LA BARRACA

RENOVATION OF A CLUB RESTAURANT IN BIELLA – ITALY. SQM. 250 – 1995

The characteristics and the configuration of the setting where the building is located led the designers to search for planning solutions that were able to lay great emphasis on the fact that these factory’s former premises look as if they were hanging in mid-air. As a main, immediate consequence all the elements non belonging to the original construction were removed at the very beginning of the renovation work; the building was thus brought back to its initial status of bare, simple, plain architectural container, enhancing its essential characteristics, a clear link between interior and exterior space. The dematerialization of the casing wall is done with a goal, to amplify spatial relations and it gets strengthened by the transparent, sophisticated and artificial materials used : glass, plexiglass, big size advertising road signs. .The entrance is a passageway: the view of the landscape opens to the visitor through a tunnel- like buffer zone on the other side of the building. This zone is an abstract element compared to the main room; taking the shape of an architectural telescope. It is here that the floor tilted towards the window (the only visual point of reference for a visitor on the inside) enhances the feeling of a building, hung above the river.

The whole of the interior and its reflection into the outer space are turned into a game of appearances. The false ceiling is made from negative printing sheets formerly used for highway billboards once these are backlit, they become visible from as far down as the very point where the slope begins. The bar counter made from glass and steel and the shelf above it, both self- lit, no less than the furniture made from a range of raw materials left unchanged in their basic, original features, have one think of a rendering of the essential qualities of the place obtained within a rarefied scene and a lofty atmosphere.

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project by UDA Architetti

Project team: Andrea Marcante, Valter Camagna, Massimiliano Camoletto with Davide Volpe

Photographer: Emilio Conti