Acqualta

Riva Industria Mobili SpA
2012 | Cantù (CO) | Italy

Contest “Tra le briccole di Venezia” with
Fondazione Venezia and ExpoVenice

with arch. Marco Savorgnani

The slow and rhythmically lapping waves, the continuously alternating tides are the context where the Briccole have been “showing up”, since ever, in the Venetian lagoon.

Undaunted, they have also witnessed Acqua alta (“high water”), a phenomenon the Venetians have learnt to put up with, through the centuries.

The inhabitants of the lagoon are now used to carrying on with their daily lives though, moving swiftly on the footbridges that, according to the rhythm of the high and low tide, are laid out in the “Campo” and “Calle”.

We wanted Acqualta to be, in fact, a reinterpretation of the Venetian walkway, inspired by the desire to be iconographically connected to its territory, as a plus.

We created a table that represents the need to “repurpose” a material otherwise to be disposed of.

The aim is to salvage as much of the briccola as possible, which is why we laid the staves horizontally, and orthogonally to the table main length: Acqualta doesn’t only evoke the concept of the walkway, but, above all, it exploits all the reusable parts of the Briccole.

This is where Acqualta becomes flexible. Flexible as far as both its production and its use are concerned: in fact, you can combine more of them together in case of friends’ or family’s get together.