FORTE ROSSAROL
REHABILITATION AND EXPANSION OF A SOCIO-MEDICAL FACILITY FOR ADDICTION TREATMENT HOUSED IN THE DISUSED MILITARY AREA OF FORT ROSSAROL
Architects: MARTA BARETTI - SARA CARBONERA
Firm: ARBAU
Abstract:
The project concerns the redevelopment of a socio-sanitary facility housed in the monumental area of Forte Rossarol, a disused military area. It included landscaping and the realisation of volumetric extensions, to complete the redevelopment of the buildings that provided the frame of reference and the linguistic register that made the interventions that followed one another over time unitary. An open project, whose fulcrum is the extensions built in wood that house the multi-purpose collective therapy rooms and design transparent headboards, which change the sign of the place.
PREVIOUS SITUATION
A story linked to a place, Forte Rossarol, from abandoned military area to hospice (from the Latin hospitare = to welcome), which has led to the reuse of a protected public asset, given in concession to a social cooperative, in which various reception and care activities coexist. The intervention concerned the eleven buildings that were originally used to store ammunition and had for years housed the Centro Soranzo social health facility, an excellence in the Italian panorama in the treatment of addictions. Following a financial donation by a private individual, a multidisciplinary process was initiated involving artists, doctors, psychologists, operators, users, graphic designers and financiers, leading to the regeneration of the spaces and enhancement of the treatment method, opening up research into the relationship between neuroscience and architecture.
WORK CARRIED OUT
A multi-scalar project, realised in phases, which integrated various themes: from the energy refurbishment and restyling of the existing buildings, to the volumetric extension, the functional reorganisation of the spaces, the furnishing of the interiors, and the landscaping of the outdoor areas. An open project, which began in 2013 with the overall reorganisation, and continued between 2017 and 2021 with the landscaping of the open spaces and extensions to the therapy rooms. The initial project provided the frame of reference and a linguistic register, which made the successive interventions unified and coherent on a landscape scale. The project is based on the choice of a sober register, without formal excesses, to reflect the principles of care and to place beauty as a therapeutic element. The energy refurbishment of the existing buildings has led to an external restyling, based on the alternating use of shades of two colours, brick red and sand, which articulates the regularity of the typical military settlement.
THE END RESULT
The fulcrum of the redevelopment are three extensions which house the common rooms and which design transparent headers, the landmark of the intervention. The extensions are similar but at the same time different, characterised by the asymmetrical projection of the roof, the cut of which generates different headboards, introducing an asymmetry that breaks the seriality of the military settlement, obsessive for a dependency care facility. The interior spaces of the new rooms are characterised by wood left exposed, together with the “house-shaped” architectural section, and have a domestic and cosy rather than “clinical” effect. The green area has been enhanced by ordering the paths, starting from the central street, turned into a pedestrian walkway, and the patrol path, turned into a sports track. In the park is the smokers’ pavilion, intended as a sculptural object in the greenery. Everything started from the conviction that the quality of space is part of the healing process and can generate a direct effect on people, becoming a space that heals.
