Workshop Level4

The setting up of the "indefinability of the global city" workshop was the opportunity to create a low-cost project, conceived, designed and created by the studio. The Municipality of Pontedera has made the space of the former Piaggio archive available, which has been abandoned for years; a very interesting place with a free plate of 30 ml x 20 ml with a reinforced concrete shed roof. The limited budget available meant we had to find a solution with materials that could be recycled for other uses once the set-up was finished. We decided to divide the space into two areas, one entrance and the other exhibition and we obtained this division with a simple metal scaffolding with construction scaffolding, we then covered the existing floor with a 10 cm layer of white sand and painted the walls and roofing are white; the result was an “undefined” space. Inside we then created columns with wooden pallets on each of which we hung the work shop project tables. The space acquired a great characterization, almost unreal, it seemed like walking in a non-place; those who entered tried to understand what was on display without seeing drawings or other panels and this aspect invited the visitor to visit the space and search for the exhibition content that was hidden behind the columns of wooden pallets. At the end of the setup, the pallets, sand and scaffolding were used for their natural uses.

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For the second step of the initiative, we issued an invitation to ten architectural firms to develop innovative solutions for new autoclaved aerated concrete panels, combining silica-based concrete slabs with internal metal reinforcement. The industrial architecture sector often offers solutions of lower quality, but the idea of ​​creating cladding panels with a high-level architectural design and variously combinable could represent an interesting alternative to the commercialization of traditional claddings for prefabricated concrete industrial structures. We conceived the setup of this workshop as a fragment of a building wall, with a surface area of ​​30 meters in length by 2.50 meters in height, anchored to the wall of an existing and historical industrial building, such as the oldest core of the Piaggio plant. The result was an exhibition wall along the street, visible to everyone at all times: a kind of permanent exhibition open 24 hours a day. On the surface of the wall, made using autoclaved aerated concrete base slabs, we displayed the designs of the projects and 1:5 scale models of the solutions proposed by the architects. In doing so, we created a series of wall fragments, each representing a different and stimulating idea.

The third step of our installations is based on the concept of "rhizome," a system distinguished by its acentric, non-hierarchical, and non-significant nature. According to the semantic model of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, "any point of a rhizome can be connected to any other and must be." This concept inspired the theme of the 2008 exhibition by Level 4 Architecture: "Rhizome, above ground - below ground," dedicated to young Italian architects. Rhizome, due to its semantic characteristics, is often associated with the metaphor of the network, and this concept formed the basis of the exhibition, which saw the participation of numerous emerging Italian architectural firms, each with their own personal design contributions. The current generation of young Italian architects is often depicted through the image of the rhizome, with its underground roots and bulbs nourishing vegetative elements above ground and other roots below ground, in a process of expansion and promotion without hierarchical limits. With this exhibition, we wanted to examine the "rhizome" of the cultural and design situation of young Italian architectural firms, verifying whether the six fundamental principles of the semantic concept of rhizome were present: Connection, Heterogeneity, Multiplicity, Asignifying Rupture, Decalcomania, Cartography, considered as indicators of shared contemporaneity. To represent adequately the diversity and interest of the projects and the acentric system of their contributions, we opted for an installation free from hierarchies, composed of cubes with different inclinations, each representing a project. These cubes are arranged heterogeneously in an open space of the city, creating an installation that can be traversed in multiple directions and modified in form, capable of adapting to the surroundings. For about three months, the square of a station, a meeting place and passage of travelers, hosted the images of the projects of young architectural firms, in an open-air installation.