Parfiri Low Emission Building

Bossarino (SV), Italy

Parfiri Low Emission Building
Bossarino, Italy
2001-2005

Italian Architecture Golden Medal, selection for the Honor Mention for “Production and public activities” (2006)

program: New directional building built according to environment-friendly and bio-architecture criteria
area: 1 902 m2
client: Parfiri srl
project: Alfonso Femia * with
structural engineering: Fabrizio Feltri
services engineering: Marco Taccini
geology and geotechnics: Cesare Ferrero
contractor: Parfiri srl, Edilceva
ceramic model: Danilo Trogu
photos: ©E.Caviola
“Like a chameleon, it lays down and takes the colours from the context, its banal and careless structures, its pains, its sadness, its uninteresting and dumb buildings, the failure of Modernity. It appears in this way, but moving closer, the apparent banalities change in a perceiving device… context is respected… bad thoughts warned… pleasure and astonishment come back.” AF
The block of offices is located within a suburban industrial site, originating from a “rural” past. The area is crossed by the coal ducts, taking coal from the Harbour of Vado Ligure to the power plant, marked by two smokestacks; it contains a big dump (whose property and management belong to the client) several industrial and commercial buildings, an ancient village (Bossarino), the link road between Savona-Turin and Genoa-Ventimiglia motorways and obviously the surrounding green area. The project focuses on Context. The style we have chosen to deal with such theme is Realism. Realism involves the recognition of prefabricated tertiary, industrial and commercial buildings. Realism involves facing Modernity and its decline, visible in the outskirts of our cities. Realism is recognizing the context. The “Studium” of Barthes’ photography. Realism is defining the key point, the “Punctum”, of the project: the stratification of horizontal elements, matching the territory by means of its infrastructures (Studium), on the one hand, and the superposition of the horizontal elements, producing interesting plays of light, on the other. Bow windows and “embedded” windows alternate. All of a sudden, a desire for cinema – and dream – adds to Realism and to its straightforward composition, characterized by shades of grey. Colourful lights, red yellow and blue, different for each floor, light on at dusk or during winter mornings. Approaching the building we will discover the same colours in the intrados. We will discover unexpected edges and changes. Strong. Expressive. It seems we have found the “Punctum”. Contextual Realism is now Magic Realism.