The school complex designed by Gianluca Perottoni and inaugurated in 2008 at Quinto Vicentino came out of a need to house both the primary school and other recreation or social facilities for a broader public. Premises for children alongside other users with time schedules that would probably not coincide with school hours led to a marked distinction being made between the school part on the first floor and the other communal areas on the ground floor. The complex includes a large multi-purpose hall that serves as a school entrance cum canteen and library. All is enfolded in public greenery and connected by a covered walkway to the adjacent indoor sports stadium.
It was decided to split the building into three distinct bodies: the central part contains the entrance hall and multi-purpose facility; the others house teaching rooms. The result is architecturally dynamic through interplay between these volumes, the access routes around them, the contrast of full space and empty. The façade design for the flanking buildings is a deliberate reference to two great computer monitors with screens of coloured pixels. The pillars supporting the overhang of the upper storey recall giant coloured pencils: past and present in a school building that looks to the future.
The cavity curtain wall makes use of Trespa Meteon panels in thermo-hardening resin strengthened by wood-based fibre. The variety of shapes and colours helps the Meteon panelling to blend with other materials and achieve some deliberate colour contrasts. Trespa also ensures safety, durability and low maintenance - important considerations in a public building.
Matteo Munari’s lighting project makes use of Thorn products. Classrooms are all naturally lit in daytime. Electricity consumption has been kept down by fitting MenloSoft lights with dimmer reactors connecting to sensors in every room for continuous regulation of light flow. The double height of the entrance hall called for Planor, a thin 120x120 cm square, fitted with ten 54W dim-able fluorescent T5 tubes and hung in an asymmetrical position to match the lack of symmetry of the skylights. In the outer buildings the emphasis was on individual light points; for example, the structural pencils holding the porticoes on the front are lit by recessed luminaires at ground level, fitted with metal iodide lamps. For the bright red wall/wings the choice fell on Oyster wall lights; bulbs, again 35 W metal iodide.
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