3rd part of Building technology studio

Ensō Museum Technical report

‘The Ensō contains the perfect and the imperfect, that is why it is always complete” The word Ensō 円相 in japanese literally means ‘the sign of the circle’. In Zen, Ensō is a hand-drawn circle, which in one or two uninhibited brushstrokes expresses a moment when the mind is free to let the body create.

In the project it symbolizes the absolute enlightenment, the strength, elegance, and the idea of the void “mu” : a minimalistic born element which is result of a Japanese aesthetic approach towards life.

The resonance between this approach and final result is evident in the clarity and succinctness of the proposed element. The project for the new museum for Casarsa della Delizia aims to solve a series of issues with an unique and strong gesture, being respectful of the precise aesthetical ideals without forgetting precise concrete necessities.

Beginning from the specificity of a huge, cultural and architectural heritage, the main assumption for the project development has been found in the use of a simple element, the circle, able to generate different urban kinds of situations.

The concept of the inclusion and the one of the exclusion are automatically generated by the arrangement and bigness of the object’s cale. Different open spaces and a different program around and inside the building, ensure a mixitè of situations able to guarantee an architectural and urban complexity at the service of the city.

Dismantling most of the barracks in this cultural context was for us the way to define a new starting point. To leave behind the historical facts linked to delicate moments of our past, but definetely, leaving two of the old barracks at the boundaries marking the importance of a history which must always be present in our heritage.

And is right from here, from the celebration of the history, that the circular path begins and finishes, towards the way of the culture and the taste of colture: the wine, golden source of this land.

The museum complex contains and tryes to define particular relationships between the two different, permanent exhibitions. The first half of the circle is related to the cold war, the other one in the eastern part to the wine museum, while the old building towards south hosts workshop spaces near the wineyards.

At the ground floor the choice was to have a series of public spaces with shops and restaurant mixed with portions of the museum, defining complex spatialities for the exhibitions which also have double heights.

The character of the building tryies to be absent, in the sense that the quality of the architecture is just given through the variation of the spaces that generate different feelings and not through materials or ornaments.

Compression and dilatation spaces can host different scale of objects during the exhibitions, which are characterized only by the presence of different shdes of light: from one sides, two sides, or from the top, thanks to the zenital skylight.

The building not only tryies to generate an architectural quality but wants to achieve an high degree of efficiency by means of a careful sustainable design.

So doing, the design choices have been done in order to achieve a double target, architectural quality and environmental respect.

Following the shape of the building, the stuctural choices have been done in order to give a consistency at the entire system: the structure has a radial scheme done with steel truss beams and pillars which are the elements that scan the space along the experience.

The skin is the efficient device of the building which mediates between inside and outside introducing the benefits of natural ventilation.

All this issues, architectural, structural and energetical have so been treated not separately, but enhancing the reachment of an unitary and consistent result, finding the reasons of precise choices in a coomon, shared base.