The team of architects Casamassima, Notari, Pasquali proposed a project that aims at inserting in the intervention area tourist residences for astronomical observation. The project focuses on three main ideas: firstly, putting together ruins through the kintsukuroi technique. Secondly, generating a ‘new constellation’ by using a series of volumes scattered in the area. Thirdly, creating a continuous observatory where visitors can always be in contact with the night sky. The insertion of the volumes in the project is divided into two main phases: the reconstruction of the major tower that collapsed in 1940 and the definition of the access road to the fortress where to locate the new residences.

The kintsukuroi technique (‘golden repair’) is a traditional japanese custom that acknowledges the value and the history of shattered crockeries. It consists in putting broken pieces together by using precious metals to join them. In this way a new object with a renewed value is created. According to the architects of this project, the site of the fortress is a place of debrises and fractures, which fragility makes them fascinating. They compare them to pieces of shattered vases. Starting from what remains, the design choice aims at working on the remains of this area like japanese artisans do with the remains of crockery. Firstly, they acknowledge the value of the ruins of Roccascalegna. According to them, such ruins have to be maintained as they are now. Then, they join what history and abandonment left by adding visible insertions in order to ensure a new future for the site. Just like the precious metals of the kintsukuroi technique, the project aims at repairing the discontinuity of the area through a series of volumetric insertions that shine thanks to their brass finish. 

Due to its history and materiality, the fortress seems to stand out from the ground and merge with the surrounding landscape. Architects add to the structure of the fortress a ‘new metallic constellation’ that connects all its parts. Tourist residences expand through a series of precise volumes. The metallic finish, the scattering of the volumes in the landscape, the night-time luminosity of the truncated-pyramid roofs give the building units an alien appearance in relation to landscape. Here,each unit is a new luminous twinkling body, a ‘star’ that is part of the ascent path to the fortress. In this new constellation, the body of the collapsed tower of the fortress is reconstructed as ‘the main star’ that connects the two parts of the area in one distinctive element.

The whole intervention aims at creating a continuous observatory, where the night sky is specifically relevant in the route of both outdoor and indoor spaces. The night sky is indeed the main character of the new use of the fortress. The project aims at connoting each space with it. The ascent path is an open stairway. This route is defined by the alternation of full and empty volumes. The non transparent parts alternate with the views on the landscape that show the hills that the fortress overlooks. They also show the vast sky lounge that is situated on the top of the reconstruction of the destroyed tower. Similarly, the spaces inside the residences create brief contacts with the sky. They make it enter the room thanks to large skylights.