REUSE OF THE "EX GRAPHIC ARTS PANETTO&PETRELLI" IN SPOLETO, ITALY

The project consists in the reuse of the former Graphic Arts Panetto and Petrelli, located in Spoleto, in Italy. The typography was one of the first factory in the city. The building, in disuse since 2011, is a great opportunity of urban regeneration. The intervention proposes the conversion of the building into a Performing Arts Center.

In a first phase of the project I made an analysis of the different parts that compose the whole complex, evaluating critical points and strengths, finding out the structures to be maintained and those that would leave space for the new intervention. In a second phase I grafted a continuous architectural element into the existing building. We can define it as a "ribbon" of perforated metal skin that surrounds the various buildings, brings together a series of specific interventions and help me to valorise the complex. The former Graphic Arts Panetto and Petrelli becomes the CAP, Center of Performing Arts, a function that can best exploit the spatiality of this industrial environment and at the same time takes into account the cultural realities that we can find in Spoleto. The custodian's tower is enlarged to accommodate the scenic tower of the new theater. The offices and the company management building is maintained and accomodates the main atrium from which is possible to enter to the museum. In the center there is a large covered area, the center of gravity of the intervention, through which you can access the laboratories that occupy the old production area of the typography, characterized by the already-existing shed roof, completely maintained in the reuse project. Through this barycentric space you can also access the foyer of the theater. Behind the laboratories, a semi-hypogeal space, characterized by the presence of a series of patios, establishes a new relationship with the hill behind the complex. The project develops in order to propose versatile spaces, open to the different uses of the structure. We can find three different-size structures for performing arts; the theater, the concert hall and the open-air theater in the court. The new intervention presents a steel frame structure, a solution that responds to the seismic stress to which the territory of central Italy is subjected. This urban regeneration project is able to respect the history of typography, but at the same time manipulates the building, adapting it to the new needs of the contemporary city.