PLUS ULTRA | Exhibition 2020_WEB

PLUS ULTRA SE LE C T ED PROJ EC T S

I. PROFILE II. EXHIBITION III. G R APHIC

The Latin expression PLUS ULTRA literally means: ‘forward’, ‘beyond’, ‘farther’. ​ ​ PLUS ULTRA is a design practice that conceives every project as a creative process that can be applied to all different fields and cultural disciplines.

PLUS ULTRA is a design practice based in Milan and Pesaro.

Thanks to a broad network of collaborations, the studio works in different fields and at different scales: from architecture, interior, to set design, to graphic design, till to research and concept development. ​ PLUS ULTRA is founded on the desire of going beyond the disciplinary borders of architecture, interpreting the project as a creative process relevant to different fields. ​ PLUS ULTRA conceives the existing heritage as an historical, economical or social resource to promote and improve through the design process, no matter of the scale or the kind of project. The aim of our practice is to reinterpret, renovate and regenerate the world around us giving it a surplus value and making it more sustainable.

2

Marco Di Nallo architect & co-founder

Alessandra Castelbarco Albani architect & co-founder

Born in Pescara in 1983, he studied at the Politecnico di Milano and at the Technische Universitaet Wien. In 2006 he won the Schindler Award with a proposal for the accessibility of Palais the Tokyo in Paris. He collaborated with different architectural office in Milan and worked in the field of exhibition and stage design. In 2012 he founded his own practice together with Alessandra Castelbarco Albani. In 2014, after gaining a PhD on History of architecture at the Politecnico di Torino, he was guest lecturer at the Antalya International University (Turkey). Since 2011 he collaborates in teaching and researching activities at the Academy of Architecture of Mendrisio (Switzerland) in the field of restoration.

Born in Basel in 1983, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the Politenico in Milan.

She has always been dedicated to both design and research and already during her studies she was involved in set design and scenography.

Between 2007 and 2009 she collaborated with designers, players, artists and art curators in different exhibition and stage set-ups: among others Remo Bodei and Kurt W. Forster. Between 2012 and 2014 she worked as assistant at the Academy of Architecture of Mendrisio on a research project on the conservation of 20th century architecture. Since 2016 she is also custodian and curator of the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro, an important building from the 15th and 16th century: her efforts are for creating events that enhance the dialogue between this historical heritage and the contemporary art in all his forms.

3

PALAZZO Giureconsulti COMPETITION FOR INTERIOR REFURBISHMENT

Programme: Refurbishment of the interiors: reception, common spaces, conference rooms and offices Site: Palazzo Giureconsulti, Milano Year: 2019 Result: Third prize The Palazzo dei Giureconsulti and its surroundings have always been characterized by an important historical stratigraphy that has seen the succession of different eras and styles. The aim of the new project is to take up this continuity, perhaps lost during the last decades, bringing out the most relevant aspects of the past and updating the building’s needs to the contemporary and to flexible and diversified use. The inspiration for a new image is the rich decoration of the Monumental Staircase: from the mosaic on the floor,

a new palette of colours is selected which, in continuity with the existing one, strengthen the character of the spaces and help the visitor to orient himself in a homogeneous path even in the specificity of the different rooms. The project involves the use of materials with a fine appearance such as walnut wood, brass finishes and the presence of wall textiles and boiserie, in memory of the building’s historical past, but used according to a language marked by contemporaneity and aimed at emphasizing specific elements.

4

RISONANZE

EXHIBITION SET-UP

Programme: Curatorship, exhibition set-up, graphic design Site: Villa Imperiale, Pesaro Year: 2019 Photo: Claudio Ciaccio The project, born from the collaboration between the Roberto Ciaccio Archive and the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro, is linked to some recurrent thoughts by the artist, who during his career costantly compared the spatiality inherent in his works and that of the architectural context, in the search for a sitespecific relationship able to reveal new readings.

Going through some titles of Roberto Ciaccio’s works Specchio Soglia, Luoghi, Infinitononfinito, Recto/Verso, Assenza (Mirror Threshold, Places, Infinitenotfinite, Recto/

Verso, Absence) - it is inevitable to grasp the search for a close relationship with space. The dialogue between the rich architecture of the Imperial Villa of Pesaro, built between the 15th and the 16th century as a villa of delights for the Sforza and Della Rovere families, and Ciaccio’s artworks leads to new spatial suggestions: a dialogue between art, philosophy, music and a space rich in history, whose traces resonate musically and metaphorically in the present.

5

RISONANZE GRAPHIC DESIGN

Programme: Graphic design for an art exhibition: programme, invitation, catalogue.

Year: 2019

6

MIRABILIA

SET-UP DESIGN & CONCEPT

Programme: Curatorship, exhibition design, technical management Site: Villa Imperiale, Pesaro Year: 2018 Photo: Giulio Dallatorre, Valerio Panella MIRABILIA is an interior design project and site-specific setup conceived through the observation of a place that preserve numerous traces of the past and that carries out its domestic charm still today: the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro.

hand, the wish to explore the relationships between different objects, and the relationship these objects establish with the space where they are placed. Today many of the rooms of the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro are open for visits but they looked devoid of their original dwelling function, in favour of greater usability by visitors; however, over the centuries, these spaces have witnessed different ways of living and have been furnished with many objects and accessories to recreate each time a different “balance”.

The project is the result of many thoughts: on the one hand, the experience of a place that over time - from 1400 till today - has welcomed different ways of “dwelling” and with them different typologies of domestic objects; on the other

7

Villa imperiale GRAPHIC DESIGN

Programme: Graphic design for the website and posters Year: 2018

8

cappelle medicee NEW MUSEUM EXIT

Programme: Project for the new exit of the Museum of Cappelle Medicee Site: Basilica di San Lorenzo, Firenze Year: 2018

The project envisages the creation of a new volume that, in terms of proportions, materiality and location, aims to act as a mediating element with the surrounding urban fabric and with the monumental complex of San Lorenzo of which it becomes part. The new exit is arranged along the raw wall of the New Sacristy while maintaining a minimal detachment to signal the autonomy and “respect� of the new element for the existing complex. The side along Via Canto dei Nelli is aligned with the northern facade of the New Sacristy: this

looks like a completely closed front, whose proportions resemble those of the golden ratio of the blind arches of the Sacristy; the height of the new volume corresponds to the tax level of the latter, while the new fence is in continuity with the height of the base. The longitudinal facade of the new exit body is tripartite and has three large openings that reflect the verticality and whiteness of the large marble mirror treatments of the Chapel of the Princes.

9

PALAZZO DUCALE URBINO

EXHIBITION DESIGN

Programme: New exhibition set-up for the piano nobile of the art gallery in Palazzo Ducale in Urbino: exhibition, graphic, lighting, curatorship Site: Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino Year: 2017 The Ducal Palace of Urbino has always seen the coexistence of two functions: as the private home of the dukes and as public seat of the court. Also today two distinct identities coexist, however, with a simple relationship of container and content: the Palace as a “museum of itself� and the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche.

The aim of the exhibition is to interweave these identities in a homogeneous path, according to the same principle of organicity that characterizes the architecture of Urbino and

that was a fundamental aspect of the court, where writers, artists, scientists and politicians gathered.

The first is divided into three sub-themes: architecture, court and landscape. The story is told through the layout itself, opening up views of the landscape, highlighting particular aspects of the rooms or the part of the collection linked to the Urbino Court and through educational panels or multimedia activities.

10

GNM GRAPHIC AND VISUAL DESIGN

Programme: New logo, graphic design and corporate identity Year: 2017

11

ALVAR AALTO MUSEUM

NEW EXTENSION OF THE ALVAR AALTO MUSEUM

Programme: Competition for the connection between the Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Finland Site: Jyväskylä, Finland Year: 2016

The new building adapts itself to the natural slope of the site with a dynamic multileveled configuration, ensuring the minimum impact on the topography and the maximum accessibility of several levels. The space itself becomes a device of circulation composed of steps that serve also as display and seating units. On the outside, the same concept of declivity continues in the form of terraces..

The envelope of the building is modified so that a courtyard is inserted in the centre, as an open-space filter between

the surrounding volumes. The courtyard as an innermost component not only helps to regulate the circulation around it but also establishes a visual connection and permeability between the museums and the new shop. This composition of open and closed spaces which occupy the area inbetween the two museums, allows visitors to perceive the context efficiently, without interrupting the continuity of natural setting.

12

PRESTON BUS STATION REFURBISHMENT AND NEW PRESTON YOUTH CENTRE

Programme: Competition for the refurbishment and reuse of the exhisting bus station and new building for the Preston Youth Centre Site: Preston, UK Year: 2015 The new Youth Zone Plus building defines the northern border of the new public square on the western apron. The building, conceived as a slab, physically flows into the existing building and its roof recalls the curved motif of the parking parapets.

The maximum height of the new building is lower than the double height ground floor of the Bus Station. This helps to reduce the visual impact of the new building, preserving the curved concrete front of the car park decks.

To reduce the visual impact on the Bus Station, the new Youth

Zone building is partially sunken into the ground. A sunken courtyard and a patio at ground level contribute to bring light within the building and could be used as external recreation areas. Within the Bus Station, the layout is conceived trying to preserve as much as possible an open plan cencept, some functions are located in the extended mezzanine floor. The sport facilities are concentrated in the basement. The roof houses the kick pitch and other external recreation areas.

13

inter/vallum

MONOGRAPHIC ART EXHIBITION

Programme: Exhibition set-up and technical management Site: Sala delle Cariatidi, Palazzo Reale, Milano Year: 2011 Photo: Davide Comelli The Sala delle Cariatidi of Palazzo Reale, in its architectural configuration and in the intense expression of a suspended temporality full of memories, seems to reflect naturally and questions itself in the poetics of time, traces and revenants that are typical of Roberto Ciaccio’s work. The elements of the room, in the rhythm of caryatids, mirrors and windows, musically induce spatial and temporal intervals that follow the path and perception of the place. These are “intervals” that spatially describe the place in its essential rhythms, echoing

the seriality of the large slabs, opening real and illusory spatiality at the same time in the dialogue of the reflections of the mirror surface

14

LE SON DE TENEBRES

MONOGRAPHIC ART EXHIBITION

Programme: Exhibition design, graphic design, technical management Site: Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, Roma Year: 2008 - 2009 Photo: Antonio Maniscalco The collaboration with Roberto Ciaccio was born from a strong interest in his work: through his works, in their metalinguistic tension and in the constant questioning of the instruments, Ciaccio paradoxically questions - compared to Walter Benjamin’s positions - the procedures and outcomes of print making, directing the mental and visual path of the work towards technical irreproducibility and uniqueness, redefining the very concept of the original.

The Le Son des Ténèbres exhibition - held at the National

Institute for Graphics in Rome, in its prestigious Palazzo Poli (Fontana di Trevi) - presents a body of work (1990-2008) created in collaboration with Giorgio Upiglio, well-known printer from Milan, and a constant dialogue tightened with the philosophy (Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Remo Bodei) and with the music, from which originates the work Leçons de Ténèbres / Le Son des Ténèbres.Revenants

15

Milano Via A. Maffucci, 40 - 20158 +39 02 36557854

Pesaro Strada San Bartolo, 63 - 61121 +39 339 7929459

Email info@plusultra-studio.com Website www.plusultra-studio.com

Email info@plusultra-studio.com Website www.plusultra-studio.com