☉ Conversion of former Discalced Carmelite Convent Lecce is a fourth prize competition entry by AFSa for Agenzia per il Diritto allo Studio Universitario in 2022. It is located in Lecce Italy in an old town setting. Its scale is medium with a surface of 4.100 sqm a budget of 6.450.000 € and a ratio of 1.573 €/sqm. Key materials are stone, plaster and wood. Marco Petretti collaborated as visualizer.
In compliance with the program and the consistency of the building, the project is organized according to an increasing level of privacy: at ground floor level, public and collective functions; on the upper floor, the spaces belonging exclusively to the students.
The functions follow the original distribution system consolidated over time and respect the spatial configuration of the rooms, avoiding affecting the vaulted ceiling. The considerable height of the rooms allows for mezzanines and duplex apartments for residential use.
The demolition works are limited to the 20th century poor additions. The new interventions are the new volume facing the cloister, and the external staircase / lift in the courtyard. In the cloister, the rhytmh of the openings of the reconstructed facade, compared to what was once the terrace above the loggia, repeats the one of the below portico and recall the measure of the pre-existing windows.
Tha architectural material palette is entrusted by traditional lime plaster, Lecce stone and burnished brass.