Elevation Looking North (faces the housing to the South):


Looking South at the City:

Typical Housing Floor Plan (furn. under design...)

Aerial view One:
Before



After

Allowing the sun into the building core from 8am to 4pm brings light and air to each unit.

Sun angles for integration into the design.

It has come to my realization that I should step back and "enter the front door" when presenting my proposal for this site in Castellammare. Below are two Key foci me that i am testing in my thesis.

I. Culture

A. Ritual- Language
B. Place - Climate
C. People- Reason for being (Raison D’ Etre)
D. Time- History

II. Experience

A. Design
i. Personal Experience
1. Italy Trips
2. Construction
3. Studio Competition/ Collaboration: failures and successes
4. Daily Routine/Lifestyle
ii. Knowledge based
1. Investigating how to educate yourself
a. Site analysis
b. Drawing
c. Photo
d. Video
e. Talking to locals
f. Observing
g. Mimicking:
i. Walking the walk (psychology?)
ii. Talking the talk (sociology)

III. Why keep Existing Structure?

A. Historical Integrity- Iconic Value
i. Through design we can effect the usefulness of an iconic site
B. The most sustainable building already stands.

IV. Why This Site?

A. Case Study (experience & culture)
i. Specific conditions: lacks experience & culture; opportunity to explore experience & culture.
B. Outside the U.S.
i. Interest in understanding the metric system
ii. Interest in unfamiliar culture
1. Including language barriers
2. Acute to other ways of learning
C. Familiarity
i. Past trips to same location

V. Objective for site?

A. Proposition: strength the connection of the site to the city
i. Builiding needs to physically sustain itself
ii. Requires city to survive
1. As opposed to grain, the ‘reason for being on the site’ must be people
2. Because people are necessary to bring place (site) into the existing and evolving culture.

I. Concepts for exploration.


A. Geometry

1. Method of Parameter Adjustment
a. Using the site as basis of parameters, integrate this base with the new use
parameters.
b. Test new parameters with function and buildability.
2. Part/ Whole
a. Develop and explore relationships of the detail part to the unit to the cluster to the complex to the site, and finally to the coastline.

B. Culture

1. Integrate current cultural activities and events within the renewal of the site.
a. Allow for private fishing from the docks.
b. Legitimize the selling of seafood at private residences.
c. Promote the connection to other main public events along the coastline.
2. Promote the new reason for being for the silo complex.
a. Establish new cafés for outdoor entertainment.
b. Renew the ground floor of the site to be pedestrian orientated.
c. Enrich the passageway for local walking up and down the waterfront.

C. Sustainability

1. Efficient and economical reuse of the silo complex
a. Explore reuse of the steel tubing in the silos
b. Develop placement of the concrete rubble from adapting to housing.
c. Explore passive systems to incorporate in the heating and cooling of the building.
d . Explore the desalination system.
e. Establish a rain collection system to integrate with the desalination, sewage, and
water systems.
2. Urbanism/ Urban Design
a. Explore the original reason for being versus the new one.
b. Develop the waterfront edge as a pedestrian friendly environment.
c. Develop the south edge of the site as a transition to the city and a front to the main
street.

II. Goals: Areas for development


A. Finish the passeggiare and connect it to the city behind the site.

1. Continue the current waterfront to and around the silo site.
2. Engage the Fontana Grande behind the site.
a. Use the wall behind the site as a threshold into the marketplace instead of a barrier.
3. Establish an outdoor café area for social gatherings and events on the west side of the silos.

B. Reuse the Silo Relic as a housing/desalination complex

1. Develop housing units on multiple floors.
2. Integrate desalination tanks for both silo clusters on the waterfront in between the housing units.
3. Use the top floor of the silos to create a civic open lawn.
4. Incorporate passive heating and cooling vents on the roof.
5. Develop structural analysis for the silos.
6. Develop a skin system for both the housing and the desalination areas.

C. Create an open-air market on the first two floors of the silos including the pier.

1. Remove the flooring between the first two floors to create an open-air market for both fisherman and other goods to be bought and sold.
2. Reuse the crane on the pier for hoisting the seafood from boats below.
3. Use the pier as an extension of the market over the water for artists to sell their wears (live/work environment) and for the tourist ferries to dock.

The information below is from a link: Renault. It shows a shift already taking place in high tech areas: Car companies.

The Renault eco² vehicles

Environment within reach

Renault is committed to proposing a range of environmental and affordable vehicles.

A Renault eco² vehicle meets three criteria:

it has CO2 emissions under 140 g/km or runs on biofuel,
it is manufactured at an ISO 14001-certified site,
it is 95% recoverable at end of life and contains at least 5% recovered plastic (of total plastic mass).

An environmental commitment

Renault is taking yet another step forward with the launch of Renault eco² signature in Europe, by publicly announcing its commitment to environmental and economical vehicles.

• Environmental because results can be measured throughout the vehicle’s life cycle,
• Economical because the vehicles consume very little fuel but also because they bring customers affordable technology that in some cases offers tax advantages.

After walking up the coastline to Torre Annunziata I found out that there is a new shipyard for private boats to be safely stored; something to take into consideration for the renewing of the coastline.

During my research i found out that there was also a storage facility for salt next to the grain silos on the east side. The below picture shows the empty haul lined with oak planks and port holes in the top for filling.

Some thing that I of interest after discussing the silos with both locals and professors is the cutting through the concrete which is confirmed to be 15.24cm thick with re-bar reinforcing. Two ideas that have been recently discussed is actually using the inside for housing versus using the silo solely for its structural support as a column and building on the outside or around it. In the area surrounding Castellammare i have found other silo sites: some also closed down and some active. I have documented them each with the history told to me by the locals and the dimensional information as well. Below is a picture of the steel tubing used to pour the grain out of the silo and channel to the truck below for distribution throughout the regions of Italy.

There seems to be several layers to the boardwalk allowing several activities to occur simultaneously:

Beginning of the 3rd trip to the Site: