Project?              

The city of Bergamo has recently adopted a masterplan, aiming for a better interpenetration between its high quarters (old city) and low quarters (university), that are nowadays divided by the railway. The student residence has to be integrated in this masterplan that proposes to bridge over the existing station with a ‘new ground’. 

As the plot attributed for the project is confined and related to different levels of circulation, the starting point for the concept was to ‘Take zoning as a design guideline’. 

A square is created in relation to the student residence. The latter builds up a new public space, as an interface between the upper level of the ‘new ground’ (covering up the station) and the lower level, related to the university. This square contains services that are to be used as musch by the students from the residence as by the neighborhood (some shops and a minimarket). 

The building is divided into three layers: a public layer (gathering the concierge service and a cafeteria, interacting with the square), a semi-public layer (auditorium and common kitchens for the students that are located on an inclinated slab that runs alongside the road on the north side of the buiding) and a private layer, containing the bedrooms and the common spaces for the students. 

The typical plan, triangular-shaped, directly comes out from the shape of the plot. The East and South façades gather the bedrooms, each one of them coming with a small balcony. The part exposed to the North contains the common spaces (study rooms) and the infrastructures. 

The common spaces are double height, one on every two floors. As the tip of the triangle is a priviledged space, it is designed as a double height common space  for the students,  dedicated to  entertainment.