civic center in the landscape

Civic Center in the Landscape is the design for the new civic centre of Travacò Siccomario, in the province of Pavia, Italy, which received a special mention in a 2014 ideas competition.

In the Po Valley, the landscape is made of fields, rows of trees, rivers and farmsteads ("cascine"). The project takes up the type of the Lombard farmstead with its inner courtyard and places it at the edge of the village, where the new centre closes the public space formed by the park, the square and the church, along the axis that leads from the village to the river.

The building is split into three simple blocks, built independently but joined by one large green roof, like a piece of land divided into cultivated fields. The first holds a bar, youth club and seniors' club, which can merge into one space, and a 150-seat theatre that also serves as council chamber. The second is the town hall, on two floors, with offices facing the courtyard along a glazed corridor. The third combines a two-storey library, a meeting room, a medical clinic and the town archive. The courtyard façades are glazed and shaded by louvres that recall the brick lattice of traditional farm buildings.

It is a green building project: the prefabricated timber structure saves time and money and stores carbon; the envelope is highly insulated, with triple-glazed timber windows. The sedum roof insulates, slows rainwater run-off and gives back the green space taken at ground level. Materials come from the rural Lombard tradition: stone, timber, plaster.