It increas­es the total accom­mo­da­tion to 26 suites while care­ful­ly main­tain­ing the land­mark sta­tus of the white-washed, 16th C. for­ti­fied farm. Thir­teen new guest suites are embed­ded with­in the south­west­ern plateau of the pic­turesque Locan­ian val­ley along an exca­vat­ed, shad­ed court­yard that sits well below the visu­al lines to and from the adja­cent, his­toric struc­ture of Phase One and its sur­round­ing pris­tine land­scape. It con­structs a field against which the new­ly restored 16th cen­tu­ry white­washed “casale” is dis­played. The abstract­ed cave-like rooms enjoy the ther­mal secu­ri­ty of the earth’s shel­ter.

A dozen small glass ‘vit­rines’ push out from the oth­er­wise earth-hid­den rooms, and dis­crete­ly punc­tu­ate the val­ley edge dis­ap­pear­ing in the South­ern Ital­ian veg­e­ta­tion. The new struc­ture is cov­ered with liv­ing earth almost seam­less­ly con­nect­ed to the exist­ing valley’s land­scape and its ecol­o­gy. It prof­its from the ther­mal sta­bil­i­ty this offers, cou­pled with pas­sive solar prin­ci­ples as well as evap­o­ra­tive cool­ing and shad­ing effects of new plant­i­ng.

The moun­tain­ous, arid region of ancient Luca­nia is ide­al for this earth-shel­tered archi­tec­ture, as the infa­mous “sas­si” of Mat­era can attest. The chal­lenges of ven­ti­la­tion and water­proof­ing are reduced while allow­ing full tran­spi­ra­tion of the nat­ur­al cool­ing and heat­ing effects of the sur­round­ing earth. Strate­gic mate­ri­als include: plant­ed roof struc­ture; FRP com­pos­ite pan­el retain­ing walls; per­me­able paving; pho­to­volta­ic pan­els; clay ‘fora­to’ demis­ing walls clad in thin-shell con­crete pan­els and chest­nut wood pan­el­ing; and, Mediter­ranean Cypress trees.

The his­toric site of Torre Fiore is strate­gi­cal­ly posi­tioned on the east­ern plateau of a small val­ley, which enjoys spec­tac­u­lar views and wel­come breezes pre­dom­i­nant­ly from the west with­in the moun­tain­ous, arid region of Basil­i­ca­ta (once Luca­nia) in South­ern Italy. Due to mas­sive emi­gra­tion in the past, this region is by Ital­ian stan­dards under pop­u­lat­ed. Its cli­mate of hot, dry sum­mers and cool, slight­ly wet win­ters can­not sup­port large-scale agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion.

Even though small-scale agri­cul­ture is one of the prin­ci­pal eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties, with some light indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion of ceram­ics, tex­tiles, and wood­work, tourism has the poten­tial for being the most promis­ing earn­er for the region and its more sus­tain­able re-pop­u­la­tion. Hotel Torre Fiore Phase 2 hopes to com­plete what Phase 1 has begun as a cat­a­lyst for tourism bring­ing vis­i­tors, pro­vid­ing jobs, and attract­ing more tourist con­structs to pro­pel this much need­ed indus­try; while putting the unique, rel­a­tive­ly undis­cov­ered cul­ture of the region on dis­play.

Cre­ative Sus­tain­able Devices: The pro­posed archi­tec­ture takes lessons from the “sass” of neigh­bour­ing Mat­era. This “inhab­it­ed rock dis­trict” of cave hous­es is per­fect­ly adapt­ed to its geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal set­ting and its eco sys­tem with a remark­ably sim­ple, but durable water man­age­ment, shad­ing and cool­ing sys­tem. Sun­light is har­vest­ed via a series of strate­gi­cal­ly ori­ent­ed PV pan­els which con­vert its ener­gy into elec­tric­i­ty for each suite below. The plant­ed roofs are ser­rat­ed to receive the angle of each pan­el while hid­ing it from view. The earth is held at bay with aid of fiber­glass com­pos­ite pan­els mold­ed to a pro­file of supe­ri­or struc­tur­al strength. FRP com­pos­ites gen­er­ate a much small­er impact than oth­er tra­di­tion­al mate­ri­als.

Per­me­able paving sys­tem will allow storm water to pass through reduc­ing run-off and improv­ing water qual­i­ty by fil­ter­ing pol­lu­tants in the sub­stra­ta lay­ers while also allow­ing Cypress trees the room to thrive. Rain­wa­ter is drained then chan­neled to two under­ground cis­terns for fil­ter­ing and recy­cling back to suite water clos­ets and irri­ga­tion waters for the herb gar­den. Torre Fiore Phase Two’s inter­ven­tion as earth-shel­tered struc­tures inno­v­a­tive­ly responds to the high demand for tourist con­structs in the impov­er­ished region of Basil­i­ca­ta, while respect­ing the integri­ty of a pris­tine and pro­tect­ed his­toric land­scape.

It offers min­i­mal envi­ron­men­tal impact, both visu­al­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly, and aims to be self-sus­tain­ing through a series of material/design devices that prof­it from the earth-shel­tered approach. This is a strat­e­gy adapt­able to many sen­si­tive her­itage sites around the world. Torre Fiore Phase 2 will con­tin­ue what was ini­ti­at­ed in Phase 1 where great effort was made to uti­lize local trades, labour, and crafts­peo­ple to exe­cute the unique project, while col­lab­o­rat­ing with the local school for hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism to refine the pro­gram­mat­ic and per­son­nel needs of the oper­a­tions. Tourism has the poten­tial for being the biggest earn­er for the region and its more sus­tain­able re-pop­u­la­tion. Phase 2 will dou­ble the capac­i­ty of the Hotel Torre Fiore.