The eighteenth century villa owned by the Sclopis family, in Salerano Canavese, was used after World War 2 as an orphange, and later as a higher educational institute. The brief was to convert the complex into an assisted residence for terminal cancer and Alzheimer patients. The project restored the family villa and substituted the adjacent reinforced concrete volume with a new, steel-framed structure to accommodate a hospice. Internal floor heights were adapted to those of the older building, so as to eliminate differences of level and facilitate horizontal circulation. A centrally located stretcher-bearing lift integrates the vertical communications to provide quick service to all rooms.

The complex was equipped with new heating, plumbing and electrical systems and medical gas supplies. The service units were re-allocated to the ground floor, the communal areas to the first, and the guest rooms to the upper levels. Wooden brise-soleils screen the glazed fronts of the hospice to soften light entering the rooms and to mitigate the impact of the new construction on the surrounding period architecture. The brise-soleil system is extended to the copper cladding of a neighbouring pavilion, internally reorganised to house the Alzheimer patients’ day centre. The project was completed by a restoration of the centuries-old park surrounding the villa.



CREDITS

CLIENT: associazione Casainsieme

PROJECT: aMDL Architetto Michele De Lucchi Srl - Michele De Lucchi

PROJECT TEAM: Angelo Micheli (project leader), Paolo Fromage, Fabiola Minas, Claudio Venerucci, Silvia Suardi

PHOTOGRAPHY: Gabriele Basilico