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GIOVANARDI AT THE VENICE ARCHITECTURE. BIENNALE 2023

GIOVANARDI, a company that is always at the forefront of high cultural initiatives, has supplied the high-performance fabric Tentmesh Dual Shade, colour Maldives, for the realisation of the project "La Casa Tappeto" conceived by Studio Ossidiana and presented at the Italian Pavilion... entitled "Spaziale. Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else", curated by Fosbury Architecture, which recounts 9 projects by architects under 40 around Italy who have particularly stood out for their themes of sustainability and social fragility.

"Building has always coincided with the human attempt to tame the world. The hut for protection from the rain would be made today with tons of expanded polyester. We are convinced that there are gentle ways to combine thermal/climatic well-being with social well-being and to accommodate a community by taking care of it." Fosbury Architecture curators state

Studio Ossidiana has intervened in the regeneration of the suburbs of Librino in Catania, where, in collaboration with the creative Adelita Husni Bey and the non-profit association TalitaKum Straludobus, a children's play area protected by a scenographic tent made of highly resistant fabric has been created. The project will include several installations, thanks to the tents that can take on different configurations depending on the structure supporting them.

The Carpet House

La Casa Tappeto is a soft building to be hoisted, stretched or folded: 144 square metres of fabric distributed on four rolls with which to compose temporary spaces for the neighbourhood, so many nomadic embassies of Librino.

Stretched out, La Casa Tappeto becomes a tablecloth for communal picnics; folded on itself, a tent for playing or an open-air cinema; hung from a building or unfolded on a slope, a large flag. The Carpet House is part house and part field; it protects from rain and sun, you can draw on it or sleep in it, you can mend it like a blanket and alter it like a dress. The Carpet House is part of an accompanying process that aims to test and integrate the project into the social context through workshop activities with neighbourhood associations.

The installation produced for the Italian Pavilion presents one of the four flaps that make up La Casa Tappeto and an illustrative version of the 'Grande Gioco di Librino' created by Adelita Husni Bey with the Talità Kum association, which involved children attending the children's centre. This first stage of the accompanying process is shown on a smaller scale, together with the descriptions of the children who designed the boxes of the game. In Librino, the Great Game was sewn, in its final version, to the flaps of the House, acting as a game in the 'carpet' configuration and as a tapestry in the 'house' version. This will be followed by workshops enhancing the project with set designs and tableau vivant to narrate the complex relationship between the associations and the neighbourhood by providing a symbolic and functional contribution to La Casa Tappeto.

Tentmesh Dual Shade is a high-performance, two-colour, monofilament HDPE fabric. It lends itself optimally to the project from both a technical and aesthetic point of view. Being a shading net, it protects from the sun and at the same time is particularly suitable in windy areas such as Librino. This is possible because, being a filtering fabric, it allows the wind to pass through it, giving stability and durability to the installation. Furthermore, being highly elastic with mechanical characteristics of tear resistance, it is a versatile fabric that adapts to the many configurations that La Casa Tappeto can take. Performance and functionality meet design thanks to the two-tone appearance that is particularly appreciated by designers for the brilliance it emanates, especially when hit by the sun's rays.

Studio Ossidiana

Rotterdam-based Studio Ossidiana, founded by Giovanni Bellotti and Alessandra Covini, works at the intersection of architecture, design and landscape. Balancing research and production, the studio explores innovative approaches through buildings, materials, objects and installations.

Adelita Husni Bey

Adelita Husni Bey is a visual artist whose work focuses on complex issues of gender, race and class using collective and informal pedagogical models in the context of urban studies.

Designers


Studio Ossidiana (Giovanni Bellotti, Alessandra Covini)

Advisor


Adelita Husni Bey

Incubators


Talità Kum Association

Foundation of the Ordine degli Architetti Pianificatori Paesaggisti e Conservatori della Provincia di Catania

Location


Librino (Catania), Sicily

In collaboration with


Konstantin Beck

Pedro Daniel Pantaleone

Viktoria Bacheva

Edward Zammit

Production


OSS Ortigia Sound System (Enrico Gambadoro, Angelo Morando)

Ing. Luigi Grasso (Technical Consultant)

Salvo Conticello (Collaborator)

Sponsor


Creative Industries Fund NL

Graham Foundation

Technical Sponsors


Giovanardi

Stancanelli Design&Construction

Supporters


Embassy and Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Oelle Foundation

Marco Fulloni

LaVeronica Gallery

Ph. @delfino_sl

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