calcio padova football center
Type: Masterplan, Concept
Info: Project for the new Calcio Padova sports center
Year: 2020
Location: Padua
Client: Calcio Padova
The project stems from the desire to create a new "home" for the world of Calcio Padova. A project that aims to honor the history of this club and its city. The idea was to restore symbolic value to the aerial view of this portion of land by reproducing the club's identifying graphic symbol.
The Biancoscudato (White-and-Skull) coat of arms thus becomes a new trace of the land, symbolically characterizing it on the landscape scale. Rather than an arbitrary organization, the logo suggests a compositional order in the currently empty space of the countryside. The roof thus becomes a pure architectural element, seen as a defined, autonomous, and recognizable form, and presents itself as a characterizing and significant figurative body in both the natural and artificial environments. The framework of the cross supports the built system and organizes the empty quadrants of the countryside. The second key element within the design matrix is the portico, a typical architectural element that characterizes the city of Padua. The project defines a portico system that defines the accesses and covered external pathways, protecting the glass facades, which are set back from the external perimeter of the roof.
The new construction system fits discreetly into the existing expanse of agricultural fields, with a height of no more than two levels, resting on the pattern of divisions between the cultivated plots. In the background, the volcanic cones of the Euganean Hills emerge with discreet emphasis from the rectilinear profile of the roofs. The vegetation of the remaining forest along Viale Nereo Rocco is reused in the perimeter tree system, in the parking lots, as a filter for the physical therapy and refreshment activities of the medical and fitness center, and in the two park areas at the northern and southern ends. These will become the first portions of an urban park, integrating into the new community services.