Palermo School south

The design strategy for the new school complex is based on the definition of a series of open spaces around which the new building has been designed.

A single ribbon that lapping large courtyards builds a place for the city, made of both open public spaces and more intimate gardens for children. Through its predominantly horizontal form, the building tries to fit into the landscape in an appropriate manner so as to follow the already consolidated texture of the place, made up of small houses, large farmhouses and work spaces, giving it a new order. The building was designed to mediate between the different conditions that surround it and to be a hinge between the town to the north and south of the railway, becoming a civic reference point for it.

The volumetric approach has been defined by imagining a school capable of living differently for all hours of the day. Open spaces that are always accessible are juxtaposed with uses designed for the community, while spaces with controlled and mediated access are matched by activities related to training and sport, which can take place in different phases throughout the day.

The design of the ground, calibrated with respect to the building that rests on it, was imagined as a continuous plateau made of different plates for materials and textures, able to mark the different uses proposed, including outdoor paved areas, educational gardens designed as spaces to bring children closer to nature, areas treated with greenery equipped to study and live the spaces that surround the building even when school activities are over.