Von Aufschnaiter Middle School / Bolzano

The peculiarity of the school is that it is made up of the union of two different buildings, the one on the corner of Via Leonardo da Vinci and Via Cassa di Risparmio, designed by Wilhelm Kürschner, and the adjacent building, known as the “Ex vigili “.
The project wish to resolve this apparent contradiction by conceiving the intervention as a new building that “embraces” the two pre-existing ones, thus achieving a new unity of the whole.
The intervention represents an opportunity to complete the process of transformation of the entire area that began with the construction of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.

The courtyard
The courtyard void constitutes one of the generating elements of the project: it is a unitary, architecturally defined space measuring 30×60 m (1:2 ratio).
The reference is to the Gemeindebau built in Vienna in the 1920s, where large courtyards form protected microcosms, semi-public spaces around which the city is built and structured.
This void then defines the position of the front of the new building on the courtyard.
The new façade, conceived as a modular frame, unifies the two existing school buildings and forms a coherent whole with the long front of the University.
The courtyard thus becomes an urban space that fits coherently into the courtyard system of the university campus.

Intervention for the protected façade
As regard to the “Ex-vigili” building, the project plans to preserve the façade, in accordance with the protection standards.
On this façade, the new entrance to the school is created by opening three openings at the large arched windows on the ground floor. A large porch behind the façade creates a protected and safe space in front of the entrance. This solution is typical of 19th century public buildings and comes from that of the classical Italian palace.

The new façade
The inner courtyard is strongly characterised by the presence of countless windows, of different sizes and proportions, which, like so many eyes, animate the façades of the various buildings that surround it.
The new façade takes up this theme by declining it in a different key; it is conceived as a modular system consisting of a repetition of large square windows bordered by precast concrete frames. The modular concept makes it easy to extend the building, thanks to the possibility of adding new façade modules over time.