"Granataio" ( from "granata", which in Tuscany means "broom") is designed as a theatrical machine for the public space of Piazza Luigi della Piccola, consisting of 8 inhabitable and reconfigurable benches. It is a light, geometric and modular infrastructure, covered with 388 brooms - whose branched, resistant and flexible broomsticks shape a peculiar interplay between light and shadows across the entire pavilion. The brooms are recognisable elements from the everyday that invite you to enter this square: with its fibrous, raw and natural consistency, Granataio stands out against the rationalist and imposing background of the student residence.

The pavilion is fluid in form, in materials, but above all in use. As in a game at the scale of architecture, you can move the benches and you can have fun planning collectively different ways of meeting and sharing. More open for artistic performances, more enclosed and intimate for the workshops where you need to concentrate.

The 8 benches are built with plywood panels hooked to a structure in metal tubulars, on which 3 or 4 radial series of inclined brooms are screwed. The set of movable wings on wheels is sufficiently light (the weight of the brooms, per bench, does not exceed 60 kg) to be moved by two people. Each bench is an eighth of an asymmetrical circle, with the two ends of different sizes: one of 45 cm and the other of 135 cm.

When they are all side by side, the benches form an intimate and completely shaded space on the perimeter. However, this is only one of the possible spaces: like sails that plow the square, the wings can be repositioned with ease, creating multiple configurations that support the movements, desires and needs of those who populate the neighbourhood.

Granataio invites a direct exchange between people and the spatial artefact, stimulating a particular process of circularity within the neighbourhood: when the pavilion needs to be dismantled, everyone that has a relationship with the square - business owners students and all residents - will have the opportunity to get a broom, bringing home a piece of the pavilion, to continue to take care both of their households and of Piazza Dallapiccola.

The brooms become the symbol of the emotional and material continuity between the public sphere and the domestic space. The benches, “undressed”, will remain in the square, offering the opportunity to linger and rest that is now missing, while the metal structures can be the basis for swings and other games for children.