FARMHOUSE AND BARN
BUILDING RENOVATION OF A FARMHOUSE AND ITS BARN IN THE FRAMEWORK OF AN AGRICULTURAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN
Location: San Giuliano Terme, Pisa - Regional Park of Migliarino - San Rossore - Massaciuccoli
This realization, of environmental improvement, typological and functional recovery and building renovation, has engaged Studio Galantini from urban and environmental analysis to interior architecture, without any solution of design continuity, constituting an experience of method and a cultural stimulus. .
The small built nucleus, owned by a local farm, is located north of Pisa, in the Municipality of San Giuliano Terme, in the internal area of the Migliarino - San Rossore - Massaciuccoli Regional Park, which classifies it as an agricultural area. Regional photogrammetry identifies the nucleus with the toponym Case Nuove, near the Via Vecchia Pietrasantina, also referred to as Via Vecchia Viareggina. This road was the historical link between Pisa and Viareggio and joins the Aurelia state road near the town of Madonna dell'Acqua, on the outskirts of Pisa.
The area was classified in the PRG of the Municipality of San Giuliano Terme then in force as an agricultural area of landscape interest and the cartography of the Management Plan of the San Rossore Estate identified the area pertaining to the buildings in question as Residential and related functions. The Management Plan, urbanistically, is framed as an Implementation Plan: in the case in question, the drafting of a Business Plan for Agricultural and Environmental Improvement was requested, in order to de-naturalize the buildings and use them for residential purposes. This plan involved an area of one hectare in extension.
We are in the context of the agricultural landscape of the Pisan alluvial plain between the Arno and Serchio rivers, characterized by typical cultural assets, while the buildings identify a rural typological system consisting of the farmhouse, the facing barn and the interposed threshing floor, as well as small ancillary outbuildings. The whole is located on a historic road network.
The farmhouse, whose oldest nucleus dates back to the second half of the 18th century, belongs to a type of strong local characterization: its development in line allowed, when necessary, the addition of new rooms. The Leopoldino Land Registry brings it back to the early 1800s, after having already undergone a first enlargement. The barn finds numerous similar examples, but it is a more recent type, dating back, in the case, to the second half of the 19th century.
The current legislation has also provided for relations with the Park Authority and the local Superintendency, which, in addition to verifying the philological attention in the reconstruction of some architectural elements in ruins, requested the Landscape Report, as per Legislative Decree no. 42 of 2004 Code of cultural heritage and landscape.
The survey and the first interventions on the farmhouse made it possible to reconstruct the historical events of an organic building, which grew according to company needs and built with current technologies at the time. The floors, for example: the oldest ones with wooden texture, the later ones sometimes in brick, up to the attic in steel profiles and slightly arched terracotta tiles, so-called volterrane. The last addition (on the left side looking at the facade) betrays its function as a shelter and barn: the openings are similar in all respects to those of the barn facing the farmhouse itself. It was decided to free the latter part from the plaster, uncovering the brick masonry, with its decoration of unloading arches: in addition to restoring the presumed original appearance, the alternation of subsequent additions was accentuated. Even the internal vaults have been cleaned of the plaster, giving back evocative spaces, completed by doors and windows made to measure for the supporting arches; these transparent diaphragms made it possible to link the interiors to their pertinent courtyards and to the surrounding environment.
Every detail, internal and external, has been solved with the same design care, in line with the commitment undertaken not to divide the design into sectoral competences.