EXFORO occupies two levels inside Padua’s early twentieth-century Ex Foro Boario, reestablishing a direct dialogue with Prato della Valle through enlarged apertures and expansive terraces. The project retains the historic envelope and brick stratifications while inserting a contemporary restaurant, bar, and event program as clearly legible layers. A translucent bar core and a continuous concrete datum articulate the intervention, establishing a precise dialogue between new and existing fabric.
EXFORO Technical Information
- Architects: AACM – Atelier Architettura Chinello Morandi
- Location: Ex Foro Boario, Padua, Italy
- Gross Area: 925 m2 | 9,957 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2021 – 2022
- Photographs: Courtesy of AACM | © Catalogo © Alberto Sinigaglia, © Andrea Anoni
We treated the heritage shell as a vessel and concentrated the new life of the venue into a translucent core and a continuous ground. This preserves the legibility of time while structuring contemporary use with clarity.
– Nicolò Chinello and Rodolfo Morandi
Reframing a Historic Urban Outlook
Inserted within the early 1900s Ex Foro Boario, the project reopens a panoramic relationship with one of Padua’s key civic spaces. Two large terraces and generous window bays extend views across Prato della Valle, allowing the interior to operate as a belvedere rather than a sealed dining room. The program spans approximately 500 square meters across two floors, with 425 square meters of outdoor surfaces, creating a layered threshold between the room, loggia, and city.
The adaptive reuse strategy approaches the building as a set of durable parts. The monumental brick shell and its visible stratifications are preserved and left legible. At the same time, the contemporary program is inserted as a distinct layer that neither imitates nor obscures the existing fabric. This separation of roles clarifies time in section and elevation: the envelope carries memory and mass, the new elements host service, occupation, and seasonal variability.
The Luminous Core as Spatial Anchor
At the heart of the plan, the bar functions as a translucent, luminescent core. A textured glass skin wraps raw steel frames, softening silhouettes and filtering light while keeping the original masonry perceptible through refraction. By consolidating the densest services at this point, the design frees the perimeter for views and circulation and avoids fragmenting the historic volume with dispersed technical enclosures.
This core stabilizes movement and orientation. Sightlines between rooms and terraces pivot around the bar, creating a calm center that mediates between the heavy envelope and lighter interior elements. From day to night, the core shifts register: by day it behaves as a pale object that diffuses daylight; by evening it becomes a measured light source that organizes atmospheres without overwhelming the reading of the brick shell.
Stereotomic Envelope and Continuous Datum
A polished concrete envelope with local aggregates rises from floor to wall, forming a continuous base that stitches the interior into a single spatial field. This stereotomic datum operates as a quiet ground plane against which other elements read, providing scale and a tactile reference line that steadies the tall historic rooms. The material’s fine aggregate and polish give it enough reflectance to catch light while retaining mass.
Programmatic functions are absorbed into this thickened perimeter. The datum steps up to become banquette seating, extends to form counters, and provides pedestals for sculptural pieces and planters. By activating the edge, the design reduces reliance on freestanding furniture and keeps sightlines open to the square. The result is a legible hierarchy: shell as structure, datum as inhabitable ground, and the luminous core as the organizer of social and service intensities.
Material Dialectics and Atmospheric Performance
The project relies on a deliberate contrast between weight and lightness. Historic brick, raw steel, and concrete establish a gravitational register, while glass, polycarbonate, and resin introduce translucency and reflection. This dialectic is not decorative; it articulates the distinction between container and content, enabling the existing fabric to remain visually present as the backdrop to contemporary occupation.
Light is used as a secondary material that binds these registers. Textured glass softens luminance and scatters reflections, producing depth without glare. At dusk, concealed sources within the core and along the concrete datum provide low, even illumination that maintains the legibility of the masonry and the continuity of the perimeter. The interplay of matte and glossy surfaces heightens spatial gradients across the terraces and interior, aligning atmospheric shifts with the daily cycle while retaining a clear reading of the building’s temporal layers.
About AACM – Atelier Architettura Chinello Morandi
AACM – Atelier Architettura Chinello Morandi is an architecture firm based in Padua and Milan, founded in 2020 by Arch. Nicolò Chinello and Arch. Eng. Rodolfo Morandi. The studio adopts an approach that integrates context and user experience as foundational principles in every project, translating the character of the place and its memory into vibrant atmospheres and distinctive spaces. Through residential, commercial, and public interventions, AACM develops a language that combines compositional rigor and material sensitivity, in which the balance among form, space, and durability yields timeless architecture.
Credits and Additional Notes
- AACM Architects: Arch. Nicolò Chinello, Arch. Ing. Rodolfo Morandi
- In collaboration with: Arch. Paolo Osti, Arch. Andrea Marchesin
- Project Manager: Arch. Ing. Rodolfo Morandi
- Drawings and Models: AACM
- Structural engineers: Ing. Marco Marchesi
- MEP consultants: Molon Roetta & Associati
- Landscape designers: Arch. Leonardo Marzotti
- Client: ExForo
- Construction company: BIOPROGETTI
- Other contributors:
- Lighting Design: Arch. Federica Tebaldi
- Works Supervisor: Arch. Marisa Macchietto
- Safety Coordinator: Arch. Elisa De Gaspari
- Owner Entity: Comune di Padova
- Concession Grantor: Best in Parking AG
- Managing Authority: The Food Hub srl
- MEP Systems: Tau srl
- Metal Work: Mutinelli srl
- Woodwork: Glend
- Plaster and False Ceiling: Colorificio Veneto
- Kitchen Equipment: Attrezzature Inox
- Furniture: Kartell, Toffanin, 70 Materia, Atmosphera Srl, Eforma
- Lighting: Molto Luce, Gervasoni 1882, Ozone Lux, From Lighting
