Knowledge is Power. Power is Freedom. Freedom in sharing, in the common growth of the individual, in the community. Education as the backbone of the cultural, civic, democratic development of society, of local and global identities at the same time.
Spatial quality is the basis for guaranteeing the best learning conditions and also the implementation of the performative capacities of the overall educational system in relation to the social context.
A school that expresses good architecture as a reification of the educational function is a symbol in which the community identifies and recognises itself, like a "monument". The project interfaces with the territory as a new connective element, through three distinct buildings that border the streets delimiting the lot. Each of these is overlooked by a single building, diversifying the entrances, which are managed independently during the different phases and cases of use.
The complex operational programme required an urban and architectural response as a regeneration of the entire urban area involved, through the decomposition into functionally coherent buildings organised around a central public space "Agora" that distributes, reorganises, and prioritises space.
The school complex is a 'community centre', in addition to being strictly speaking a 'training centre', with social, civic, intergenerational activities, permeable to citizenship according to time maps and endowed with areas that hinge between inside and outside (entrance hall, sports fields, outdoor areas, library, meeting space for families and pupils). For this reason, the complex interfaces with the city in a diversified manner, through the three different buildings (school, theatre, gymnasium), and establishes a relationship of mutual recognition between city and school, where one becomes a representative element of the other, generating positive contributions both to education and to the city's socio-cultural environment.
Project team:
GE Studio Gaballo Engineering – Nardò (LE)
Caputo Partnership International – Milano (MI)
Ing. Giuseppe Carallo – Taranto (TA)
La Sia s.p.a. – Roma (Rm)
Andrea Vitale – Nardò (LE)