Located near the historic center of Ceggia, a small town in the metropolitan city of Venice, the exhibitionlogistical complex for fashion Eraldo Hub, designed by Parisotto + Formenton Architetti, is inserted as a mending element in an uneven urban fabric.
The local economy revolves around a number of industrial realities and a 2.0 type commercial one: a store for the sale of prestigious international brands and new trendy or emerging brands develops and expands thanks to an important extension towards e-commerce, an outlet that contributes to the revival of the peripheral areas of the metropolitan city of Venice, attracting an audience of buyers also from neighbouring foreign countries.
The architectural project develops on an irregular lot around a pre-existing building with a simple and austere volume, with a gabled roof made of brick tiles. Four new buildings evoke, in serial repetition, the volumetric layout: net elements juxtaposed and slid together create, with the pre-existence, a volumetry articulated in a close and intentional relationship with the context.
The new architecture dialogues on the one hand with the natural element of the river flowing parallel, in an ancestral relationship with the water that always returns in the conformation and history of the Veneto and Venetian territory in particular, and on the other hand with the anthropic element of the inhabited centre, beyond the watercourse.
The aesthetic character of the new site is, on the one hand, along the lines of an almost vernacular tradition: the archetypal and synthetic architectural form and the use of facade bricks (Fornace S. Anselmo) are reminiscent of Venetian warehouses – such as those of the Sale or the Tese in the Arsenale, which have now been converted into spaces for the arts; on the other hand, there are strong contemporary grafts such as exposed reinforced concrete and zinc roof, in the total absence of decorative elements.
Although it is a private building for mainly tertiary use, as a work, logistic and exhibition space, the common objective of the client and the designers is the commitment to leave a strong mark, aesthetically composed and respectful of the context, that can enhance the mistreated territory in which it is inserted: an ambitious approach that believes in architecture as a public value.
