Deutsche Bank headquarters in Milan’s Bicocca district (1997–2005) and the Municipal Theatre of Vicenza (2001–07). As a part of a plan for the conversion of Milan’s Portello district, Valle Architetti designed and built the Aggregato Commerciale shopping complex (2003–05), which received an honourable mention in the 2006 Gold Medal for Italian Architecture. It is currently completing an office complex in the same area, which was featured at the AILATI exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2011.
In Rome, the firm designed and built the Porta di Roma shopping centre as part of the plan for the Bufalotta area (1997–2007), created the urban plan for a business park in Fiumicino (2003–05) and initiated the Mercedes theme park on the city’s GRA ring road (2008–09).
In Udine, it designed and built the new Olympic city bowling centre (2003–11). The practice is currently working on the design of a University of Padua complex, comprising student accommodation, a language centre, and a convention centre. In collaboration with Arezzo-based company Mabo Bibbiena, the firm is working on a prefabricated system of social housing. As a part of this project, it has built residential development in Trezzano Rosa (Milan), Mozzate (Como) and Marino (Rome).
In 2012, Valle Architetti won first prize in an invitation-only competition for a technology park in Cluj-Napoca (Romania). Recently, the firm won the competition for the final detailed design of the open-air theatre for Expo 2015 in Milan.
Pietro Valle (Udine, 1962) is currently in charge of architectural and urban design at Valle Architetti. He graduated in architecture from the Venice lstituto Universitario di Architettura in 1987 and obtained a Master of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge (USA) in 1989. He worked at the practices of Boris Podrecca in Vienna (1985–86), Emilio Ambasz in New York (1989) and Frank O Gehry in Los Angeles (1989–90). From 1996 to 2003, he was a member of Carlini e Valle Architetti Associati in Trieste, where he worked as an architect and designer of contemporary art exhibition fixturing. In 1990, he joined Valle Architetti, becoming an associate member in 2003.
Since 1994, he has lectured at various universities in Europe and the USA as a visiting professor of architectural design: University of Kansas (1992–94), Kansas State University (1994–96), Syracuse University New York (1999–2003) and the Faculty of Architecture of Ferrara (1997–2007). He writes for several architecture journals, including Lotus International, Casabella and arch'it, for which he writes the Artland column. He has published three books: the anthology arch'it papers (Navado Press, 2005), Dan Graham, Half Square-Half Crazy (Charta, 2005) in collaboration with Adachiara Zevi, and the monograph Mecanoo, Experimental Pragmatism (Skira, 2006).