Leek
Leek is a selected competition entry for touristic facilities at the ancient ruins of Roccamandolfi in Italy
Our idea started from the memory of this stunning place.
We found out the precise perimeter where each collapsed building was standing on. Our aim is to occupy this old perimeters with our new program, building it with a light timber structure in order to give a sense of warm lightness to the entire complex.
The use of a timber structure is also a reference to the Rocca’s time when most of the interior spaces of each building were built with this material.
The new touristic resort rebuild the old balance between void spaces and buildings, respecting the ancient ruins never overlapping them. Each new volume grows up from the interior limit of the ruin, always leaving a free space over each old wall.
We made a big effort to place the new program inside the ancient Rocca, but we are very convinced that giving a new use to an historical place like this means bringing back life through its ancient ruins.
The project is a dialogue between different times and different memories made clear by the lightness of wood meeting the stone’s heaviness.
We worked to bring back a kind of relaxed, warm and silent atmosphere offering a not ordinary touristic structure: a place where new architecture could be the element to recognize an old memory and to measure the time passing.
Giving a new meaning to what is pre-existent and temporarily abandoned.
This is a fortress: protection, relation and palimpsest perception
