“A Narrative Framework” is a project that combines architecture and nature to craft an immersive touristic experience of the Roccamandolfi Castle in Italy. This historic site, steeped in tales of heroism and landmark events, serves as a living testament to the past. The Framework reflects on those happenings, allowing the visitors to deeply connect with the events that shaped this space. Through this blend of design and landscape, visitors are invited to a journey through time, experiencing the castle’s history as a vibrant and tangible reality.

Alongside the journey, besides the existing path, history reveals itself sequentially.
A narrative framework shapes complementary functions that blend within the majestic scenery, mimicking the Roccamandolfi thieves who according to the legends, sought shelter within the arms of these mountains. The path, from its beginning stop onward, will tell a story, the story of the castle, of the village, and of everyone who passed by this major milestone. It will be held responsible to narrate the tales, the facts and the myths, the surprises and the secrets, in order that all that can’t be, can actually come to life.

Project Elements

Starting Reverberation

The starting signal of the “voyage” happens to be a resounding bell that will echo on the horizon until the traveller reaches the pinnacle, merging with the church bells reverberating through the hills. Between vibrating sounds and silent hideaways, the project capitalizes on an amusing conceptual contradiction.

Market Place

Our movement of additions starts with the implementation of a marketplace, where people from the village would sell their productions to newcomers or to locals, thus attracting a public flow to the start of the path. This type of temporary fair is the ultimate gathering place, notably in Italian villages.

Gazing Podium

Always in continuity with the existing path, the framework generates a different type of resting area, alternating hammocks and observatory spaces, where the view towards the pedestrian bridge and the hiking trail reveals itself. In this sequence, the structure ends with a meditation area within the enclosed outline to gaze into the panorama.

Historical Segment

The existing path becomes one with the narrative framework in order to highlight thoroughly this part. History gets carved within the existing limits, creating a versatile installation, and putting in place seating areas and informatory mechanisms. The multipurpose character of the structure keeps on gaining more and more tasks, in order to increase its attractiveness.

Mining Disaster Memorial

Taking a more delicate curve, the structure tells the story of the worst mining disaster in West Virginia where a majority of the victims belonged to the Italian diaspora, from the Roccamandolfi commune in particular. The framework drifts from the physical limits and sees its skeleton confined within a metallic shell. With the intention of triggering the same perceptions that would haunt a miner working underground, the dimension of the construction decreases in plan and grows in negative height.

Communal Entity

Another typology of the framework comes to add a housing purpose for the project, within a direct viewing angle of the castle. In fact, weightless constructions fill the outline, creating a sort of community experience. Alternating between private spaces and communal recreational spaces, the composition offers huts for those who would like to spend more than a day in this destination. With a configuration similar to a flower and a tree pot, these cabins disappear in the mass plan, leaving behind accessible garden-like roofs that blend with this highly dense green area.

Author: JPAG.CO