LUOGO
The aim of the proposal is to re-establish a critical understanding and sense of place where the towers act as a starting point for broader reflection.
Torre Rinalda is part of a linear system of fortified towers along the Apulian coastline: within this pattern of potential spaces the project is intended as an open strategy on a territorial level more than a resolution of a specific condition.
The first conceptual move is a simple enclosure, allowing to reframe the void around the towers, critically embracing parts of the immediate surroundings and excluding others, it constitutes the neutral background of the oasis. The wall is intended as a critical tool in defining the overall porosity of each oasis, it opens up frames on the landscape to enhance it, it can be thickened to accommodate the extra program, or simply allow a strategic passage from a significant point outside it. Each oasis is intended to be a specific public space constructed around the coastal towers, an archipelago of possibilities to be explored.
The overall composition is thought as a concentric enfilade of rooms, with the tower acting as a pivotal point. The first one, the oasis, surrounded by the wall, accommodates potential extra program and allows access to the second floor of the tower. Between the oasis wall and the tower a sloped bridge disappears, mirroring the Apulian landscape at the horizon and giving autonomous access to the tower. At this point two rooms open the path within the tower: the ‘dark room’, existing dark and fresh space on the ground floor, and the ‘tower room’, partly enclosed by the existing walls and partly by a light thick inhabited structure, a belvedere wrapped in a light mesh, that recalls the original mass of the tower. This structure frames the tower allowing for a fresh and more intimate public room, while at the same time leading to the highest point of it, allowing for landscape contemplation.
Author: LUOGO.
Location: Torre Rinalda, Italy.
Year: 2023
Comeptition: Reuse Italy – Reuse the tower.
Prize: Special mention for innovative proposal.