Matteo GulloArchitecture without limits: a portfolio

L’uomo dell’avvenire dovrà nascere fornito di un cervello e di un sistema nervoso del tutto diversi da quelli di cui disponiamo noi, esseri ancora tradi-

zionali, copernicani, classici.

The man of the future will be born equipped with a brain and a nervous system quite different from those we have we, human yet traditional, Co-

pernican, classics.

Eugenio Montale

in front cover:Henri Cartier-Bresson, Model prison of Leesburg. Solitary confinement. 1975. USA, New Jersey.

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CONTENTS

OHRID WATERSPORT CENTREA contrast between landscape and landmark. The Ohrid watersports centre acts as a bridge out of the city, not only creating a physical link for pedestrians, but a connection to a different way of seeing.Macedonia2015

EVER GROWING WATER CAMPUSA project set in a future age. The idea is to create a university campus that

can change and grow day by day, keeping time with the rhythms of our fast-paced society. The project is in a pivotal area, on a former industrial

site in Lower Manhattan.New York, USA

2014CONSONNO CULTURAL CENTREAn exciting place for new developments; an abandoned amusement park set in the mountains close to Lecco. The atmosphere inspired a new way of conceiving cultural platforms.Italy2013

MASEGRA ACTIVE PRESERVATIONMasegra is an ancient castle in Sondrio, dating back to the middle ages. The aim of the project was to create new activities to preserve the castle, adapting its structure to receive a greater number of visitors. Our focus was finding an accessibility solution.Italy2015

I have included in this portfolio just a small selection of projects that I feel best embody my personal idea of architecture.

SHOWROOMSA project undertaken for Restart. I was solely responsible for the design

and restoration of the showroom in Milan and the new site in London.IT/UK2014

JAPAN PAVILLONOngoing project for Expo Dubai 2020. The structure is developed using

Grassoppher and the shadow is guarantee by responsive elements in testing using Arduino and Firefly

Dubaiongoing

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WORK Restart - Milan/Florence/London

EDUCATION Master in Architecture - Politecnico di MilanoMaster of Architecture (in English) at the School of Architecture and Society, Politecnico di Milano.

Ohrid Water Sport CentreCompetition for a sports centre in Macedonia: we analysed the contrast betwe-en landscape project and landmark.Japanese Pavillon for Expo Dubai 2020On-going project. We are developing the project using new responsive elements.

Bachelor of Architecture - Politecnico di MilanoBachelor degree thesis “Prefabricated society: Modern society and new con-struction techniques” with Prof. M. Nastri. This thesis addressed the influences that society has on architecture and vice versa.Responsive Morphologies WorkshopWorkshop on responsive morphologies in architecture and design with the use of Grasshopper and Arduino/Genuino with Prof. Attilio Nebuloni and Prof. Maxi-miliano Romero at Phy-co lab, Politecnico di Milano.Ri-Formare Milano A further project for RI-FORMARE Milano on the site of an old cinema (Piazzale Lodi, Milano) and the site of the planned last stop of M4, the Milan subway line.

Maturità Scientifica - LSS Piero GobettiSecondary School Diploma with scientific orientation from Liceo Scientifico Piero Gobetti, Bagno a Ripoli, Florence. Over the five years I won a number of awards and enjoyed participating in school sports teams and the the theatrical company.

ICT skills: Adobe Creative Suite, Rhinoceros, Autocad, Grasshopper, Arduino/Genuino, V-Ray, Final Cut Pro.Languages: Italian (native), English (B2 last certified level)

EXTRA I volunteer for Associazione Volontari Gruppo Elba ONLUS - a charity that supports disabled people in Florence and Elba - where I was also a member of the directive council.

I was a rugby player in Firenze 1936 during secondary school.

I worked as an actor for Compagnia Venti Lucenti, and have performed in Flo-rence (Teatro della Pergola), Syracuse (Greek theatre) and Yerevan.

+39 3403171844matteo.gullo@mail.polimi.itviale E. Caldara 33, Milano (IT)via de’ Pepi 44, Firenze (IT)

jan 14dec 14

oct 2014now

sep 2011sep 2014

sep 2006jul 2011

Matteo Gulloborn in Firenze (Italy) -13th January, 1993

I worked with Restart for three months full-time until the end of December 2014. During this period I developed and delivered the showroom projects in Milan and London, and the Eurocucina exhibition stand at the Salone del Mobile di Milano, 2014.

OHRID WATER SPORT CENTERMacedonia

2015

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The concept for this project came from its location: encircled in the west by water and in the east by mountains, on the sho-res of Ohrid Lake. Although far from urban and still largely do-minated by agriculture, it is the only viable site of expansion for the city of Ohrid. The city started as a fortress to the north of the lake, and expanded outwards over the centuries along the shoreline into the valley. The project is situated at the edge of this expansion, the point whe-re urban services and rural sy-stems overlap, and where the overwhelming sense is one of transition: between water and mountain, but also between city and nature. There was no other way to reflect this remarkable sensation than to design the project as a bridge between the different realms, connecting the elements. The challenge was to create a landscape that incorporated the watersports centre, but that was also un-deniably connected to the city.

The project has three layers of privacy: the first is private, for facility and storage users with private access to the building; secondly, for visitors; and thirdly for the general public who will use the site as an urban passa-ge to be developed not only on ground level but also along the top of the building.

team mateSunay Altintepe

Elena CasiniGhiath Al Jebawi

Andrija Martinovic

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On the left: collages explain some features of the project. OWC gives the sensation of a little venice working as a brid-ge. It connect the services are-as to the lake directly by wa-ter. The last collage explain the importance of the central point of the building using an artistic production of a naked woman by Egon Schiele. In the middle: plan of the underground floor. Above: view of the covered square from West.

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The materials for the project are illustrated below: OWC is built of the elements around it, uniting the water of the lake with the earth and rock of the mountains. The structure is conceived as a visual manifestation of this fusion, and designed to conceal itself among the slopes of the mountains. The image of the ground floor plan on the left, where the different paths are clearly illustrated, shows that the maximum impact of the site is focused on this central point. The heart of the project, this covered square connects the Olympic swimming pool building with the

structure containing the cafete-ria and offices. It does more than this, however: it is a passageway between two zones, bridging the expansive waterscape and the rugged mountainside, it marks a point of transition between two sensations.

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EVER GROWING WATER CAMPUSNew York, USA

2014

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This project started out as a bit of fun, but was quickly tran-sformed into an architectural study grounded in social re-search. The location is Navy Yard, New York. A few metres south of Williamsburg Bridge, looking across the East River to the East Side of Manhattan, the area has always been stri-ctly industrial but is now under rapid regeneration. The unique waterfront location made this a very exciting opportunity. We were obliged to develop a new design method, adopting diffe-rent visions and goals. The idea was to transform the site’s indu-strial character, converting it into a university campus. Basing our research on socio-anthro-pological studies by Zigmunt Bauman, we were inspired by the utopic architecture of Archi-zoom and Superstudio, but also interested in some of Le Corbu-sier’s projects, such as the Mu-seum of Unlimited Growth. In order to reflect its location, we concluded that our chosen sy-

stem must be one of continual evolution, light on its feet, able to respond rapidly to society’s unfolding challenges. The key element is a rail that holds up the different capsules that will contain classrooms, facilities or dormitories. The rail is also a distributing element for the dif-ferent buildings, and enables the capsules to be relocated or dismantled.

team mateAndrea Filippo Cremonesi

Alberto GiacopelliAntonio La Marca

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CONSONNO CULTURAL CENTERItaly

2013

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Consonno is an incredibly exci-ting location to envision new projects. A small town near Lec-co (Italy), Consonno was bought up and converted into a theme park, and then abandoned in the seventies. However, its loca-tion on the alpine slopes of the Valsassina valley is beautiful. Its unusual atmosphere inspired in us the idea of a landslide cove-ring the abandoned structures, creating new spaces and points of view, and even new cultural platforms for music, art or cine-ma.

team mateAlberto Giacopelli

Andrea GoviLorenzo Grecchi

Antonio La Marca

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JAPAN PAVILLON Dubai

ongoing

The concept of the ongoing project is based on the idea of Yin (black) and Yang (white). In the Japanese philosophy yin and yang are de-scribing like opposite or contrary forces, actually complementary and interconnected in the natural world. Physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang are represented in many tan-gible dualities such as fire and wa-ter, or as in our project: light and dark. The design is developing star-ting from these ideas and it came out with not just in a shape, but, once, with spaces that are giving different sensations. The project is designed to be ideally divided in two part: the first one, set on the South is the Yin, presenting a dark covering: without any kind of per-meability the spaces are closed in a whole giving a really deep sen-sation. On the other hand, on the North, we have the Yang, with a transparent covering protected by a system of responsive elements that are overshadowing the glass behind according to the quantity of direct irradiation.

Team MateElena Casini

Alberto Contu

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Elena Casini Alberto ContuMatteo Gullo

Academic Year 2015/2016Professors: Ingrid Paoletti, Elena Mola, Claudio Del PeroTeaching Team: L. Breseghello, M. Buzzetti, L. Mirante, L. M. Pellegrini, E. Miyasaka , M. Zheliazkova

Politecnico di MilanoFaculty of Architecture and SocietyBachelor in Architectural Sciences

834191834094834668BTS 16

YIN YANGLOT II - JAPAN PAVILION

CONCEPTThe concept of the project is based on the idea of Yin (black) and Yang (white). In the Japanese philosophy yin and yang are describing like opposite or contrary forces, actually complementary and interconnected in the natural world. Physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang are repre-sented in many tangible dualities such as fire and water, or as in our project: light and dark.

We developed our design starting from these ideas and we came out with not just in a shape, but, once, with spaces that are giving different sensa-tions. The project is designed to be ideally divided in two part: the first one, set on the South is the Yin, presenting a dark covering: without any kind of perme-ability the spaces are closed in a whole giving a really deep sensation. On the other hand, on the North, we have the Yang, with a transparent cove-ring protected by a system of responsive elements that are overshadowing the glass behind according to the quantity of direct irradiation.

The structural system creates two different layer, one behind and one over it; in the case of the yin part the first layer is made by a sandwich panel in wood isolated, while the second one is made by photovoltaic panels (the gap between the two layers is 20 centimeters); in the yang part, set on Nor-th, the first layer is made by glass while, sometimes, the second one is a responsive element. As outdoor and context design, we defined two different paths coming from the main corridors; through them is possible to reach easely the yang entrance meanwhile the second on is explaining that there is a second way to enter, allowing visitors to take by themselves the decision about which kind of experience they prefer to have for first.

E1.01

step 1 2 3 4 5 6

sun analysis

master plan 1:500 exploded diagram

flow mapElena Casini Alberto ContuMatteo Gullo

Academic Year 2015/2016Professors: Ingrid Paoletti, Elena Mola, Claudio Del PeroTeaching Team: L. Breseghello, M. Buzzetti, L. Mirante, L. M. Pellegrini, E. Miyasaka , M. Zheliazkova

Politecnico di MilanoFaculty of Architecture and SocietyBachelor in Architectural Sciences

834191834094834668BTS 16

YIN YANGLOT II - JAPAN PAVILION

CONCEPTThe concept of the project is based on the idea of Yin (black) and Yang (white). In the Japanese philosophy yin and yang are describing like opposite or contrary forces, actually complementary and interconnected in the natural world. Physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang are repre-sented in many tangible dualities such as fire and water, or as in our project: light and dark.

We developed our design starting from these ideas and we came out with not just in a shape, but, once, with spaces that are giving different sensa-tions. The project is designed to be ideally divided in two part: the first one, set on the South is the Yin, presenting a dark covering: without any kind of perme-ability the spaces are closed in a whole giving a really deep sensation. On the other hand, on the North, we have the Yang, with a transparent cove-ring protected by a system of responsive elements that are overshadowing the glass behind according to the quantity of direct irradiation.

The structural system creates two different layer, one behind and one over it; in the case of the yin part the first layer is made by a sandwich panel in wood isolated, while the second one is made by photovoltaic panels (the gap between the two layers is 20 centimeters); in the yang part, set on Nor-th, the first layer is made by glass while, sometimes, the second one is a responsive element. As outdoor and context design, we defined two different paths coming from the main corridors; through them is possible to reach easely the yang entrance meanwhile the second on is explaining that there is a second way to enter, allowing visitors to take by themselves the decision about which kind of experience they prefer to have for first.

E1.01

step 1 2 3 4 5 6

sun analysis

master plan 1:500 exploded diagram

flow map

The structural system creates two different layer, one behind and one over it; in the case of the yin part the first layer is made by a sandwich panel in wood isola-ted, while the second one is made by photovoltaic panels (the gap between the two layers is 20 cen-timeters); in the yang part, set on North, the first layer is made by glass while, sometimes, the second one is a responsive element. The structure is developed in a pa-rametric way using grasshopper, while the responsive element is still in test using Arduino and Firefly

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Masegra Castle perches on a hill overlooking Sondrio (Italy), one of Valtellina’s major cities. Throughout its history, the castle has been through war, transfer of ownership, structural changes and long periods of abandon-ment. Its latest challenge was finding a new project to attract visitors and fund its conserva-tion. The aim of the project was to identify activities and find the best solution for integrating them with the structure. One of the main issues was enhancing accessibility: the existing pa-thways were very narrow with steep stairways, unfit for large numbers of people. In light of its status as a historical monument, the project was conceived in such a way as to preserve and maintain the structure of the castle in its entirety. Conse-quently, the enhancements are designed to be disassembled leaving no impact on the origi-nal structure. The first step was to identify key land use in the area, namely wine production

MASEGRA ACTIVE PRESERVATIONItaly

2015

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and livestock. The design pro-cess took into consideration who uses the land and when, with a view to designing spaces for different kinds of people at different times of the day, not only in winter but throughout the entire year. We therefore planned for spaces that could accommodate food culture activities including conferences, product promotion and school visits, as well as restaurants and hospitality ventures.

team mateMateusz Bialek

Giulio BassanelloLuca BreseghelloAnastasia Khech

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history of the castle

cross section South elevation

G 035

CASTEL MASEGRASondrio

GROUP 2 + GROUP 3Bassanello GiulioBiałek MateuszBreseghello LucaFossati AndreaGullo Matteo

Gün CerenKhech AnastasiaMoretti SilviaPelangia MariaPodini Andrea

Suarez Conciauro CristinaUlcay PelinZanardi Silvia

ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATION STUDIOA.Y. 2014/2015

Professors:Stefano Della Torre - Raffaella Brumana - Giuliana Cardani

DETAIL : SECTION OF CONNECTION 1:20The need of a new accessibility is due to the lack of connection between the outside and the inside and between the floors themselves; the existing staircase, contained in the tower building, provide a poor and difficult access, especially for disable people.The re-use project involves an amount of people attracted by the new functions, so an easy access has to be re-designed.The new element appears like a sort of “wall”, recalling the ancient one, creating a new gate inside the external cour-tyard also providing the car access for services and emergencies.The vertical body containing the staircase and the elevator, in general all the vertical connections, appears like a tower that dialogue with the existing ones of Castel Masegra; on the contrary, it appears as a concrete and glass structure, with the glass part looking to the valley and the city underneath, where the view is selected through the use of wooden profiles that interrupt the general panorama view, selecting certain interesting points; also providing shadow to the in-ternal spaces, due to the fact that the glass façade looks southward.Two bridges connect the new element with the Palace building, without interacting structurally with it (detail in 1:20 on the right), throught the re-opening of the two former doors, visible now, on the eastern façade.

As far as the ground floor accessibility is concerned, the actual stair is maintained, but the external courtayard is provi-ded a natural slope which allows disable people to access to the Palace from the northern entrance.

Longitudinal section Cross section South elevation

ACCESSIBILIY PROJECT

SCALE 1:100

The accessibility solution had to take account of the decision to preserve the structure. The aim was to connect the areas im-plicated in the overall design, across different levels, by recon-structing an old defensive wall that had been destroyed in the XIV century. There had been a passageway through the wall that offered a beautiful view over the Valtellina valley. The main thrust of the design was to restore this path, opening up the vantage point to visitors and creating an attraction for the town. This accessibility solu-tion not only served its intended distributive purpose, but, more interestingly, created a space people could engage with. G 031

CASTEL MASEGRASondrio

GROUP 2 + GROUP 3Bassanello GiulioBiałek MateuszBreseghello LucaFossati AndreaGullo Matteo

Gün CerenKhech AnastasiaMoretti SilviaPelangia MariaPodini Andrea

Suarez Conciauro CristinaUlcay PelinZanardi Silvia

ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATION STUDIOA.Y. 2014/2015

Professors:Stefano Della Torre - Raffaella Brumana - Giuliana Cardani

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Geographic section showing the southern façade of the Castle

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SHOWROOMSIT/UK2014

Both projects were run in collabo-ration with Restart, who entrusted me with managing them. The first was a Milan furniture showroom, concluded in October 2014. The project was located near Cor-so Manzoni in the heart of the “quadrilatero della moda”, Mi-lan’s top-end shopping district for fashion, design and furniture. The showroom was designed to display luxury, high-end furniture and interior design, and this stan-dard needed to be reflected in its design. The space is 180 cm below street level, but boasts nine large windows opening onto two of Mi-lan’s major streets (Via Fatebene-fratelli and Via dei Giardini). The first design decision was born from an in-depth understanding of the company. Top quality, locally-sour-ced material is a central feature of its brand, and so the design process began with selecting ma-terials. Starting with a choice of walnut travertine for the floor, ex-tracted in Tuscany and sourced by the company for some of their pro-ducts, metal structures were then selected to partition the space and create the exhibition structu-res. We called in experts in different

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areas to work on site. This project was developed with the furniture layout in mind, and in such a way to enable future improvements wi-thout the need for structural work. The same values underpinned the showroom project on London, Chelsea, for Christmas 2014. The scope of the project was to design a space, in a similar vein to Milan’s, that would represent the company brand. Inspiration was drawn from the location and we began by enhancing the space, ever influen-ced by the character of the Ita-lian products it would be housing. Again, the key to the project lay in the materials, the majority of whi-ch were imported from Italy. This particular project posed the ad-ditional challenge of coordinating tradesmen from different countries to deliver in time for Christmas. The Milan/London projects were the focus of a personal interview published in the furniture magazi-ne Edge Levant, (April/May 2015 issue). The projects’ format was replicated in New York for the company’s showroom there, and will also be used in Eurocucina at the Salone del Mobile di Milano.

DeliveriesMilan: October 2014

London: December 2014

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+39 3403171844matteo.gullo@mail.polimi.it

viale E. Caldara 33, Milano (IT)via de’ Pepi 44, Firenze (IT)