The structure of the former municipal market located in Traversa Buonocore and outdoor spaces immediately relevant to it, are from many years in a state of total abandonment. The purpose of the project is to redefine the structure by changing the intended use in favor of a more strictly tourist functions given the high commercial potential that the area offers in terms of flows of people and specifically of tourists. The context where the structure is placed have a strategic importance, in between the Via Roma and the Fisherman's Beach.
The purpose of the project aims tocreates a building that invites passers to visit or to stop. In this sense, the current configuration of the building is penalizing because of the relatively modest entry. The court is a particularly good choice for a structured market with side shops, but less functional and permeable for the intermittent or random passerby.
Consequently, the project is based on a substantial opening of the main front on the street, through a kind of portal, generated through the demolition of part of the short side and the extrusion of the long sides. To give greater importance to the building stage, which is a public place for the aggregation, the project involves the partial use of the actual roof, and the raising of the curtain. In the short side facing the street a double height atrium has been created to give greater importance at the entrance of the new building. The building will be coated with a visually permeable membrane with wooden elements.
The functional set-up of the proposal does not modify the actual use,that continues to be a market place; However the use is re-interpreted in a dynamic and integrated manner with complementary functions that can attractmore users both in terms of functional mix, both in terms of time slots of operation of the facility. The inner courtyard, during the morning used as a market, becomes a public square when businesses are closed. This connection is guaranteed from the atrium, a filter between the street and the semi-public square.
To traditional market functions, are sided most touristic functions as retail of local products and souvenirs and by creatingrestaurants and takeaways. This configuration has proved to be successful in other Mediterranean and European contexts. The project's strength is in a relatively small structural intervention, withthe reinterpretation of the curtain walls and facade elements who want to communicate a newfound identity of the place and an opening to the rest of the urban fabric.
This project proposal offers an optimization of the spaces of the former municipal market with a limited invasive intervention in structural terms and a substantial review of the public side of the building with a modern approach to the theme of the façade and the outer coating. The project emphasizes the collective nature of the court building that is proposed as a multipurpose space that will fit the needs of different types of users at different times of the day. Thosetargets are achieved by changing the configuration of the side facing the BuonocoreStreet that becomes a double-height atrium, a filter element between the building and the court. The use of simple and predominantly modular materials allow to contain the costs of supply and installation and get a valuablefunctionally and figuratively result with a modest financial investment.
