TEAM:

Roberto Ferlito  Main partner

Alessandra Faticanti Main partner

Agita Putnina, chief architect

Gildo Incitti, Architect

Assigned Typology:    Public Multiuse Building

Client:                         Public

Project phase:            1st Prize International Competition, Ongoing

Date:                           2025

The Shelter, Lentini, Italy

An ‘inhabited landscape’ structure, Mixed-used building, Lentini, Italy

The local government has launched an international competition to redevelop an area of the city of Lentini in Sicily that has been completely abandoned for years. The intention is to give back to the community a socialising space with a multi-purpose municipal building. Lentini is unfortunately known for the high rate of micro-delinquency among its younger population. The project focuses on the idea of creating a network of relationships to weave a connective urban structure and give the population a space full of activities for all ages immersed in an urban park.

Can architecture play a social role and help a community prosper and improve the conditions of its inhabitants?

The settlement idea is simple: to insert the intervention into the urban context as an ‘equipped landscape infrastructure, a kind of green building surrounded by an urban park that functions as a connector and attractor.

The architectural quality of the project is guaranteed through the use of original and innovative design solutions to guarantee integration and harmonization between the different functions required.The idea of Network.

The multifunctional building is conceived as an interface of generational and cultural interchange, a place for meeting, training and dissemination; the project aims to generate a pole of attraction and citizen interaction that involves children, young people, parents, grandparents, families and institutions to participate socially in a space that, with controlled access, can be used freely at all hours of the day, like an inhabited garden, amplifying the civic and pedagogical role of a polycultural and multifunctional urban hub. Not only a multifunctional building complex that meets the requirements of the tender specifications but a wider resource for the area to learn to love and respect it in a place of dialogue, narration and encounter. The area to be redeveloped is transformed into a network of social relations, immersed in a horizontal forest with sports facilities and paths, formed by native vegetation and trees that will grow over time. The building is part of this network and within it, too, develops the interaction between the three specific functional areas that intersect with each other: 1. Cultural-social, Community Hub 2. Sports 3. Musical Training. The Space alternates indoor and outdoor spaces in direct connection with the park

Horizontal Forest and Garden: The Quality of the project is ensured by the relationship between the city, the recreational and sports park around the building, and the building itself; the intention is to improve the conditions of urban well-being and the quality of the landscape. The park redevelops the area, sews it up, surrounds and penetrates the building that welcomes it. The equipped facilities form a network through the pedestrian and bicycle paths that connect them to each other and reconnect the city to the project area.