Florence, Italy was home to some of the most educated and forward thinking minds of the middle ages and to this day many tens of thousands of students, both Italian and foreign, flood it’s streets each year. One of the premier universities in the city is the Universita di Firenze. It is a school which is focused on learning from the past and using it to think towards the future. The program needed was a large cafe, an exhibition area for student art, a lecture hall, service areas, a computer lab, and an outdoor seating and study area. The school is adjacent to the Rotonda degli Scolari or the ‘Scholar’s Rotunda’ designed by Brunelleschi in the 1400’s. On the opposite side of the Rotunda is Giovanni Micheluzzi’s famous apartment building. From the site one could also see the Duomo. This made it a very sensitive site. The question was asked 'How can I address them without looking like them?’ The solution was to create a sort of shattered glass system which spills out from the main university building. The ‘shards’ become transparent, programmatic elements and the points of the shards addressed the visual aspects of the site by either pointing directly at the landmarks or facing them with a flat transparent facade. The students can appreciate the modernity of the project while still seeing and understanding the urban context in which the form is born through the transparency between the students and the city and vice versa.
The project is an entry to a university. By having no stairs, there are many half height floors within the shards of glass as well as an interior courtyard between the new structure and the existing structure. These ramps and staggered floors create a much stronger visual connection between students and introduce another layer of transparency to the project. The project is designed as an experience of ascension into the school-you enter the university on the second level. Students would ascend even higher to get to the cafe at the top of the structure. From the cafe, one could enjoy views of the Duomo, the piazza below, the rotunda, Piazza Annuziata, and much more of the beautiful city.