THE BASALT PRECIPICE

The geometrical centre of the building is taken by some glass patios, inside which footbridges are hanging over the basalt precipice at museum level.

Patios glass walls are made of special glazing which control thermoigrometric values, permitting the precipice microclimate to be kept safe.

This “special” area is a main part of the permanent exhibition program.

Visiting the precipice walls is permitted by another footbridge hanged inside the cavity, which can be reached with two elevators and and a rock-cut excavated stair.

Special lighting systems on the footbridge, give prominence to geological cross-section stratifications.

ROOFTOP SQUARE

The roof is the main visible part of the building, and shows its artificial character with a strong geometrical matrix coming from power lines and internal tensions of the structure static diagrams. This character reveals the laws inside physics of the bodies, such as they look in the power lines of the geological layers in the basalt precipice.

Only some parts of the quadrangular volume appear in the curved boundaries of the park rushing in to the square.

The rooftop square offers a wide open space to the people, and multiple pespectives limit horizon through the trees, newly planted on the hills leaning on the pavement.

The roof pavement is made of some materials such as corten steel, basalt stone, glass, stabilized ground, grass, arranged in portions over the emerging structural

grid. This precious chromatic use of materials makes possible to join the the building design with the landscape painting of the site.

THE PARK

The design of the park sets a new layout for pathways, parking areas, info points, in order to involve and treat the sourrounding territory as a whole design element.

The Archaeological park will be put beside areas which, examining paleo-enviromental data item coming from excavation sites, will be exhibited as reconstructed environment, using plant and trees similar to the paleolithic period.

The trenches leading to the museum building, have been designed to make all the visitors be able to reach easily both areas, with vegetation checking visual impacts and marking circulation paths.

LIGHT DESIGN

Particular attention is paid to looking for spatial effects using natural sunlight.

Different dimensions rooflight have been shaped on the structural grid by cutting the rooftop floor. So the light reflects inside the prisms, then hits a diffusing surface on the roof, and finally goes down on the inclinated planes of the structural columns and on the vertical walls marking visitors exhibition paths.

Also artificial light is well designed: it copies with special tricks the sunlight emission. The prisms walls lighten and other repositionable lamps characterize specific exhibitions.

EXHIBITION DESIGN

The main design criteria on exhibition layout is to show prehistoric context in a contemporary way.

For daily use tools, acheulean typed stone, the exposition will be structured in a “anthropological” manner, following 3 main thematic units:

1- Who were this people who create and use this handmade tools during the paleolithic period?

2- Which was the environment they were living in and which was their way of life?

3- How was the surrounding landscape?

More than showing selected objects, it refers to get in comunication with the users and push them know and understand prehistoric period.

Exhibition is designed more towards evoking than informing, it provokes interaction with personal interests and knowledge, counting on one’s personal intellectual satisfaction.

Paleolithic tools are shown in glass caskets hanging from the roof; other visual methods such as texts, graphics, models and 3D reproduction, stage design, is used in the exhibition spaces.

The precipice exhibition layout too is conceived the same way

Direct knowledge trough senses and experimentation…

The proposed path are structured as spatial/conceptual connections of 4 simple units:

a. Existing collections;

b. The precipice;

c. Educational lab;

d. The park.

This elements permit a more”personalized” exhibition tour, connected to different demands (cultural needs, deepenings, weather conditions, etc…) that is a historic-contemporary museum visit:

The visitor can choose between “historical” exhibition (more “documentary”) and “modern” exhibition (more “didactic”), or , moreover, the mixing of them.

The visit passes trough different spatial and senses level: it can be made even selecting only one type of units.

Great attention is kept to itineraries layout: the visitor does not use only the sight or the sound, but even smell, taste and touch. It happens in the museum areas (ex.touching and smelling different types of stones), in the precipice (ex.recreating the rustling water or the smell of the wood and wet ground) and in the laboratories (ex. tasting and touching tryouts).

The environment of each exhibition “stopover” is made by digital interfaces, wall panels showing certain places or people (ex. paleolithic environment), large scale models recreating excavation sites.