art. 894 Metal staircase structure with parapets

in amber yellow water-painted birch,

stairs in willow green birch.

150 x 217 x W67 x H224 cm

The word “piazza” (town square) is used to designate the typical Italian place that symbolically

represents encounters and being part of and creating a community. The piazza is a place of

meetings, exchanges, pauses, and discoveries, a place where there may be many people

or just a few, where you can spend time in groups or separate yourself from them.

It’s an inviting space, a space of daily transits and pauses, and lends itself to assemblies

of adults and children, becoming the setting and stage for parties, theatrical productions,

and cultural initiatives.

The piazza is therefore characterized by a sort of pulsing rhythm, alternately full and

empty, quiet and noisy, where children can encounter many opportunities for meeting,

playing, creating stories, making discoveries, dressing up in fabrics, colors and lights,

creating a theater, playing with shadows, reflecting, multiplying and modifying their own

image. It’s a multipurpose space even though it is highly characterized in its cultural and

educational aspects.

Among the various places of a school there should also be a “non-place”; that is, an area that

can be constantly reinterpreted by the children, in terms of its identity and function, as they

play and interact.

The loft is one of these “non-places,” an object whose identity is defined by the conventions

and decisions made by a group of “companions in adventure.”

The loft has some strong characteristics that make it unique and easily identifiable: its height

and dual volume permit children to measure themselves against its size and develop games

on a number of levels, creating a simultaneity of events and narrations.

The steps not only provide an occasion for motor activity but also connect the two contexts

and foster movement and connection among the protagonists. At the same time, the two levels

can also be perceived and experienced as distant from each other.

The “telephone” provides another sort of contact that excludes vision, and therefore highlights

indirect communication and elicits whispers and secrets.

The materials used for the loft vary visually and to the touch, thus offering diversified suggestions

and invitations: a space that in some respects is like “outer space,” adventurous, but becomes

a warm and cozy shelter for playing with dolls and stuffed animals when mats are laid down.

The upper level can be covered with screens or fabric and the sides can be hung with veils to

further transform the object to make it resemble a house, a spaceship, a castle, or a ship. Or it

can become an unusual kind of gym where tactile, acoustic and kinesthetic experiments, along

with movement, become important. The use of lights and screen projections may also enhance

the magical and imaginary suggestions that are intrinsic in such a large object, providing both