The Fienile Cheese Academy, designed by +tstudio, is a production complex proposed as a centre for the refinement and dissemination of dairy culture in Alta Irpinia.
The design of the production complex is developed from the reuse and redevelopment of an existing building, some agricultural warehouses and a small reinforced concrete construction intended for cheese production.
All these buildings are integrated into a single, almost monomaterial building that establishes a dialogue with the surrounding rural landscape and the local material culture.
The design approach is based on the iconographic elements of the rural landscape of Irpinia and of the farm itself: the sheds, canopies, barns, temporary animal shelters, spread throughout the territory and almost always made of galvanised sheet metal and wood.
The design solutions are mainly directed towards the use of sustainable technologies and natural, recyclable materials and, especially for the external envelope, evolutive, i.e. that change with time.
The aluminium used for the external cladding undergoes a slow process of maturation – exactly as happens for the maturing and refining of dairy products – which leads it to lose its luminescence and acquire increasingly opaque tones; its folding is a reference to the local tradition of cladding the drying kilns with zinc sheets.
The smaller sides of the volumes, configured with the typical hut shape, are made of local stone – salvaged from the collapse material of a family farmhouse following the 1980 earthquake – and high-pressure compressed rock wool panels. The latter is a natural element that undergoes strong colour changes in contact with air, changing from an intense yellow colour to an almost tannic, woody brown.
The building’s insulation, which is necessary together with the recovery of humidity from the ground through a system of internal waterfalls, is made from sheep’s wool and processing waste from the knitting and spinning industry in the Tuscan district of Prato.
The interiors dedicated to production are clad in white corrugated sheet metal, while those dedicated to dissemination are made of natural oak wood and painted with milk processing extracts.
The articulation of the volumes tells of the functional layout of the production complex. This winds its way along two main paths: that of production, which starts from the old dairy, in which the staff quarters are also carefully designed, expanding into the new areas up to the refinement hangar; and that dedicated to training and popularisation and to administration, which has direct accessibility from the outside, leading staff and visitors from the front office up to the upper floor, where there is a meeting room, a tasting and training room and the administrative management.
From this level, a suspended walkway in galvanised steel and a barbeque grill provides access to the full-height volume of the refinement hangar so that it is possible to visit the production areas without interfering with its activities.
The articulated volume thus realised is integrated into the surrounding productive rural landscape and at the same time does not give up being a characterising element of contemporary architecture.
Large openings characterise the entire project, establishing a dialectical relationship with the surrounding landscape.
The surrounding green areas are planted to form a substantial “spicehouse” that will give the cheeses the aromas of the land.
For more information visit www.piutstudio.it.
CREDITS
Project: The Barn
Architecture studio: +tstudio
Location: Calirtri (AV), Italy
Year: 2024
Foto: Carlo Oriente
