The new primary school in Aviano is meant to host 200 students divided into five sections of two classrooms each. The program also accounts facilities like shared laboratories connected to the classes, administrative offices, a canteen, a gym and an auditorium; these latter are requested to be accessible over the school time.
The plot is a squared flat area located within the school compound of the town, surrounded by local roads on two sides and sport open fields on the others. The urban context is the typical residential settlement of the Friulian piedmont towns, composed by a homogeneous system of one or two floors detached houses, laid out on the plain with the Carniche Alps as the unavoidable setting.
The project aims to build a relationship with this urban fabric, accepting the low rise condition and using materials and building technics typical of the region. The multi-pitched roof applied to an apparently fragmented volume reduces the building’s bulk, making the 2300 sqm building similar to a group of small-scale elements instead.
The primary strategy followed to deploy the program intends to prioritise a close relationship between the rooms and a private garden, arranging the spaces in an encircling necklace where the clockwork progression is perceived as a growth path by the children. In this way, the circulation system functions as an orientation tool, as well as a direct extension’s space for the classrooms, enhancing a long-lasting relational system and varied didactic approach between students of different age.

Project: Primary school
Site: Aviano, Italy
Size: 2300 sqm

With: Federico Feraco
Collaborator: Francesco Rambelli