AUDI PORSCHE VW ZENTRUM

DESCRIZIONE: This project for the Audi, Porsche, VW area constitutes the first of a series of interventions that Porsche Inter Auto of Salzburg has been actuating...

This project for the Audi, Porsche, VW area constitutes the first of a series of interventions that Porsche Inter Auto of Salzburg has been actuating in Italy, in a take-over programme of car centres in Central Europe. The same was created from a collaboration between the technicians of Porsche Immobilien GesmbH of Salzburg (responsible for the Group Corporate Architecture) and Studio Bradaschia Srl of Trieste, Engineering Company, Research and Engineering Laboratory, planner of the intervention. It deals with a structure made up of three attached buildings representative of the relative brands. On the basis of the guidelines of each company and the image defined by the respective Corporate Architectures, the project has tried to combine the brands considering their high-tech and therefore using a high-tech architecture. All three of the buildings are built on a steel structure glass curtain wall. The choice of chromatisms, stainless steel and metal grey is taken from the typical colours of German racing cars. The three steel and glass blocks open onto the view of the car gems of the group, emphazised by a high-tech lighting system during night-time. The intervention is located in the immediate outskirts of the city of Trieste, in the industrial zone, along Via Flavia, a typical heavy traffic road which connects the city to the inhabited centres of Muggia and Koper (Slovenia), in an area characterized by buildings of poor quality. Acquired areas and dated buildings belonging to former times, the project has made a replacement of the same, keeping the foundations of old buildings; it has proposed radically different buildings in volumetrical respect. As for the building housing Audi, it has dealt with an intervention (the first of the three) of renovation of a small building on two levels: the lower level was partially underground, the rear building was covered by a barrel-vault on a single level. Considering the existing volumetry, the project was aimed at transforming the building organism through a systematic working system. This has led to a different from the existing building organism, still maintaining part of the existing load bearing walls. The building foundations remained unchanged, such as the covered and useful surface. The covering was changed: from barrel vault to flat roof. The built block, behind the two level anterior block, has been superelevated to leave an empty space intended to become a car park on the existing ground floor. The new building is made up of concrete and glass curtain wall on a steel structure and metal sheeting. Now it develops on a single level, paved in gres stoneware porcelainized Fiandre granites in two shades of grey. Notwithstanding the rigour of the executive technical specifications of the PRGC (Master Plan of Trieste), the derived image has produced a building of big effect and impact on the surrounding territory. An "aerial" and transparent building, which is far from the typical Audi "hangar", but still recognizable. The Porsche workshop is adjacent. It constitutes the rearward part of the intervention. It is characterized by a black sheet portal on which the red Porsche logo shines on silver background. The rear building organism has been modified inside with the demolition of partitionings and 3 pilasters. The building foundations have also remained unchanged, such as the covered and useful surfaces. The internal finishing is aimed at adhering to the high-tech of the brand; it is characterized by grey resin paving and high-tech electronic equipment. The intervention on the Volkswagen building, the most complex, completes the intervention. The property was already destined as a car showroom, and it too is placed in D3a zone of the PRGC (Master Plan of Trieste). It was made up of an anterior body dedicated to the showroom, which the offices were facing. The rear body was and, still is, destined as the workshop. It was a question of a not particularly characteristic architecture, undistinguished in the peri-urban landscape, situated lower than road level. The project has envisaged the overall revisitation of the anterior body, from an architectural point of view, maintaining unchanged the volume; the rear body, destined as the workshop, has not been changed in volumetry. The building renovation has led to one different from the existing building organism, through systematic work but, still maintaining most of the existing load bearing walls. It specifically envisaged the building's partial demolition, with partial reconstruction, without increasing in volume (art. 43, point c of the Building Law Regulation in force). The new building is made up of a concrete and glass curtain wall on a steel and metal sheet structure; it develops over three levels. At the front of the same, a roof (usable covering) has been built; it is open on the sides for a 50% bigger surface which does not constitute volume. The built volumetry is equivalent to 7314,23 cu.m and has remained unchanged. The architecture is intended to represent the Volkswagen "family feeling"; it is characterized by aesthetic and "technical-climatic" qualities immediately recognizable. Colours, materials (glass, steel, gres stoneware porcelainized Fiandre granites in the colours of the brand), confer an unusual quality to internal environments. Particularly the transparency acquires a specific meaning in the Volkswagen architectural concept. This is resembled by this project in the continuity among the working places, the exhibition spaces, the workshop and so on , which go beyond the classic car dealer concept. The open plan allows the visitor to move freely through environments structured as urban sites: the central square, accessible from an entrance portal and open spaces on more levels, the offices. A new building complex of big effect, a "solo" in the peri-urban scenery able to upgrade a built-up ambit of little value, due to transparencies, the wide use of steel, the richness of particular aspects and the Miesian refinement of details.