A polychrome tunnel, a path guided by light filtering through polycarbonate taking on infinite shades of color

LOGGIATO OVEST, UNIVERSITY OF MILAN - The proposal is to take a closer look at a usually inaccessible building element: extruded polycarbonate with a honeycomb structure, routinely used as a component in building facades, whose properties provide thermal and acoustic insulation, strength and toughness.

The collaboration between Jacopo Foggini and the company Dott. Gallina, two realities that articulate their identity in the study and production of polycarbonate, arose from the desire to offer an unprecedented and close sensory relationship with the material.

The project develops in space by raising a kind of vertical city formed by polycarbonate panels, juxtaposed and interwoven with each other.

The city, whose development from the outside is difficult to understand, can be crossed in a kind of passageway that is not only the connection between two points of light, but is light itself, thanks to the transparency of the polycarbonate all around.

Finally, the polychrome effect is given by the shades used by Jacopo Foggini, who customized each panel through a high-pressure inclusion coloring process.

Acrylic Skyline proposes a path within a kind of forest of vertical panels made of extruded polycarbonate with a honeycomb structure.

The modules are woven together in such a way as to leave only a passageway, illuminated by the polychromatic reflections given by the passage of natural light through the polycarbonate.

Each panel, moreover, is customized with a high-pressure inclusion coloring process, made piece by piece by Jacopo Foggini, who selected a wide range of shades to offer an impression of fluidity.

Cover photo: Saverio Lombardi Vallauri