This project is a case study, developed in the university environment (Polytechnic of Turin, Faculty of Architecture),aimed at the research ,through an innovative approach, of a new housing model able to maintain, for as long as possible ,the uppermost layout capacity to satisfy requests of users, whose characteristics and needs change over time and in different ways. In order to have the widest applicability, the case study focused on the emblematic example of a mixed-use building, set onto a small-irregular size lot in a particular uneven stylistically urban context, which is strongly characterized by stylish, historical, topography and urban features. The project is a flexible architecture.
The project core has been the “mechanism” enabling rooms to get the best flexibility as possible. No fixed partition wall but “filtering elements” (containers), thanks to their modular and reassembled structure, allow to open, close, adjust or create new layouts within the same housing unit, without masonry work. At the compositional level, in order to create dynamic spaces interacting with each other, the spatial continuity theme was kept in building layout in which, different distributions of plan can interact and flow one into the other through non-opaque and open “skins ”.Those in the southern sides, create a bioclimatic greenhouse which allows, on one side, to exploit renewable resources, as a source of internal conditioning and, on the other ,to create a developing space outside the housing unit. Void plants have been designed to be implementable as needed. The project concept is the SECRET GARDEN: a natural, sunny but introverted place, protected by a perimeter wall that filters and separates the outside (the city, the foreignness) from inside (personal living space, the privacy, the intimacy…).