Building Management
Façades
Located in the manufacturing area of the city of Merano, the Marconi Lévinas professional school project is aligned with the settlement context through technical finishes with an industrial flavour. Characterising the overall volume are the façades defined by different construction technologies: mullion-transom and rear-ventilated. The podium, the ground portion of the building, is characterised by a GRC coating, while the design choice for the upper floors focuses on titanium zinc panels. The ground floor horizontally divides the two elements and its execution relies on transparent glass surfaces that give lightness to the work, allowing the building to be traversed with the eye.
The Gymnasium
Common to both institutes, the gymnasium is spread over two levels on the ground floor and basement. For this particular function, precast concrete applied to the floor comes into play.
Professional School G. Marconi
The spaces dedicated to industry, crafts and commerce occupy the portion of the building in line. Here, the ground floor is characterised by the presence of the workshops defined by a strongly industrial interior concept with visible plant engineering and raw materials such as bricks and cement. The second and third levels are defined by the presence of study rooms with, on the third floor, laboratories dedicated to electrical engineering.
School for Social Professions E. Lévinas
The portion of the building dedicated to the social professions is the tower, a volume with vertical development that from the 2nd to the 5th floor houses several classrooms dedicated to educational activities. In the definition of the internal functions, an important role is played by the furnishings, designed and supervised by Busselli Scherer. For the Lévinas volume, some spaces are designed to reproduce domestic or infirmary settings.
Building Management
Entrusted to studio Busselli Scherer, the construction management is characterised by the richness of the building’s internal functions: different environments, conceived in an educational key, and an articulated technical system in line with the complex’s school address. Along with normal and special classrooms dedicated to the social professions, the institute includes complex laboratories for practical lessons in mechanics and electrical engineering. The mixed construction system of the entire building – which combines the concept of structural prefabrication applied to the horizontal elements, with an elegant zinc-titanium cladding – is also a site challenge.
A new school in Meran
The new school complex to be built on the outskirts of Merano is the result of an international design competition. The building, defined volumetrically by a single construction, is developed through three distinct elements connected to each other: the tower that will house the E. Lévinas School for Social Professions, the in-line building for the G. Marconi Professional School for Industry, Crafts and Commerce, and the podium in which the workshops and mechanics laboratories will be housed. Completing the functional endowment of the school complex are the underground car park and the gymnasium. The project, scheduled for completion by 2025, will have an overall volume of 33,426 cubic metres.
Photography Manuel Mosquera