ALBERO

FINALIST (Two-stage competition)
“menoèpiù2 - facilities and public spaces in Rome” competition for a nursery school, a kindergarten, and public spaces



Program Nursery school, kindergarten, and public spaces
Team 2A+P Architettura (Gianfranco Bombaci, Domenico Cannistraci, Pietro Chiodi, Matteo Costanzo, Valerio Franzone)
Client Municipality of Rome - Department IV
Location Cinquina Bufalotta - Rome, Italy
Area School 1862 m2 indoor + 5.500 m2 outdoor; public space 6.400 m2. Total 13.762 m2
Year 2007


Albero is a school, it is a tree representing the growth of its young hosts. It is a spatial articulation meant as the representation of a knowledge path that is in harmony with the natural environment.
The internal space is articulated through a sequence of classrooms that, beginning with the ones for the infants in the nursery school and proceeding with the ones for the kids in the kindergarten, defines a continuous itinerary into this educational facility. At the same time, this shape is meant as a formal device capable to articulate and intensify the relationship between the volume of the school and its garden, creating various outdoor settings.
The tree shape is also an environmental device, it permits to obtain the maximization of solar exposure to increase natural light for all the classrooms. The classrooms are located in the branches of the tree and are provided with greenhouses, like green-classrooms, that work as indoor/outdoor filters. They are the main system of passive and controlled use of solar energy, warming the building and increasing its energy saving.