Ristorante Cassero, a microcosm that the reproduce sociality of the city

The project was born from a client's request to transform a building purchased in Borgosesia in Valsesia, Italy. The building (around 300 m²) was at the time of the request in poor conditions; in times it was used as a barn, then transformed into a warehouse and afterwards abandoned by the previous owner; it had been neglected in terms of maintenance for several decades. Our clients wanted to realise a high-profile restaurant with an adjoining bar for aperitifs. The project, developed on two floors with a garden and a terrace-dehors, has the aim to enhance its “historic” context, keeping, in terms of architectural language, its original architectural heritage “legibility,” maintaining exposed some of the old walled sections and pre-existing floorings, whilst enhancing it with the use of new contrast finishings which emphasize its appeal. A sort of winter garden has allowed enlargement of the bar area and has created a visual continuum with the exterior garden, also realized as part of our project. The project revolves around the technical, gastronomical and aesthetic requests of the clients, without neglecting commercial or communicational aspects. The quest for inserting a commercial business, in this case of the hospitality sector, into a particular setting, can often become an actual neighbourhood project, with the main aim of improving it and its quality of life. A study is undertaken on passage flows, based on local business hours, economic expectations, which in turn creates a new local loop in which the result is a new type of space sharing. A crossroads of people of different provenance, people simply passing through and local inhabitants; frequent visitors, people coming for a touristic visit, or for a particular kind of business, all of which enriches the sociological aspects and the sociality of the city. A small part of a city, with an old, but rennovated architecture can change for the better not only the life of the neighberhood itself, but can even do so to an entire city which is in need of a new kind of “centre square” for socializing. This rennovated adandoned building, has given birth to new situations and provided the possibility to create a new network of conviviality, implementing the social inhabitants’ lives, consequently that of neighbourhood and city, enhancing the various existing potentialities. Lying in a space which has tried to keep the precious memory of its site’s identity, through the use of materials and shapes.