☉ Archaeological Museum for the Roman Villa in Rabaçal is a winning proposal by OFFICE x Sara Maduro Raffaele Sarubbo Sossio De Vita and Giuseppe Parisi for Penela Municipality in 2019. It is located in Rabaçal Portugal in a rural setting. Its scale is extralarge with a surface of 204.873 sqm a budget of 5.580.000 € and a ratio of 27 €/sqm. Key materials are wood, stone and ceramic. Riccardo De Vincenzo collaborated as visualizer.
The museum is designed as an enclosure, which delimitates and protects the archaeological remains, creating in this way a time suspension.
The museum circuit is based on the reading of the landscape as an en plain aire museum, and the museum as a path extending through the landscape, feeding on the relations between in and out the enclosure.
The roofings which protect the archaeological ruins, surrected by thin steel pillars, make their way higher than the museum itself, so that the view on the excavations stays clear.
Another extremely important relationship is the one between people and the olive groove surrounding the excavations, in which the trunks and the pillars of the coverings come together in a single roof.
The coverings remember the free and incomplete trace of the excavation area. The effect of this floating roof, once again remembers the influence of water in the area. The choice of a wood and steel combination rainforces the idea of lightness and time flexibility.