Approximately 4,500 square meters of permeable surfaces and 3,659 square meters for approximately 382 students in the Barriera di Milano district, the N. Bobbio school in Turin will be returned to the city with an added value. The project, which has won the Italian competition “New schools – Futura” within the PNRR (National Plan for Recovery and Resilience), aims to promote integration within the surrounding urban context. In fact, the building was designed to host safe, inclusive and usable educational activities for all. A compact volume, three floors above ground, slightly set back and rotated, allows the public space in front of it to expand towards the school and, at the same time, ensures the possibility of creating a large green courtyard on the opposite side, balancing the relationship between these two spaces and allowing the preservation of existing trees, the planting of new essences and the promotion of soft mobility through the inclusion of the cycle path and the reduction of vehicular speed through a “traffic calming” area. The new layout of the public space thus determines a filter with respect to the roadway, guaranteeing full accessibility, usability and safety also for users with disabilities. It is a filter space which features flooring and plant species typical of the Turin urban habitat, is in continuity with the surrounding urban context, favoring the aspects of visual permeability and allowing easy maintenance. The use of light and transparent materials and the insertion of volumes jutting out from the main body characterize the public front, making it recognizable and offering an innovative and attractive image to the new school complex. The new school expresses its role as a civic center in the area by projecting itself towards its community through the insertion of a transversal volume on the north side, which invites people to enter and which houses the functions of the civic center intended as a Community-Lab: library /media library, gym and multifunctional spaces.
