PUBLIC GARDEN FOR ARTISTIC INTERVENTIONS. A PROJECT FOR FABBRICA DEL VAPOREGraduation thesis in Interior Design at Politecnico di Milanothesis director Prof. Paolo Brambilla and StudioAzzurro

This project is included in the series of interventions for the restoration of Fabbrica del Vapore, and seeks the filling of the empty space still remaining between the slatted buildings that recall the industrial past of this location. It features a dual nature: first, a merely urban square that lives along city’s own rythms, and then a public space designed to hold artistic expressions, especially multimedia art. For this reason the whole is characterized by soft formal interventions, which do not meddle with the facades of buildings. Thus, priority is given to those interventions that both allow artists to be free and configure space so as to host different exhibitions and shows. One of the main features of the project is a progression of “slashes” in the ground, consisting in an alternation of steam jets, grass and rows of trees, beginning next to the side of the street and crossing all the area’s length until the Cathedral’s building. Some elements are merely scenographic: curtains of nebulized water that scan the entrance of the factory. Others are actual cuts inn the ground, green “ravines” in this artificial Factory. They vary in height and size, so to create different situations: simple ramps that rise to give the spectator a small overall view, or slopes that cut the passer-by off from the surroundings. The western side of Fabbrica del Vapore has been dealt with differently. A wooden platform, 30 cm raised, hides beneath electrical support systems; emerging from it there are thin white structures that support brise soliels, projecting their grid of shadows on the ground. This space has been designed to host multimedia exhibition courses. The canopies are an alternative version of the classic “american” utilized in theatrical context; the reticular frame has in fact been replaced with anodied aluminium extruded linear beams, pitch perforated to allow connection of technical items.Canopies are placed at different heights to satisfy various expositive requirements and to allow the most freedom possible in a permanent frame. The area on the road side has been conceived to be a joint space between the city and the very square; the gate that closed the passage to Via Procaccini has been turned into a series of square elements, 2,5 m per side, sliding down land tracks. A kind of pieced wall, distanced from the street, discomposing itself on the longitudinal axis during daytime. The wall facing the Monumental Cemetery area was also a severance line between the city and the inside space; it has been opened, to create in that corner a point of strong attraction.

Here lies in factthe building that contains the technical installations and is subject to one of the most significant interventions of the whole project. Our aim was to turn it into a flag building, being able both of capturing people’s attention and representing the nature of the place becoming its emblem.Two vertical elements rise on the side of the building, undertaking the symbolic role of the factory’s chimneys. They are multimedia and interactive items and detain a deep relation with the Factory, testifying its presence and giving information. They split up their tasks: one element is related to that which happens within the Factory, the occurring events, expositions, shows, and screens written informations that scroll from the bottom to the top; the other directs its technological eye towards the external world, the surrounding space, recording its flows and paces. These two vertical elements, wich we called Multimedia Chimneys, are put beside a structure that covers the external side of the building: this one is made by a system of supports attached to the walls, which holds up plates of reflecting aluminium, concave and convex alternated. The resulting overall impact is highly scenographic. Reflected figures sway like they are dancing, the colour of pedestrians, the clouds of steam jets, the foliage of trees melt in a single impressionist picture, throwing the viewer in a spaceof evanescent and ethereal features. The highly visual impression of this scenographic installation find balance in those Sound Pathways that characterize the entrance on the left side. The space here is filled with a peculiar presence-absence that drags the visitor through a sound call. The whole project has been conceived as an interactive public space, changing along with the flow of the hours, flexible in utilizationsand capable of kkeping up with the dynamic an vitality of a city like Milan that now more than ever is struggling to renew and open itself towider perspectives.The flooring design spots different spaces, places for meeting and resting, stages for events and shows, delivered into a pattern that fits in between the industrial buildings of Fabbrica del Vapore. Every choice within the project is a result ofthe effort to give the city an enviroment cabable of harboring its social life and turning an abandoned site into a media spot with a recognizable and charming image.