Bicigrill House | BANP STUDIO

Architecture, House

The naturalistic landscape of Prevalle provides the setting for the Bicigrill, strategically located along the Gavardina bicycle path, which connects Brescia to Salò. The compositional principles guiding the architecture of this building are characterized by deliberate simplicity. The archetypal double-pitch front becomes an instrument of collective identification; a front that is therefore recognizable and open, in direct dialogue with the bicycle/pedestrian path and the Naviglio canal that precisely accompanies the latter for a few kilometers.

The “skin” of Bicigrill House, composed of terracotta shingles, lends a hardness that is balanced with the innovative use of a traditional material. The decision to fully clad both the roof and the elevations turns to the definition of a compact object, a body that designates a place and interacts not only with it but also with the entire community of the village of Prevalle. A hard skin for a comfortable and safe place, a traditional material reinterpreted in a contemporary guise to dialogue harmoniously with the specific context. The strong and direct dialogue with the municipality of Prevalle, which promoted and financed the project, made it possible to design first and build later a small building whose goal was to be a new element and at the same time strongly rooted in the specific context.

The Bicigrill presents itself as a meeting and transit place not only for cyclists and riders but also as a gathering point for numerous activities open to the community of all ages. This space aims to be part of people’s daily lives, offering itself as a welcoming and inclusive environment. We like to think that this building shows the design team’s ongoing commitment to green building issues, employing entirely a prefabricated wood xlam structural system, thus giving it an eco-friendly feel from the ground up. Attention to detail and sustainability was also manifested in the decision to clad the entire prefabricated wood structure with shingles, a material called upon to narrate the character of the building and to complete the stratigraphy of the ventilated wall, thus contributing to the building’s overall energy performance.

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