The new buildings are arranged in spatial continuity with the old ones. The new volume used as a dairy resembles an existing old barn, now restored as the Park Center. In this way, the volume assumes the symbolic role of a "hinge" between the existing building and the new one.
The elaboration of a project has been motivated by traditional logic, to maintain the original materials and spatiality. When the needs of the pre-existence have required an intervention, new materials and construction systems have been used, operating according to a logic of recognition of the contemporary element, while using finishes that recall the rural character and the essential language of the spaces and structures in question.
Description of project by LabF3
Historical notes
The project is part of a larger plan involving the redevelopment of Contrada Bricconi, an ancient rural landscape settlement dating back to 1500 and located at an altitude of about 950 m in the municipality of Oltressenda Alta, in Valzurio, in the Orobie Alps. The buildings testify to the agricultural vocation of the landscape settlement: part of the volumes are cattle stables at ground level and, in the upper level, spaces for the collection of hay. Others, used for residential purposes, have basement rooms in which the equipment for the processing and preservation of dairy products are still visible.
Originally, the Contrada was probably a place occupied by breeders who moved seasonally between the village at a lower altitude and the pastures, in the higher lands. A privileged position, in terms of exposure, proximity to important roads connecting Bergamo with Venezia and Switzerland and morphology of the land, has contributed to the fortune of the Contrada, which has remained constantly inhabited until the nineties. Even today, the ancient buildings, the pastures and the forest still preserve, clearly legible, the traditional features of the mountain agricultural landscape.
The new farm
The initiator of the project is Giacomo Perletti, graduated in agricultural science, who won a municipal call in 2010 for the management of some buildings in the Contrada, which were semi-abandoned. Giacomo, now in partnership with Matteo Trapletti and Giovanni Pizzamiglio wanted to set up a farm for the restoration of cattle and dairy farming. The program associates a production linked to the local tradition, as for the race and number of animals, type of products and practice of summer transhumance in the mountain pastures, to the use of innovative technologies.
The new production activity is proportionate to the mountain reality in which it is located, in order to exploit the resources of the territory in an optimal and sustainable way. The number of animals, therefore, is limited to satisfy the food need by using the hay produced by the cutting of the surrounding meadows, fertilized by the waste of the animals themselves. Finally, the reduced size of the barn makes it possible to combine the zootechnical activity with the other functions of the farm. In addition, the project has been directed towards the inclusion of new activities that will allow the economic sustainability of the whole. Therefore, part of the business plan is the agritourism, including accommodation and dining spaces, as well as spaces for teaching activity and for small conferences.
Design strategies
The client has therefore chosen to concentrate the function of accommodation, catering and education in the existing volumes, to allow guests to live in the spaces typical of mountain farming, in the belief of the value of preserving this historical memory. Concerning the zootechnical complex, the need to satisfy the functional requirements linked to quality production led to the choice of creating a new structure, including a stable, barn and cheese factory.
The architectural project was developed by Francesca Favero, Caterina Franco and Anna Frigerio, initially as part of a Master thesis in Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, then as a professional experience. The result is the redevelopment of an existing building, transformed in a center for didactic activity thanks to a partnership and with Parco delle Orobie Bergamasche, the restoration of another ancient volume, thanks to Fondazione Cariplo, to be transformed in a restaurant and the construction of a new stable and a dairy still in the land of the Contrada.
The compositional and design choices of the new settlement are the result of a long period of research and reflection.
The designers and the client have shared, throughout all the phases of the process, the awareness of operating within a context with a high-quality landscape and bearer of an important historical memory, as well as the desire to operate in the perspective of an enhancement of the existing. The architects dedicated some time for visiting and studying contexts that had faced similar problems, identifying as field of investigation some recent projects located in the Swiss Alps, characterized by a clear technical value combined with a conscious approach to history and local traditions.
The design of the new buildings
- Relation with context
The program for the new production complex included the design of a stable for a maximum of 30 heads of Alpine grey cattle with an annexed milking room, barn and pigsty, a building containing premises for the processing of dairy products, meat and fruit and a warehouse for their storage.
The new settlement has been designed to be an integral part of the agritourism that will settle in the Contrada Bricconi, considering an opportunity not to separate the accommodation from the purely productive spaces. For this reason, the new buildings are arranged in spatial continuity with the old ones. In particular, the new volume used as a dairy is similar to an existing old barn, now restored as a Park Centre, taking up the same proportions but differentiating in the use of materials adopted. The roof takes up the inclination of the slopes of the existing building but reinterprets the system of the pitched roof by placing the eaves inside the cladding. In this way, the volume assumes the symbolic role of a "hinge" between the existing and the new buildings.
For optimizing the excavation, the stable fits into the topography maintaining its axis parallel to the contour lines. Thus, one main front faces west, with openings towards the road and pastures, while the second faces east, with accesses and openings at a higher level, serving as a depot for vehicles, the discharge of hay and the proper ventilation of the barn, according to the traditional implantation of mountain settlements. the volume dedicated to the processing and storage of dairy products also has two different accesses for the two levels, thus exploiting the slope of the ground, in the same way as the old building to which it approaches.
The typical layout of the barn has been called into question, subjected to a double tension. On the one hand, the attempt to relate the volume to the existing context. On the other hand, the need to respond to functional requirements regarding the welfare of the animal and the farmer, as well as to ensure the ability to accommodate an advanced technological apparatus, for a quantitative and qualitative optimization of production. This involved the need to create interconnected spaces structured around a longitudinal axis, useful for the installation of a bridge crane for loading, transporting and distributing hay in the barn. A single building was therefore designed, with the same level of floor, but with different heights, to form different volumes more proportionated to the size of the Contrada, where the highest parts house hayloft and storage vehicles.
For the roofing, it was decided not to use the language of the pitched roof, but rather to maintain it parallel to the natural slope of the ground, thus reducing the heights on the fronts and fitting less invasively into the landscape.
The height at which the floor of the barn has been set tries to optimize the volume to be excavated, to modify the least possible the original conformation of the ground. The material obtained was used in part for the rearrangement of outdoor spaces; the larger aggregates were then used for the construction of new retaining walls, at the new entrances.
- Functions and technology
The cowshed is divided into two separate sectors, to accommodate on the one hand lactating cows with free housing on a berth, and on the other hand cows in rearing (the period during which the animal is not milked) with fixed housing, as well as a box for calves. Each of the two areas has a separate and mechanized system for collecting wastewater and for conveying it to the manure. Inside the volume there is also an infirmary box, a "milk room", accessible directly from the outside, as well as a small pigsty.
The two sectors are separated by the foraging lane which allows the crossing of agricultural vehicles and which corresponds, on the roof, to the lines of the tracks along which the overhead travelling crane moves. This passage constitutes the backbone of the entire system: on the south side, facing the Contrada, it provides access to the outside; at the opposite end, however, the lane communicates with an open but covered area, constituting a filter space between the barn and the hayloft, to the north. The area also serves a space for manoeuvring agricultural vehicles. The volume of the hayloft, designed to accommodate a load of loose haymaking not exceeding 50 tons, is divided into two tanks for the two collection times, equipped with a ventilation system powered by solar radiation.
Regarding the dairy, on an upper level there is a space for processing meat and fruit and one for processing milking milk; the lower level is instead occupied by a warehouse and for the shop of local products.
Finally, attention was paid to the possibility of creating spaces capable of hosting educational activities. The new facilities are thus permeable to visits: the study of the cladding of the barn offer visibility from outside, the processing rooms are equipped with internal and external windows that allow non-experts to observe the activities without disturbing the internal hygienic condition.
- Structure and cladding
The structure of the cowshed is made of reinforced concrete for the walls against the ground and for the floor of the vehicle storage area. The galvanised sheet metal roof with insulation panel is supported by HEA metal pillars and a wood-metal frame of primary and secondary beams.
The cladding plays an important role in integrating the building into its surroundings. The designers chose a material that do not hide the contemporary nature of the new intervention, while dialoguing with the stone of the ancient buildings and of the rocky slope that closes the area to the North. Untreated larch boards were used, which take on a silvery-grey colour over time, with different shades depending on exposure to the sun. The alternation of 9 cm and 18 cm planks, following a module which is repeated along the whole length of the façade, gives a more lively rhythm to the surfaces of the façade, accentuated by the horizontal cuts which mark the position of the window and door frames and make it possible to use planks with a maximum length of 4 m, in accordance with industrial production standards. This economic system also makes it possible, along the fronts of the barn, to guarantee the necessary lighting and ventilation, simply by rhythmically removing some of the planks.
Intervention on the existing
- The understanding of the traditional landscape
Regarding the ancient Contrada, since there are no detailed drawings o among the recent and historical cadastral maps, a longimetric and typological survey of the Contrada was initially carried out. An on-site analysis of the existing artefacts and in-depth literature on the theme of the rural house of the Orobian Alps, let us identify some characters constituting the peculiarities of the Contrada, of which it was considered necessary to preserve the memory. Among these we underline: the system of positioning of the buildings in the territory, studied in order to better exploit the solar orientation and the topography of the land; the logic of development of the settlement, grown by the addition of simple adjacent volumes, irregular in size and height depending on the housing need; the system of access to the rooms from the outside, given the total lack of internal spaces for distribution, for less waste of living space; the system of irregular openings, probably positioned and sized according to different needs (for example for loading - unloading of hay, lighting, the escape of smoke); an overall logic of opening the buildings towards the interior spaces of the Contrada, as opposed to a closure towards the outside. This study has allowed the designers to intervene consciously within the pre-existing and to draw elements to guide the developing of the new project.
- Logics of intervention on the existing
The elaboration of a project for the old part has been therefore animated by conservative logics, in order to maintain, when possible, original materials and spatiality. When housing needs required an intervention, new materials and building systems were used, operating according to a logic of recognizability of the contemporary element, while using finishes that recall the rural nature and the essential language of the spaces and structures in question.
To date, only some of the buildings under management or owned by the farm have been restored. In 2013, Parco delle Orobie Bergamasche allocated some funds for the redevelopment of one of the existing volumes, an old barn become a "Centro Parco", which hosts meetings and little conferences. In 2016, thanks to the contribution of the Parco and a financing from Fondazione Cariplo, in the framework of the ArcOrobie project, it was possible to carry out a conservative restoration of the building that will house the restaurant. This intervention was an opportunity for the organization of educational exercises in the field, thanks to the collaboration, among others, of the Scuola Edile of Bergamo, the Università della Montagna of Edolo and the Soprintendenza dei Beni Culturali of the province of Bergamo. We will limit ourselves here to describing this second project, which completion is still ongoing, which summarises the logic adopted by the designers and the technicians.
- The restoration of a barn
The ground floor of the building used as a barn is organized into three separate rooms (with independent external access), two of which have a rectangular system with barrel vaults, while the third has a floor with wooden warping, upstairs the rooms are large and with exposed wooden roofing. The project includes on the ground floor an office, a maturing room and a bar-entrance to the restaurant; on the upper floor there will be the dining room and the kitchen.
The intervention involved a first phase of structural and static consolidation and a subsequent phase of adaptation to the new functions. The analysis of the building has revealed a cracking picture and various structural discontinuities between masonry and vaulted roofs that needed careful consolidation operations.
The vaults have been emptied, and a reinforced concrete has been cast with joints to the walls to guarantee greater solidity and structural continuity between the horizons and vertical elements. The walls were chained together, particularly at the corners, with perforations and the insertion of metal bars and tie rods. Where possible, the original pavement of the ground floor, made by pebbles typical of the local ancient barns, has been restored.
Concerning the wooden floor, considering the poor state of the secondary structure, it was decided to proceed with the removal of the same, preserving only the main beams and instead creating a new independent structure. The new slab was built with HEB profiles, only treated with anti-rust transparent paint. The secondary frame consists of planks of raw wood. This floor will also be affected by the newly built stairs that allow an internal connection between the two levels. The staircase is characterized by a simple steel structure, treads and raised are designed by a metal sheet, with the same finish as the beams described above.
The external walls were then stripped of the cement plasters and the damaged mortars to bring to light the original masonry fabric, consequently treated with grouting of the connections with hydraulic lime mortar and aggregates, as it was in the original masonry. Concerning the internal surfaces, the original plasters, when presents, have been restored highlighting the different finishes of the rooms according to their use.
In order to improve the environmental quality of the rooms, a single window was opened: the dimensions (120 x 120 cm) and a metal sheet covering the intrados, make it immediately distinguishable from the existing ones. An opening has also been realized on the ground floor, between the entrance and the maturing room, as to allow a visual and physical connection between the two environments. These interventions were carried out with the agreement of the Superintendence and aware of the history narrated by the buildings in question, where the opening of windows in the masonry, as well as the addition of volumes, supported the evolution of the uses in the spaces of the Contrada.
What role does the architect play in the regeneration of old mountain settlements?
The entire project, in a landscape which is still today an intelligible sign of a historical memory, has been approached not only as an attempt to place itself in continuity with the forms of the past, but rather as an opportunity to propose new meanings, through a process that has seen a synthesis of the existing features aimed at offering new keys to understanding the existing.
The case of Contrada Bricconi represents a significant example in which the clients, three young farmers, coming from the city and choosing to develop their activity in the mountain, who saw in the architectural quality an added value to their business project. In this way, the re-establishing of an agricultural activity in an ancient settlement becomes an opportunity for a real project of refurbishment of the existing and of enhancement of the alpine agricultural landscape.
