☉ Enrico Fermi School is a second prize proposal by Laboratorio Permanente for Fondazione Agnelli and Compagnia di San Paolo in 2017. It is located in Turin Italy in an urban setting. Its scale is medium. Review the 3 proposals for the same competition.
Initially conceived as an isolated element of the city, as a series of undifferentiated spaces, the Enrico Fermi school is redesigned in order to dissolve borders between the city and the school ensuring a dialogue between didactics and experience, indoor and outdoor spaces, artificial and natural environment.
The school, placed in the heart of the city, becomes the stage where students, workers and citizens, can identify themselves through a sequence of different spaces and materials making them live in a harmonious relationship. The “Cantiere Cultura”, thanks to its iconic image, set itself as a cultural centre, pivot of a dynamic and lively landscape. The project revamps the elements of the historic and cultural heritage of the neighbourhood and presents itself as a landmark whose features are balanced against the immediate urban surroundings.
“Adolescence is a new birth”, the pedagogue Stanley Hall writes, defining it as a period of life in which new experiences are the only way to develop a renewed knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. This process of growth is not a lonely journey. It’s a journey that enriches if shared and dealt in common with friends, school and family. The architecture of the Enrico Fermi school in Turin was born as an answer to this need of complexity and sociality through the design of a flexible and interdisciplinary school.