Typologies & Places in Siena
The last exercise of our journey had us documenting some of the typologies and places around Siena.
To start off, the intent of the above Palio benches sketch was to capture the overall assembly, while detailing some of the kit of parts component—through the bench detail and wall attachment detail.
Fountains are a main part of the Sienese culture, as they once had a purpose of public drinking, bathing, and washing—eg. Fontebranda, link below for reference.
http://www.cinellicolombini.it/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Fontebranda.jpg
However, the choice of this modern fountain contrasts the original typology of the aforementioned fountain by serving only as an aesthetic element. It does not contain the typical material construction (smaller scaled brick vs marble block) as well as the typical method of construction (arcade vs no arcade).
More specific to the time of Palio, the fencing around the Campo provides an interesting modular track boundary. It is placed between the bollards and secured in existing voids in the ground.
One’s typical loggia, this one specifically nearby the Universidad de Siena’s dorm on Via de Porrione.
Following suit the component aspect of the Palio fencing and seating, the shutters in the dorms have a range of operational positions and pairings of solids and transparencies that minimizes, maximizes, and everything in between, lighting in the room—as depicted in the right detail. Details of external and internal connections complete the composition.
Il Palio
Palio was—in one word—breath taking. It is more than a 2-minute horse race between the neighborhood, or Contradas.Time stops and the town celebrate tradition, pride, and everything that is Sienese.
The gathering in Il Campo, slowly filling up.
Beginnings of the march
Some close ups as march passes by
Oxen?
Really big oxen.
At this moment, the riders leave the Palazzo and line up for the beginning of the race.
La Lizza Planning Strategy
The program entails developing the La Lizza Park site, situated adjacent to Fortezza Medicea in Siena, italy, into a home for music and music-related activities.
One proposal involves developing the original hardscape into a series of spaces that expand and contract.
The original site analysis, noting major entries into the park, neighboring program and structures.
The idea of contraction and expansion evolved from a musician’s action during a performance. He or she acts in repose, awaiting his turn to play, taking in environ of music from his peers. However, when his turn arises to play his instrument, he becomes the epicenter of the sound, and expands from there. The sketches above show preliminary planning ideas.
The final planar and sectional proposal that attempts to create feelings of expansion and contraction on the horizontal plane and vertical plane.
Ideas of hardscaping areas to create the aforementioned effect.
Corner entry that demonstrates the contraction which leads to an expansive area that form the lobby of the adjacent volumes.
Preliminary perspective sketch.
The Old & The New of Siena
We were tasked to document our path to Porta Ovile and Barriera San Lorenzo in our second week in Siena. In our journey, we discovered an interesting comparison between the two in that one shared the old medieval language with the rest of the city—Porta Ovile—while the other contrasted the old with a more modern, renaissance language. In this project we compared to the two in terms of programming, scale, rhythm, and building typologies.
The starting point: Il Campo
The path to Porta Ovile demonstrated the stereotypes of medieval typologies in the expanding and contracting of the circulation, programed for pedestrian traffic (narrow, heavy inclined streets), and elements of gothic architecture.
The path to Barriera San Lorenzo, by contrast, had a very regular street width, i.e. wide, a gradual ramp with a large radial turn—all suggesting vehicular traffic; and indeed it was as this was the main thoroughfare by which buses travel in and our of the city. A bus station is situated up the hill from the Barriera.
Small foldouts details sectional qualities of the area: paving pattern, scaled transverse section of the street, building typology (gothic, medieval, renaissance), as well as specific details pertaining to that area.
The overall presentation:
Team Members: Anthony Cosentino, Sayumi Cortes, Jon Van Ostenbridge
Il Campo Model
The model of Il Campo conceptualizes how it stands out in plan among the sea of red clay roof tiles. From this single sheet of paper, the Campo is pulled out rather than the building facade folding up to illustrate the datum that is established by the plan of the roofs.
Piazza di Duomo di Siena
Like many of the church typologies I’ve seen in Italy, the Duomo di Siena sits among the city fabric, nestling itself between exisiting buildings. That doesn’t mean it’s not unique in any way. It is one of the few striped churches, whose influence originates from Middle East. However the focus is on the Piazza del Duomo.
The unique S-shape tells a tale of how the church, like said before, was built into the city fabric. It also speaks a bit of its history as the incomplete portion of the piazza reveals the intended—but never realized—expansion.
The piazza also has an interesting procession that leads behind the church to the baptistry. These set of stairs speak of the same language of building into the existing fabric in that the varying stair width spans from skewed walls of the Duomo and the neighboring building.
Il Campo
Il Campo in Siena, Italy is truly a successful model of a public space. It’s flexibility of programming to serve small private groups, vendors and restaurants, and even hold thousands for Palio is much to be admired. One facet of Il Campo that I observed is its 11 entries, and how unique they are.
A mixture of large and small entries puncture the barrier facade of Il Campo. The large one services vehicles and large group of pedestrians, while the smaller one, usually with an overhang, houses small shops and vendors underneath to serve just the pedestrians.The large entries are also the main thoroughfares which the parade for Palio enters and exit. The parade starts at (J), (G) serves as the exit for the initial laps of the Carabinieri’s horses, and the parade of the winning contrada exits from the large ramp at (A)
Photograph of the large ramped entrance.
