The Italian architectural studio Natoffice, founded by architect Christian Gasparini, has designed a workshop for sculptor Michelangelo Galliani in Montecchio Emilia in northern Italy, next to his home/greenhouse.

The sculptor and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino wanted a place connected to his home and where he could work in the open air. The space was also to be fitted out to store his tools and instruments, some of his works, and possible collaborators.
Natoffice designed a space open to the open air and natural light in which it would be comfortable to work and with a good connection to the artist's house. The structure of the workshop, which is very simplified, is a system of repeated and widely spaced portals, capable of giving rhythm and partitioning to a large double-height hall. Sunlight can be controlled utilizing curtains.

The material used is timber in a slanting structure with wind bracing and anchoring details outlining the exterior of the building. The volume extends into the entrance porch to support and position the materials with which Michelangelo Galliani makes his sculptures.

SAGM – Sculpture Atelier Galliani Montecchio by Natoffice.


SAGM – Sculpture Atelier Galliani Montecchio by Natoffice.
 

Description of project by Natoffice

Michelangelo Galliani, sculptor and professor at the Academy of fine arts in Urbino, wanted to build a studio and atelier next to his house/greenhouse, in which he could work outdoors on a daily basis and house not only his tools and instruments but also some of his works and possible collaborators. This was the starting point for a minimal, open workspace, connected to the existing house in terms of dimensions and proportions, which would temper and anchor itself in natural light, as a source of shadow for the sculptures and as a source of light for the sculptors' thoughts.

The structure, simplified to its limits, is a system of reiterated and closely spaced portals, capable of giving rhythm and partition to a large double-height nave, all opaque in its working plane and all illuminated in its double level towards the park.

The light, also mediated by a system of curtains, shapes the interior space and fills the workspace.

The wood, with its inclined-shaped structure, its wind bracings and anchoring details delineates the exterior of the volume homogeneously and extends to the large uncovered entrance porch, a kind of diaphragm, to support and place the large slabs arriving from the quarries and the vehicles needed to transport them. On the back, the structure’s extension becomes a porch and only a concrete slab, in which the sculptor shapes the material: a diaphragm between the workspace and house/greenhouse.

More information

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Architects
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Natoffice.- Christian Gasparini.
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Proyect team
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Sanaz Ghaffarizaki, Anashwara Jayakumar.
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Collaborators
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Structures.- Lorenzo Franzoni, Engineer.
Energy sustainability.- Stefano Anzillotti, Ren Solution.
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Client
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Michelangelo Galliani sculptor.
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Contractor
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Cisanova SRL.
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Area
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Plot surface.- 1.400 sqm.
Built area.- 190 sqm.
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Dates
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Project.- February 2021 – July 2021.
Building.- September 2021 – May 2022.
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Budget
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€ 90,000.
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Location
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Montecchio Emilia, Italy.
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Photography
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Christian Gasparini is the founder of the Italian architecture studio Natoffice. Christian Gasparini graduated in architecture at the Politecnico of Milan, where he teaches and works as researcher of urban and architectural planning since 1998 and as contract professor since 2007, dedicating his activity to the architectural and urban transformation plans of sea ports and railway stations, cultural centers such as media libraries and libraries, university and temporary residences in Italy and Europe.

Expert in bioclimatic planning with a merit mentioning in 1999 by the University of Bologna, he worked in the year 2000 in Chile, being selected for the international workshop ‘Valparaiso del chile: ideas y proyectos por el casco historico’, that followed the election of Valparaiso to the status of humanity heritage by Unesco.

Many are the participations in international meetings and conferences: In 2010 he is invited designer at the international workshop Palermo: Neighborhoods suburbs and contemporary city (Scientific Research Miur-Prin 2007). Borgo Ulivia neighborhood masterplan is published in the book edited by the Department of History and Project of the Palermo University.

In 2011 he is lecturer at the Second World Congress of the Light, in Venice Biennale, with a contribution entitled "Light as a diaphragm between material and immaterial" together with: Karla Menten, Barbara Balestrieri, Maurice Asso, David Chipperfield, Caruso- Ghafour, Rodolfo Dordoni, Claudio La Viola, Gabriele Lelli, Manfred Draxl, Winy Mass, Vittorio Longheu, Felipe Lozano, Simona Pieri, Barozzi-Veiga, Kengo Kuma.

In 2014 he is invited lecturer at the international conference New Urban Languages: Re-thinking Urban Ideology in Post-ideological Times in Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura Madrid.

In 2018 he published "Smart Cities vs Smart Territories", a sort of debate with Elisabetta Bello, Maria Teresa Gabardi and Nunziante Mastrolia on the idea of "Smart cities: two different positions, two way of thinking. from l'aquila earthquake territories to italian heritage landscape, to world infinite richness and multiplicity (Licosia edizioni)".

In 2019 published "Il progetto come connessione - architettura città paesaggio". The book is a research on the architectural fundamentals, in which the figure of the link/connection is the plan principle of architecture, city and landscape. (Maggioli Editore).

In 2018 he founded a new architecture and landscape book series named Terzo Luogo and published by Licosia.
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