AUGEO Art Space, Spa And Gym
AUGEO Art Space, Spa and Gym
Cumo Mori Roversi Architects
BUDGET
$1M - 5M
AREA
10,000 sqft - 25,000 sqft
YEAR
2014
LOCATION
Rimini, Italy
TYPE
Cultural › Cultural Center Gallery>Hospitality + Sport › Wellness/Spa
AUGEO Art Space is a set of spaces for contemporary art and wellness, located in the historic heart of Rimini, an Italian city mainly famous for the seaside tourism and also as the birth place of Federico Fellini.
The location of the project is in itself of underlining importance and aims to offer a new way of living an important historic site in the center of an Italian city, not limited to the citizens but extended to the foreigners, too.
The name AUGEO derives from the latin "augere" that means "to increase, to enrich" and it was chosen to join the roman origin of the Palazzo Spina's place with the principal aim of the project: generating benefits for visitors body and mind.
The idea is to build a relation between art, culture and "bien etre" through an holistic experience and at the same time expressing the local identity and the international vocation.
The historical building which hosts AUGEO is Palazzo Spina, a noble 1600 private residence built on pre-existing remains and is located on Corso D'Augusto, the main street of the city running on the ancient decumanum maximum of the roman settlement.
Palazzo Spina incorporates medieval remains, such as the ogival arches which can still be seen in the ground floor, the barrel vaults in the basements and also roman artifacts like the remnants of a large tower belonging to the boundary walls from Republican era.
In such an important historical context, AUGEO finds the perfect location, expression of the contemporary leisure, only apparently in contradiction with the presence of so many historical testimonies.
The AUGEO 's objective is to bring modern life into the antique storerooms and workshops on the ground and underground floors of the palace: a dynamic space, changeable and mutant, prepared to host temporary exhibitions and installations, to create a relationship with the architecture of the past and the authentic spirit of the city, projecting them in an international cultural context.
AUGEO offers opportunities of meeting and cultural exchange, developing a route with "La Rete Art Projects", the international curatorial collective founded by Julia Draganović e Claudia Löffelholz, dedicated to the research and the support of new artistic strategies in Italy and all over the world.
Together with the gallery there are also a wellness centre, a gym and a superior suite to offer the artists the chance to know and live the context in the best way and to realize site-specific art works.
The internal design project is the work of a cooperation between the designer Yasmine Mahmoudieh from London and the Cumo Mori Roversi Architects studio from Italy.
The design was inspired by the total respect for the historic building and by the highlighting of the new functions of the spaces. It was part of a complex scientific restoration of all the areas, conducted under the strict control of the Monuments and Fine Arts Office.
The restoration has recuperated and consolidated the historical structures, and has returned rooms to the configuration of the original state.
All the new interventions are easy to recognize and express a contemporary language which dialogues with the severe and bare plasters, the medieval arches and the vaults of the old underground storerooms, adding a renewed personality to the spaces:
the use of contemporary finishing materials such as resin, for the flooring in the exhibition areas, and the HI-MACS® for the translucent desk-seating characterizes the lounge bar and expands to include the foyer.
The HI-MACS® material allows to create a fluid, continuous and sculptural object, which hides the technical equipment and introduces the exhibition rooms.
In the health spa and gym, the partition walls, which has been realized adopting the dry technology to be easily removed if required, can be distinguished from the original historic walls by the finishes; the mediation between the historic wooden ceilings and the new partitions is heightened by endings in crystal and stainless steel.
In the wellness center and gym, flooring and cladding are in wood, Graniti Fiandre and Dominic Crinson porcelain tiles and Laminam sheets of a very large scale. The hammam and the tub with water blade are coated by Ravennae company mosaics.
The area of the spa uses Dornbracht and Effegibi equipments and the gym offers Technogym machines of the latest generation.
Great care and engineering have been applied for the integration of all the plants, for the lights, for the air conditioning as well for the audio, all managed by the highest domotics technique.
Viabizzuno was the supplier of all the lightings, tailored made for the scope.
