multifunctional complex Rimini’s former trade show regeneration

CONCEPT: A NEW MIXED USE ATTRACTIVE POLE
Redeveloping an abandoned area becomes an opportunity for the city to redefine the identity of a space. The project area was, before the redevelopment, an abandoned and degraded area in conflict with the surrounding park, roads and “Palacongressi”, already redeveloped according to a high structural, urban and landscape level.
Combining the qualities of the adjacent areas with new requirements of commercial, office and residential buildings, the Rimini’s former trad show has been transformed into an attractive pole for the city community, integrated into the broader urban system which includes green areas, services and new cyclo-pedestrian ways in harmony with the “Raggio Verde”, historical urban element which, in the form of a green belt, runs through the city, to the Augustus Arch and then to the seaside. The previously existing volume has been drastically reduced from 190,000 cubic meters to 50,000 cubic meters.
Embraced by the green belt that connects the historical center to the seaside and open towards a large lake (an excellence that characterizes the context in continuous dialogue with nature), the area has proved to be a place of high-quality and strong potential. Therefore the project area has been absorbed by the two prevailing systems: the city and the nature.

THE RETAIL AND OFFICE AREA
The commercial executive building occupies a plot of about 11.083 sqm and presents a curvilinear shape which adapts organically to the traits of the site. The building is composed by a one-storey volume which contains a Conad supermarket, a three-storey volume with retail and office functions and an element of connection that acts as distribution public space gallery. The building hides a large parking basement which is able to satisfy the highest influx of people.
The large green surfaces, both vertical and horizontal, play the leading role in the project and surround the building with green slopes, green walls, patios, flowerbeds, green roofs in respect of the principles of the environmental sustainability.
The façade system has been designed as a band which envelops the sinuous volumes. It is made of aluminium structure and inclined back-laquered glass panels with backlight to make the building recognizable also by night. Curtain walls with glass modular elements alternated to matte aluminium elements, characterize the three-storey office building, shaded by projecting metal elements and porches. The green vertical surfaces that enclose the building with more than 17 thousand of climbing plants generate chromatic variation always different during the year.

The intervention realized in the ex-fair area is more than a simple supermarket.
_It is a part of the city and, as such, contains various functions that are able to replicate the complexity of the urban space. Areas for residential and commercial use, services and offices are designed and integrated to make the area live 24 hours a day.
_It is an important renovation which, through new connections and services, gives back to the entire community an area that had long been abandoned.
_It is a great landscape project where the suggestion of the “Green Ray”, tangential to the area, becomes architecture with the second largest Green Wall in Europe (about 1000 sqm).
_It is an ambitious architecture which refutes the cliché that a big commercial container should necessarily be an ordinary prefabricated box.
_It is a building aware of sustainability, where the green façade and the garden roof contribute to the insulation of the entire building and where 1.100 sqm of solar panels (950 sqm on the commercial building + 150 sqm on the office building for 15 KW) give a massive contribution to the total energy requirements. Rainwater is collected and entirely reused for the irrigation of the vegetation itself.

THE RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX
The residential complex, composed of five buildings surrounded by a park, stands on the shore of Lake Mariotti and donate to the city and its inhabitants a new organic front in harmony with the landscape. It’s an opportunity to revitalize the urban area (with a plot of about 8.270 sqm) and offers high quality apartments and penthouses overlooking an enchanting panorama.
The composition of each single building, together with the location and orientation within the plot, has been designed in order to allow each single apartment to have a panoramic living area overlooking the lake or the central park. In order to mitigate the volumetric impact, each block has been fractionated, by using the staircase as a caesura; every single building has been rotated in order to create a dynamic rhythm to the facades.
Pursuing the concept of “dematerialization”, with the intention to mitigate the massiveness of the buildings on the landscape, the facades show two different layers. The exterior “skin” is composed by a structure of metal vertical white elements with extra-clear glass parapets, the rear one, instead, is formed by the walls which present a dark color to convey the intention to lighten the building. The space between the two layers host private balconies.
Special attention has been dedicated to the open spaces. They have never been considered as voids but they are treated as real architectural elements used to give pauses to the buildings, in order to promote the creation of visual glimpses that emphasize, and sometimes conceal, parts of the project. The result is a private park for exclusive use of the residents, with sinuous paths, trees and rest areas.