New Parish Complex

The proposed project concerns a new Parish Complex in the Municipality of Girasole, in the Province of Ogliastra. The parish building was intended to become an important reference point for the spiritual and social life of the local community. Therefore, the idea that inspired this design was to rely on a architectural language that could be easily traced back to the territory, in adherence to the established common values of the community the building aims to cater to.

The design draws extensively on models and experiences that have left an important iconographic mark in the history of the territory. This is not necessarily reflected in the size or the monumentality of the project but, rather, in its identification, both physical and symbolic, with the environment in which the work is inserted.

These principles informed the choice of materials, with a combination of stone and plaster. Similarly, the proposed composition sought to enhance the simplicity of forms, useful for highlighting the religious structure in the environmental context in which it is inserted, without having to resort to celebratory or redundant architecture.

A wide, gently sloping churchyard rising toward the church, bordered by the church itself, the ancillary buildings of the parish complex and the bell tower, will form the connection between the new project and its surroundings. This will mark the beginning of the path leading to the sacred place, which will be accompanied by the gradual transition from the open and bright atmospheres of the outdoor spaces to the collected and rarefied atmospheres of the interiors, where an attempt has been made to recreate, exclusively through the use of light, those conditions of intimacy and recollection typical of sacred architecture. In this specific case, we have tried to recreate these atmospheres through processes of modulation and mediation of light, avoiding the direct lighting of the environments with the creation of diaphragms and cavities in which light can infiltrate, change, reflect, and then spread across environments.

The ancillary structures of the parish are organized into two separate buildings: the first L-shaped building encircles the volume of the church and houses the parish offices, the sacristy, and the canonical house. The second, with its elongated rectangular shape stands as an element of demarcation between the churchyard and the surrounding space, positioned on a margin of the lot, along the road that will divide the parish complex from the residential area and is intended to house the parish classrooms for catechesis and other pastoral activities, as well as a large conference room.

• Type: Religious
• Location: Girasole (OG), Italy
• Project: 2007
• Built: –
• Area: 2.856,00 sqm
• Client: Diocesi di Lanusei
• Manufacturers: –
• Production cost: –
• Status: Not built