Course Handbook lab.int.1 The Network and the lab.int.1 Public Interior Architecture of Interiors Design Studio 1 Scuola di Architettura Urbanistica Ingegneria delle costruzioni Politecnico di Milano aa 2015 / 2016 Mark Pimlott Leonardo Belladelli Gennaro Postiglione Tutors Alessandra Dall’Angelo Fabio Introzzi lab.int.1 / The Network and the Public Interior / Handbook / 003 Index 005 General Informations 012 Assignments and delivery informations 026 Brief calendar 028 Parallel works 031 Suggested readings Contacts 004 Brussel, 1994 Mark Pimlott lab.int.1 / The Network and the public Interior / Handbook / 005 General informations Topic The topic of the studio is the network, or more precisely, the public interiors of our distended cities whose characteristics arise from networks. These interiors are of great structural importance to cities, and of great social importance, too. It is almost impossible to think of the historical centre of Milano without considering the significance of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, its radical transformation of the centre by short-cutting the medieval street network, and its effect on the public sphere. The other gallerie and arcaded passages that followed its construction, connecting to it and spreading out around it, have created a network of public streets entirely devoted to people on foot (well before the phenomenon of pedestrianisation): a public interior realm. In the 1960s, the creation of a new network for mass transit––the Metropolitana Milanese––was intended to reduce traffic in the centre, connect workers in outlying districts to the centre, and to make travelling across the centre much faster. It changed the character of the city, and its size, simultaneously enlarging and shrinking it. Like the construction of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, it short-circuited the experience of the city, and created an image for the new city that emerged: that of a metropolis. This image was of a different character than that of the Galleria: people did not display themselves as a coherent bourgeoisie in an ideal street crossing preserved under glass; rather, they moved in new spaces as an apparently classless public. The disparities illustrated in Italian New Realist cinema––such as Luchino Visconti’s ‘Rocco e i suoi fratelli’(1960) were to be eroded by the spaces of such networks. The MM was considered in the framework of a system, and studied 006 scientifically so that it could be ‘accessed’ with maximum efficiency. It was also designed with a high degree of attention to spatial, visual, material and haptic qualities. Its information design was in the new orthodoxy of the Milanese avant-garde, adjusted to be legible by an obliquely passing public. The whole system was considered from the inside, from the tracks to the platforms, to the staircases up to the mezzanines (almost like the streets and squares of the system), and finally, up to the street, where it made its appearance discreetly in the form of a low wall, the red-lacquered steel handrail, and the sign indicating the MM. There, it ended, surrendering its identity to those parts of the city in which it surfaced. Planning urgency As demand on the Metropolitana Milanese network has increased, so has the demand on the provision of the mezzanine level streets and squares, which are becoming ever more useful parts of an increasingly three-dimensional urban realm. Unlike the provisions of the original project of Franco Albini, Franca Helg and Bob Noorda, accommodation of the extra capacity is being approached in an ad hoc way, apparently without any strategy other than fulfilling immediate needs, leading to an increasingly chaotic experience subject to small-scale concerns, or the exigencies of the market, which impose an entirely different character on the interior, which takes advantage of their ‘invisibility’ or ‘illegitimacy’. The spaces of this layer––which are public interiors––are of course, neither invisible nor illegitimate: they have simply been starved of attention or investment of late, and urgently require further consideration regarding their own qualities, and furthermore, their relation to the legitimated spaces of the city above ground which themselves require re-appraisal and re-characterisation, and their integration with them. Manifesto The idea of the project is therefore to find ways of ‘restoring’ the public interior as projected by Albini/Helg/Noorda in response to very real contemporary demands, for contemporary ticketing and security, more provision for services and retail facilities, and requirements of a public interior; and furthermore, finding ways of integrating this interior with lab.int.1 / The Network and the public Interior / Handbook / 007 the public space above ground, which is, in fact if not in impression, closely tied to both the urban transit network and the physical network of below-ground interiors. The project sees an opportunity to legitimate these interiors again, but not merely as underground spaces in the service of mass transit, but as spaces integral to the experience of the city. The project also sees an opportunity to revitalise the spaces of the street attendant on the Metropolitana Milanese where it is necessary: their material, their equipment, their information, their experience, their qualities as public interiors. For this reason, we have chosen a series of stations of the MM at a variety of sites in the Milanese conurbation, each with their own atmospheres, publics, interiors: these will be prototypes for an early twenty-first century approach to the public interior that takes advantage of the communicative traces of the networked city. Method To design the new public interiors, it will be necessary to study what exists and how it works, and furthermore, to understand what was originally built and how it worked in its many contexts. An extensive study of the Metropolitana Milanese is therefore necessary, to achieve a thorough, informed and contextualised understanding of the fundamental project as a basis for future work. This is part A. The network as an essential aspect of the city and the public interior has a deep history. To understand the network beyond that of the MM, and to open up perspectives on models that may serve the design project, it will be necessary to study other networks, their attributes and qualities. It will be necessary to describe these models, how they work, how they have fit into their culture, their effects on their contexts, and what kinds of public interiors they offer. A series of historical and more recent examples are proposed for study. This is part B. Historical examples are: 01/ Uffizi, Firenze/ Giorgio Vasari (1570) 02/ Rialto, Venezia 03/ Centro storico, Bergamo 04/ Passages (Paris) and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II 008 05/ Paris-Haussmann 06/ Milano centro storico (passages) More contemporary examples are: 01/ Grand Central Terminal, New York/ Warren and Wetmore (1910) 02/ Stazione Milano Centrale/ Ulisse Stacchini; Alberto Fava (1931) 03/ Stazione Termini, Roma/ Calini, Montuori; Castelazzi, Fadigati, Pintonello, Vitellozzi (1960) 04/ Metropolitana Milanese, Stazione San Babila/ Franco Albini, Franca Helg, Bob Noorda (1962-1963) 05/ Place Ville-Marie; Central Station; Place Bonaventure; Métro Bonaventure, Montréal/ I M Pei; ARCOP; Victor Prus (1962-1967) 06/ De Meerpal, Dronten/ Frank van Klingeren (1967) 07/ No-Stop City/ (Andrea Branzi) Archizoom (1969) 08/ Sergels Torg/ David Helldén (1967) and Kulturhuset, Stockholm/ Peter Celsing (1974) The studies will be used as references for development of the design project, which will concern itself with the plan of the mezzanine of the MM, the street level of the immediate context, including the interiors of buildings. All will require integration, and consideration of the continuity of material treatments, spatial aspects, atmosphere, artificial and natural lighting, commercial frontages, equipment and furniture, signage and information design, in order to arrive at a total project for a multi-level public interior developed in three dimensions. This is part C. lab.int.1 / The Network and the public Interior / Handbook / 009 Stages and delivery The project that interests the Metro Stations in Milan and the concerning network of public interior is structured in five stages. Every stages consist of lectures, developement of the project and corrections. Stage 1, 3 and 5 will end in a Public Seminar with Students’ work Exhibition and Presentation and a closing Discussion. STAGE 0 | 07.03 Kick-off STAGE 1 | 11.03-11.04 (public seminar) Investigation of MM Stations Buildings, current situation, and proposal concept 1st Delivery on 11th April - public seminar STAGE 2 | 15.04-16.05 Developement of the Project 1:200 2nd Delivery on 16th May (no more lectures, only design work in the class) STAGE 3 | 20.05-20.06 (public seminar) 1) Places of the Project 1:100 2) Material/constructive focus 1:50 - 1:20 3rd Delivery on 20th June - public seminar STAGE 4 | 04.07 First Exam date and The Last revision - all work assembled (Stage 1-3 together) STAGE 5 | 22-24.07 (public seminar) FINAL EXAMS - public seminar 010 Exams at Biennale Session in Venice from 22nd to 24th of June with a Public Seminar. Practical Informations, schedule and classroom The couse will be active on - Monday (9:15-17:30, classroom B5.1) - Friday (9:15-13:15, classroom B.3.3) lab.int.1 / The Network and the public Interior / Handbook / 011 Stansted GB, 1992 Mark Pimlott 012 Assignments and delivery informations At the end of each stage each group has to deliver its own production, both presented in its original formats and assembled in a Booklet in a form of A5 collection of postcards. The booklet has to be intended as the collection of the whole work: it may contain both working materials (for istance sketches, pictures, vision atmospheres and settings, text, drawings, diagrams, maps, …), and more defined documents. Infact, it might include a presentation/ summary of the production originally arranged in the other formats.