Archetech Issue 37 2018 | Page 58

On the long sides, instead, the roof lowers until reaching a height of 2.2 m and a width of 3 m, facilitating access to the cooperative’s commercial areas and creating a pleasant dehors connected with the complex’s functions, including the sales area, bar and restaurant. There is no visual boundary between inside and outside, and the completely transparent façades erase any separation and make the notable pitched roof seem almost to be hanging in the air. The flooring also articulates the same conditions of continuity: made from local stone, it defines the square and the covered area of the design, enriched with exposed laminated wood structures and opaque curtain walls, also in wood, that enclose the central core containing the services and the conference room. Traditional materials and the return to a local building type thus seal this complex’s link with the history of the area, while the large glass walls open to the theme of modernity and, above all, to the panoramic view of the still virtually uncontaminated rural landscape of the Valtellina.