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The project concerns the restoration and refunctionalization of the university building of the Geneva library, with the creation of a new underground archive, a new square for the university community and a new exhibition gallery. The project is part of a delicate point of the cultural heritage of the city, below the historic city and inside the Historic Bastions Park. A new end building has also been designed on the main road which houses the entrance, the offices and in the basement houses the reception and loading-unloading with protected access of the artefacts linked to the functioning of the library and the museum. The general language envisaged that the new volumes would not conflict, but rather be the result of an accurate reading of the existing buildings of the university complex
A delicate balance concerned the project volumes in their juxtaposition to the existing volumes, just as the position of the new museum gallery took into account all the needs of the client in relation to the issue of the historical albedo of the Bastioni Park. The language of the new buildings is tapered to the frame-infill relationship and derives directly from a reading of the language of the existing volumes. The expansion of the library involves a functional reorganization within the existing building and the construction of two new buildings: the main entrance and reception space on the Rue de Candolle side, archive and exhibition space on the Parc de bastions side generating a collective space as a new square inside the "court" of the University.
The environmental approach that guides the project is based on the use of resources with the lowest possible impact; this concerns both the new buildings and the recovery of the existing university building. This approach is also based on the correct maintenance and future management of buildings. The target the project aims at is the nZEB, i.e. a system whose minimum consumption offers environmental self-sufficiency.
The buildings is designed to be managed by a BMS home automation control system to automatically manage temperature adjustments, lighting systems integrated with a system for controlling the humidity of the internal air and the CO2 present to best preserve the works within the archive, those on display and the quality of the internal environment for visitors and workers
The new buildings are generated in their shapes and dimensions following a careful compositional analysis of the existing buildings, their hierarchies, their positions and orientations. The idea that guided the recovery project of the library building is that of a reasoned, spatial recomposition and a more accurate distribution of the flows of users, workers and students. In this way, mezzanines were removed and the old wall partitions opened, to create more open spaces with adequate heights. Two service areas have also been designed, in the lateral wings, with stairwells, lifts and hoists, and toilets, which are repeated for the entire height of the building. This building is also designed to have a structural check and some interventions, of a punctual nature, in case some types of reinforcements are needed. The whole composition is made to find a balance between the need of adtaptation to contemporary tecniques and the costant recall to the memory of the urban traces.
International competition, 2023.
Riccardo Renzi is an architect, phd and senior researcher in urban and architectural design at the Architecture Department – DIDA of the University of Florence. His research field focus on the orle of contemporary architecture in high value historical context and it is mainly addressed at the typology of museums and cultural buildings. Several of his project, made with the help of his research group, for international competitions have been win and prized, published and show in architectural exhibitions
