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The church of Longuelo by Pino Pizzigoni: Design and construction of an experimental structure
Abstract
This paper presents a critical study about the church of Longuelo (Fig. 1, 2), Italy, designed in 1966 by Giuseppe “Pino” Pizzigoni (1901–1967), an Italian architect who lived and worked in Bergamo. He began his studies on shell structures in the 1950s and many of his buildings show outstanding skills in conceiving and handling complex structures. The church is probably his masterpiece, taken on with a combination of limited analytic knowledge about structures, perseverance and partial unconsciousness, typical at time. The cultural background of the architect and the whole conception of the project, as well as the peculiar building characters, its construction history and impact on the architectonic culture will be investigated in this paper.
... First, he built a few prototypes of hyperbolic pa- raboloids and umbrellas in a field of his own property. Then, he applied that experience to the roof design of some schools and factories around Bergamo (Deregibus and Pugnale, 2010). ...
... Moreover, the topology through which he ar- ranged the hypars, allowed the architect to put to practice the concept of Möbius ring as well. Another feature related to the hypar is that the internal space results in a single, smooth surface that echoes the concept of the tent pitched by God, metaphorical / biblical concept described by the gospel of John ( Deregibus and Pugnale, 2010). ...
Before the introduction of NURBS-based CAD software and optimisation, the design of form-resistant structures was based on the use of either experimental tools (physical form-finding) or analytical surfaces, and architects were challenged in the articulation of spaces from the intrinsic characteristics/rules of structural forms. An outstanding example of this kind is provided by the Church of Longuelo, which was built by architect Pino Pizzigoni in Italy, between 1961-1966. It was conceived as composed by two major elements – an irregular frame and a set of shells suspended to it. The entire design process was based on the calculation of the frame on which the shells have been just added as a dead load. This paper presents one possible way to redesign the church parametrically. Comparison with the original design is not performed at the final formal level, which can logi-cally differ, but around the concepts behind the project. The aim is to show how current digital design and optimisation tools are affecting the way architects design. But, at a higher level, the purpose is also to highlight where conceptual design is now taking place in the process.
... In the field of industrial design, Pino Pizzigoni realized during the Fifties timber and marble chairs and tables made of reciprocally supported elements, called by the architect as structures with 'interlocked members' emphasizing the attention on the joints (See Pizzigoni Archive: PIZ N, 1948) [60]. Finally, the sculptors George Hart and Rinus Roefols [61] have been interested in the principle of reciprocity, using it for the conception of some of their geodesic domes and complex three dimensional sculptures. ...
This paper deals with the principle of structural reciprocity, considering its origins in both Occidental and Orient culture and aiming to highlight the definition, main characteristics and interesting aspects of such concept referring to its application to the world of construction. Issues spanning from history, form-finding and morphology, structural behaviour and construction techniques are discussed in the paper, which should be considered as a starting point to stimulate future research and design directions/approaches.
... Two examples can be seen in Figs. 11 and 12 (Pizzigoni Archive: PIZ N, 1948;Pizzigoni 1982;Deregibus and Pugnale 2010). Shifting to art, the sculptor George Hart used reciprocity to create simple geodesic domes. ...
Reciprocity is a structural principle that has fascinated designers and builders throughout the world since ancient times. Despite the topic's having been studied by various academics, designers and researchers, a critical overview of the references is still missing, as is an outline and discussion of the current and future promising research/design issues. Further, no single text provides an exhaustive definition of the principle of structural reciprocity and it must be critically recon-structed from several different sources. This paper aims to fill in these gaps, pro-viding a complete and annotated list of references, in which historical examples, as well as patents, research articles and terminological issues are discussed. A con-sistent definition of structural reciprocity is also proposed, and the promising developments of such a principle are outlined in order to guide designers and researchers in the future.
Since the advent of the modernist movement in architecture, organic shapes have attracted designers. Digital fabrication technology and three-dimensional computer-aided design have made the architectural design of free-form shapes much easier. However, the construction of these shapes still has many risks in terms of cost and time management. This study aims to develop a new unit construction method by integrating digital fabrication with the conventional wooden construction technique on a large architectural scale and compare its productivity throughout the construction process to the conventional method. This paper first illustrates the current situation of free-form shape production by surveying a reinforced-concrete roof-construction project using a conventional construction method in Japan. We then develop a new construction method in which curved surfaces are divided into portable units in order to reduce on-site labor and ensure a high degree of accuracy. Finally, we analyze its productivity by conducting some assembly experiments. The new method reduces on-site labor costs by 93% compared with the conventional method.
In 2016, maintenance and conservation of the reinforced concrete tent-church of Pino Pizzigoni, located in the district of Longuelo in Bergamo (Italy) was completed. The church represents one of the most impressive examples of very thin reinforced concrete vaults structures in Italy. However, the very thin cross section of these structures has required in the years a constant maintenance for the particular vulnerability of vaults to environmental aggressive agents. The intervention consisted in the reconstruction of the deteriorated sections of load bearing structures by means of a self-compacting shrinkage-compensating mortar poured in a wood formwork that faithfully reproduced the original texture of the reinforced concrete elements. The reconstruction of thin vaults occurred, moreover, with mortar applied by trowel. Repair was completed by the application, by spraying, on the surface of concrete elements of a thin mortar layer. Finally, an elastomeric acrylic coating completed the maintenance work.
Il rapporto che in architettura lega forma e struttura è di particolare interesse sia nella ricerca sui temi del ‘non-standard’ (Migayrou 2003), focalizzati per lo più sullo studio della gestione parametrica del progetto, sulla fabbricazione a controllo numerico dei suoi elementi, nota come File-To-Factory o più recentemente Digital Crafting, e sull’implementazione di tecniche computazionali di morfogenesi, sia nella didattica del progetto, specialmente quanto l’integrazione tra progettazione architettonica e strutturale diventa il tema peculiare dell’esperienza di laboratorio.
Studiare oggi il legame tra forma e struttura significa inevitabilmente confrontarsi con l’architettura ‘free-form’, nella quale l’aggettivo ‘free’ identifica la libertà di generare forme a prescindere da ogni principio compositivo, statico o costruttivo, come nel caso dei ‘blobs’ informi di Greg Lynn o della ‘transarchitettura’ puramente virtuale di Marcos Novak. In questi casi sembra che la necessità di recuperare un’integrazione tra i vari aspetti del progetto sia sempre più rilevante: com’era in quelle celebrate opere dell’ingegneria mondiale del Secondo dopoguerra, frutto di un processo creativo-generativo che saldava indissolubilmente il contributo disciplinare a quello della ricerca formale, purtroppo scomparse dal dibattito architettonico nell’arco di un ventennio. Le strutture a guscio del Kresge Auditorium di Saarinen, del 1954, della stazione di servizio BP sull’autostrada Berna-Zurigo di Isler del 1968, o ancora del ponte sul Basento di Musmeci del 1971, sono solamente alcune tra le opere esemplificative di questo periodo. Altri esperimenti vennero condotti ad esempio utilizzando le strutture spaziali, come nel caso delle cupole geodetiche di Fuller, o tensegrity e strutture reciproche. In altri casi ancora, come nella chiesa di Longuelo di Pino Pizzigoni del 1961, le potenzialità espressive dei gusci vennero unite a quelle di un telaio spaziale per concepire un edificio interamente realizzato col calcestruzzo armato (Deregibus et al. 2010). In generale, si trattava di un filone sperimentale che influenzò l’intero panorama architettonico, portando alla fondazione di centri di ricerca come l’”Institut für Leichtbau Entwerfen und Konstruieren” di Frei Otto o alla pubblicazione di testi teorici e didattici come “La concezione strutturale” di Torroja.
L’abbandono della ricerca architettonica su queste tematiche è però principalmente dovuta ai limiti intrinseci dati dalle loro origini storiche. Se da un lato l’introduzione delle grandi strutture in acciaio nell’Ottocento ha portato alla nascita di studi prettamente ingegneristici su particolari tipologie di strutture spaziali, poi consolidati nel corso del secolo successivo, dall’altro il lavoro di Gaudì, basato sull’uso di modelli fisici per la ricerca di forma delle guglie della sua Sagrada Familia, è considerato il pioniere dello sviluppo del successivo ben noto ‘form-finding’ (Otto et al. 1996). E’ facile immaginare l’iniziale entusiasmo dei progettisti verso la sperimentazione in questo campo ma è altrettanto evidente come, vincolati da un lato dalla simulazione di particolari proprietà fisiche e dall’altro dalla difficoltà di rappresentare e gestire geometrie non regolari, essi venivano sempre ricondotti a ricercare le possibili soluzioni ad un problema di form-finding strutturale all’interno di una determinata famiglia di forme, rapidamente esplorate in sede progettuale, costruite più e più volte, ed infine divenute ridondanti e prive d’interesse. Solo il recente sviluppo di strumenti informatici per la creazione e la manipolazione di geometrie particolarmente complesse, insieme con lo studio di tecniche computazionali di ottimizzazione ingegneristica, ha consentito l’avvio di una nuova fase esplorativa in questo campo.
A partire da queste premesse, l’attività del workshop di costruzione può diventare un interessante momento di sperimentazione didattica nel campo delle strutture resistenti per forma, ponendosi in una posizione strategica sia rispetto al più tradizionale studio del ‘form-finding’ sia alle più recenti tendenze del ‘non-standard’: lo studente è chiamato a confrontarsi con problemi costruttivi reali, ed è anche possibile immaginare una simbiosi maggiore tra didattica e ricerca in diverse modalità. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è quindi indagare, col supporto di alcune esperienze esemplificative degli autori, il potenziale dei workshop di costruzione nella didattica del progetto e nell’attività di ricerca scientifica, cercando di tracciarne possibili scenari per future esperienze con gli studenti di architettura.
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