projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

a modern facility for meetings and press conferences – that is the present that the municipality of latina gave itself on the occasion of the 82nd anniversary of the founding of the city. in december 2014 the council inaugurated ‘i-zwicky’, a project that was presented for the first time in may 2013 during the ‘future: architecture e(s)t paysage’ of paris and that came to fruition in the municipality’s new conference room, dedicated to the director enzo de pasquale, the principal feature of which is the reconstruction with lights of the shapes of a constellation conceived by the architects of the studio startt: simone capra, claudio castaldo, francesco colangeli e dario scaravelli. ‘it’s strange how projects come about… i-zwicky is the name of a distant galaxy, an imagined starscape 59 million light years from the earth. for a week, the first thing that we did as soon as we arrived at the studio – together with our ritual cup of coffee – was to look at photos of distant galaxies… looking for shapes and dreamlike ideas, at the very time that the latina town council had asked us to design the de pasquale conference room.’ the design meets the need for a room for press conferences and meetings, equipped with equipment appropriate to the times and to the communications possibilities available today, to be located in the space under the roof created when the town hall was re-roofed. the technical nature of the assignment was interpreted and modelled as a dreamlike idea, in which a system of false walls and ceilings creates a cocoon-like environment marked only by the presence of the lights that form an imaginary constellation, i-zwicky itself. a distant imagined starscape is redesigned and suspended from the vault of the false ceiling thanks to an amazing innovation in which the lucciola light fitting is installed upside down above the marble decking, which creates a continuity of materials, colours and finishes with the floors and the cladding of the building whose metaphysical inspiration is drawn from the nineteen thirties. the suggestion of an imagined starscape above the roof was what led the definition of the light project. the room has been divided into three lighting areas: a horizontal cut with spotlights above the speakers’ table, to focus the light only on the presenters; a group of lights concealed in the central part reserved for the public; finally a background sky, which comes alive during screenings or readings. the different possibilities for combining the lighting of the three areas creates the atmosphere that is most appropriate for the particular occasion for which the room is being used. ‘we are very pleased with this work,’ claudio castaldo and simone capra explain, ‘because it shows that when public administration involves new generations of professionals in the design and management of public works, you can harness new energy that can help in the renewal of our productive infrastructure. finally, we are delighted to have inaugurated a new creation, at home, in the very place where we grew up.’