◄ WORKS / Warhol & Stura Gardens
Client: Corporate Client
Location: Turin, Italy
Type: Public Spaces
Commission: Design Project
Phase: Project
Year: 2018
In collaboration Arch. Davide Maria Giachino.
Warhol Gardens and Stura Gardens are two variants of the same project, together titled CNH Gardens, of the light wells’ transformation within a vast industrial building in the city of Turin, Italy.
The light wells provide illumination for the adjacent offices as well as serving the function of the outdoor relax areas. This function, however, is compromised by the general state of disrepair of the light wells, and therefore the client’s idea was to transform them into the green areas where a pleasant pause from working routine would be an ultimate experience.
Warhol Gardens and Stura Gardens
As the name suggests, the Warhol Gardens variant of the project was inspired by Andy Warhol and particularly by his silkscreen print series ‘Flowers’ (1964). The idea was to interpret the prints by designing the flower shapes over the light wells, combined into a seamless composition of gardens. Once placed into their original locations, the gardens would obtain their design while remaining the conceptual part of the overall composition. As a reminder of the gardens’ interconnected nature, each of them would contain a board with the composition and one’s own position on it.
Unlike Warhol Gardens, Stura Gardens do not rely on any methodology in order to arrive at the final result. Instead, their shapes are conceived purely as a contrast to the rigid orthogonality of its environment. Stura is the name of a little river flowing nearby, to the south of the complex. Its waters ran along the meandering path, and around the sandbanks on the way. Stura Gardens are named in its honor.
There are four types of materials used in the gardens: stone, earth, plants, and timber. Stone, in the form of pebbles, is used to create the dry parts of the gardens. Those parts provide the setting for the functional areas, which are constructed in timber. These are pavements, containers and benches. A good part of the greenery is proposed to consist of the horticulture species, so that people who work in the offices could integrate grown vegetables into the lunches. This would help to establish more meaningful, deeper connection between people and gardens.
The principles of dry construction are applied throughout the gardens. The process is simple: 1) delineate the design on the existing floor with aluminium ribbons, which will serve as the barriers between different materials; 2) fill the resulting islands with intended materials; 3) enclose the ribbon walls with vertical wooden planks in order to create the containers for the greenery and for the instruments respectively; 4) cover the instrument containers with sheets of stacked wooden planks and make them double as the benches.
These principles would allow to reverse the intervention by simply lifting and removing the materials to possibly reuse them elsewhere or substitute with the new ones, avoiding any demolition works.