Title

Author(s)

Walter Nicolino

Affiliation

Architecture and Design Department (DAD), Turin Polytechnic

DOI

https://doi.org/10.65686/TXJM9346

Keywords

Adaptive, Learning, Sharing

PP

693-699

How to Cite

Nicolino, Walter. “The Learning Factory An Adaptive Reuse of a Former Factory in Bologna for the New Headquarters of a University for Applied Arts and Design.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Adaptive Reuse. Volume 1, edited by Andrea Crudeli, Francesca Molle, and Emanuele Carrai, 693–699. Firenze: STH Press, 2026.

Abstract

The Learning Factory is a private university for Applied Arts and Design located in Bologna, Italy, in an early twentieth century complex along the railway. The spaces, due to their past use related to the production of hand-decorated tiles, are characterized by large zones with a marked verticality, which the renovation project has maintained and enhanced. Beneath its ripples, the pitched wooden roof forms a sort of covered square with a program open to the various activities of the university. Closed standard classrooms colonize some of the available spaces, hybridizing with flexible classrooms and shared spaces, which represent over half of the available internal area. Large windows divide the classrooms from the other spaces, allowing a visual connection between the people involved in the various didactic activities. Flexible study spaces are part of the connective space, creating an osmosis relationship with it, and a high degree of space adaptability, both during students’ activities, as well as for presentations with external guests or cultural events. The change in urban use of the new spaces requests a seismic structural adaptation of the entire structure: a new steel frame layer integrates the existing brick walls and the wooden roof, creating new geometric and material relationships with the existing. The mechanical building systems represents a new visible layer in the space conceived to react differently according to the architectural elements with whom it creates a relationship. The Learning Factory: a new university that recovers an old factory without occupying new land, generating an articulated space informed by flexibility for innovative teaching, through large and adaptable shared environments. A contemporary university playing the role of a civic center for the local community with an open program of activities, as natural complement of the didactic experience.

Edited by
Andrea Crudeli
Francesca Molle
Emanuele Carrai

Publisher
STH Press, Firenze

ISBN Paperback – 9791281661141
ISBN Ebook – 9791281661158
DOI – https://doi.org/10.65686/SISY7263

Year
2026

Proceedings of
International Conference on Adaptive Reuse
hosted by The University of Pisa, Italy
15-19 September 2025, at the Gispoteca di Arte Antica dell’Università di Pisa.