The added value of an architectural object is its public space or the integration of a public space into its physical space. The public character, publicness of the architectural object, defines an object’s catalytic strength to impact its physical and social context.

Publicness is not only a result of a project brief requesting the housing of a certain percentage of public functions in the domain of an architectural object. It is, more importantly, the result of an architectural approach that integrates spaces for the general public into the architecture, spaces which don’t necessarily suggest predetermined uses. Publicness is the result of an architect’s ability to envision the wider effects of the architectural object on the individual and society.

Publicness is grafted into the architectural object. The graft is first accommodated in the object, then starts impacting the object’s operativity and functioning. Eventually, the architectural object is visited, perceived and experienced by the society more due to its publicness than to its primary intended use.

Publicness encourages increased use of a building by various individuals and social groups year round and throughout the day. It enables an increased usage of places and therefore avoids the creation of grey zones. Publicness makes the place!

The BOVISA studio will investigate architectural techniques and methods which will provide publicness, the public character of the new Bovisa station.

First, principles of porosity and spatial sequences will be researched, on which base spatial prototypes will be developed. References for the spatial prototypes will be grafted to the suburban environment of the Bovisa station from central Milan. The prototypes will be developed into projects of inhabited bridges, mezzanines and promenades which will constitute the new Bovisa Station.

The Bovisa station will become a destination, a place where you go also without intention to catch the train.

The studio will prove that the new architectural and spatial qualities of the station exterior and interior create the convenient framework for its publicness.

The studio approach does not rely on a predetermined program but primarily focus on the recognition and integration of the architectural, spatial and physical qualities of the project developed structure and further appropriate it for use.

The studio will be structured into 4 chapters:
Chapter 1: mapping of the site, mezzanines and promenades, entryways and sequences
Chapter 2: porosity studies
Chapter 3: prototype and spatial strategies
Chapter 4: project development and use