Studio Details

Location
Venice, Italy

Date
3-14th July, 2023
(8/9th weekend free unless notified otherwise)

Fee
2500 Euro

Studio Director in Venice
Peter Wilson (co-founder / partner Bolles+Wilson)

Studio Project
Materplan for a new Venice urban quarter

Time Commitment
3.5hrs / day classes (+ fild trips, lectures and site visits)
*students should expect to spend additional time outside class to develop their projects

Required Skills
N/A

Required Software
N/A

Resources
Laptop computer, notebook, drawing tools, sun hat + sun block

Field Trips and Site Visits
TBC.

note: The cost of all studio activities are covered by the Venice Studio program (inc. any transport), therefore there is no additional cost to students.
A week-long public transport ticket and entry ticket to the Architecture Biennale (Giardini and Arsenale) are also included.

Studio Project

AIR B+B GHETTO

The Venetian Ghetto set up by the Venetian Republic on the 29th of March 1516 and dissolved by a 28 year old General Napoleon Bonaparte on 12 May 1797, has given the world the typology of a segregated area within the city.  Those within; Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Levantine and Ashkenazi Jews were important to the Venetian economy and therefore allowed limited travel outside the Ghetto.

The hypothesis of this Studio is that Venice now needs a new Ghetto, this time for AIR B+B APARTMENTS and the masses of tourists who use them as base in the Serenissima.
Currently a significant number of apartments within the historic city are rented as AIR B+B, pushing up rental prices for locals and producing a general housing shortage (as well as the noise pollution of wheeled suitcases rattling over cobblestones). The AIR B+B phenomenon is not a unique Venetian problem it is also rampant in Barcelona, Berlin or any city worth visiting.

The Studio hypothesises is based on the radical political step of banning of Air B+B lettings within the historical city – but perhaps this is not so radical now that Cruise Ships are banned in Venice by the National Government. The now empty and redundant Cruise Ship Terminal needs repurposing as – an AIR B+B GHETTO – a new urban Quartier already with a high-line train shuttle to Porta Roma. The intention is to give Venice back to the Venetians and also to tame and accommodate the tourist hoard that fuels their economy.

The reuse of existing Cruise Infrastructure (carparks, highline, Vaporetta stops) would be a starting point, also a reinterpretation of a Cruise Ship section as DNA for anew AIR B+B Palazzo typology.

Bolles + Wilson

BOLLES+WILSON are internationally known for a consistently high architectural quality in a wide range of projects, each an individual solution developed with careful consideration to the cultural and the urbanistic context, which it must enhance.

The program, whether cultural, residential, office, retail/entertainment, public use, or administrational is always the generator of the building form. Our philosophy is to ennoble the practical necessities and the purpose a building must serve through creative invention. Ultimately the technical, the programmatic as well as issues of sustainability must be simply and elegantly synthesised as architecture and as spaces with a distinctive and unique character.

BOLLES+WILSON are based in Germany but operate internationally with projects in Albania, Australia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and United Kingdom.

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Internships

Students accepted into the Bolles+Wilson Studio at Venice Studio may be considered for available internship or job opportunities at Bolles+Wilson. Selection of candidates is at the sole discretion of the studio director and Bolles+Wilson. Places are not guaranteed.

VS23 Program Information

For Deatiled Program Information click HERE

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