absence//presence

The competitions aims to find a new use for the 15th C. Castello Roccascelegna by taking advantage of the potential of an oneiric setting with remarkable skies. The proposal is to design new Observatory Houses intended to support night-time star-gazing and astronomical observation.

The powerful, surging gestures of the landscape are bold and dramatic, begging for an intervention that is calm and serene, yet celebrates the existing context. The relationship of intervention and context mirror the dialogue between earth and sky, one that also embodies notions of absence and presence; solid and void; transparent and opaque; light and heavy.

The design aims to respect the current site and architecture of Roccascalegna by inserting the observatory houses into the landscape, then re-appropriating the excavated rock into building material. The castle is reserved for the Sky Lounge, the “Forum” of the site, where the existing tower is re-purposed into the observation area through the introduction of other pieces of program, such as the restaurant, information point, and bookshop.

The observatory houses have been assigned with different interpretations: the cabins are “plinths,” where one may have a solitary, introspective moment; the apartments are “gardens” where the greenery embraces the wilderness; the houses are “baths” with pools framed by the building; the villa is the “oasis” where all of the aforementioned characters may coalesce.