Italian architecture firm MoDusArchitects has completed a new tourist information office building in the city of Bressanone, Bolzano, Italy, the architects won an international competition in 2016 to design the building. 

Named TreeHugger, the 430-square-metre building is located just outside the historical centre of the South Tyrolean city, adjacent to the Bishop’s Palace of Bressanone, the eye-catching concrete building is the last episode in a series of "architectural homicides" dating from the 1800s up until the 1970s. 

TreeHugger takes on the qualities of airiness and levity in alignment with the site’s antecedent structures, which were dedicated to the welcoming of visitors, with their respective features of slender columns, deep loggias, and delicate overhangs.

The project raises its body on tiptoe and frees up the ground level to give it over to the city as a public space. New visual connections are made, not only to the main building of the Bishop’s Palace, but also to the ancillary Chinese and Japanese pavilions that mark the corners of the Palace gardens. 

The exotic, sinuous curves of the corner pavilions are re-interpreted in the building designed by MoDusArchitects which transforms into a new gateway for the city of Bressanone.

The site is characterized by an existing monumental tree that governs the design. TreeHugger twists and turns around the central platanus to form an inseparable connection between nature and edifice. The visual and tactile qualities of the roughhewn walls of the bush-hammered concrete and the scaly bark of the plane-tree mimic one another in their juxtaposition.

With the tree trunk as the fulcrum, five arched spans release the building from the ground, accompanying the tree upwards to draw an open frame around the tree’s crown. 

In order to achieve the seamless, vertical surface of the outer concrete shell, the full height of the walls was cast from one flow and in successive sections to form a continuous 9-metre-high ring, within which the concrete plates were then poured. 

The curvature of the walls, together with the floor slabs form a collaborative composition in which the form, the structure and the building facades become one.

The building is almost entirely glazed on the ground floor, which houses the public spaces and info booths, to allow maximum transparency and permeability. 

The entrance is clearly marked by the inset windows and the large overhang that cantilevers out towards the new square. The upper floor, housing the administrative offices, is closed and enigmatic in the sequence of its convex surfaces.

With its welcoming curves balanced by the decisive concrete tectonic, TreeHugger strikes up a conversation with its historical context while organically attracting passersby and visitors as a magnet devoted to the sharing of local culture.

Site plan

Ground floor plan

Ground floor plan - closer view

First floor plan

Axonometric drawing

Section

East facade

North facade

West facade

Project facts

Project: TreeHugger (Tourist Information Office)
Location: Bressanone (Bolzano, Italy)
Architect: MoDusArchitects (Sandy Attia, Matteo Scagnol)
Project team: Irene Braito, Filippo Pesavento
Structural engineer: Luca Bragagna
Client: Bressanone Tourist Association
 
Competition: 2016
Design phase: 2017—2018
Completion: September 2019
GFA: 430 sqm
 
Contractor: Unionbau
Site works: Goller Bögl
Electrical installations: Elektro Josef Graber
Thermo-hydraulic installations: Pezzei
 
Stone and ceramic flooring: Bernardi & Figli
Carpet flooring: SAXL Bodenbeläge
Glass facade and windows: Huber Hannes
Subflooring and plasterwork: Winkler-Verputz
Drywall and painting: Cimadom Decor
Doors (interiors): Aster Holzbau
Lift: Kronlift
Furniture: Jungmann, Trias
Millwork, custom finishings and furniture: Barth
Interior partitions and furniture: Tischlerei Goller - Anders Gmbh
Sheet metal: Stampfl Bauspenglerei
Custom metal: Ellecosta Metallbau
Multimedia: ACS

All images © Oskar Da Riz

All drawings © MoDusArchitects

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