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Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. Hospice Villa Sclopis in Torino, Italy by architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.January 24th, 2017 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l. 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.  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico
 Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico On that day Villa Sclopsis, which is indeed a villa, did not seem like one at all. The school had spread a sense of neglect over everything. The villa’s slender but elegant architecture had succumbed to the visual weight of a concrete building annexed to it on the right, and to the stain of a copper-clad pavilion situated on its left. Clearly, the project would have to concentrate on these blemishes, since we all agreed that the historic villa needed to be restored to its original form and elegance. The whole complex had to be rendered functional, however, to provide proper accommodation for terminal patients. So we defined a new building that would connect the old parts of the villa and replace the concrete building. We adjusted the new floor heights to those of the villa, so that uniform floors without steps could be built. We installed a stretcher elevator on the floor hub, which would serve all the rooms easily and quickly. We put in new heating, plumbing, electrical and medical gas distribution systems. We re-allocated the functions of individual areas by situating services at ground level, communal areas on the first floor, and the patients’ rooms on the others. We screened the main facades with architectural filters. These serve to attenuate incoming light, to mitigate the atmopshere of the rooms and, on the outside, the new building’s impact on the original villa.  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico The system of architectural filters was also adopted on the new fronts of the copper pavilion, where the Alzeimer patients surgery would be housed. We wanted it to look like a calm place, set within the peaceful context of the surrounding park. We therefore got rid of as many of the corridors as possible, taking the best advantage of the central core of the building as a common sitting room. All the service rooms, day surgeries, laboratories and common services would face this room.  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico The centuries-old park surrounding the villa also was restored, for use by patients and their families, whilst a plan was drafted to utilize the chapel. The villa, the new building and its rooms, the pavilion, the chapel and the park now look homogeneous, discreet and sensitive, as I think befits a place where people work to render the concept of death less remote than that of life.  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © Gabriele Basilico  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.  Image Courtesy © architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l.
Categories: House, Residential, Villa |
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