The project consists in the renovation and extension of an existing hotel in Piancavallo, Italy. It attempts to bring in a new aura to a town developed in the seventies for mere lucrative purposes. A town that is best enjoyed when snow covers the eyesores of architecture arrogance.
Project design: ELASTICO (Stefano Pujatti, Simone Carena, Alberto Del Maschio)
Location: Piancavallo, Italy
Project schedule: 2010 – 2012
Team: Stefano Pujatti, Alberto Del Maschio, Stefano Trucco, Cesare Roluti, Valeria Brero, Corrado Curti, Daniele Almondo, Serena Nano, Marco Burigana, Andrea Rosada
Client: Promotur s.p.a.
Size: 3450 square meters
Structural design: Stefano Santarossa
Building contractor: Riccesi S.p.A.
Progress: Built
Awards: Shortlisted for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013
Photographs: Donato Riccesi, Jacopo Riccesi
Just like a child, the building plays with snow, compacting and piling it up in specific places, according to the shape of the roof roof and facades. Ice will be part of the game and icicles the ornament of the building.
The partial demolition of the original building allowed ELASTICOFarm to use the ground floor as an entrance, accommodating all those functions connected with governance and services of the hotel. The rest of the building bridges the old part; on top of a concrete platform, suspended just enough from the old structure, was designed to evoke the aura of old mountain structures but it is indeed the result of quite sophisticated technological and structural thinking.
The shape of the roof, its capability of keeping and releasing water, snow and ice, the orientation of the rooms according to the sun exposure and to the views and the progressive changing of the facades, due to time and weather, were the elements on which the architects put their efforts in order to be able to define, in the best possible way, a layout for the functions in the interior of the hotel.
