LANDSCAPE REDEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL RENOVATION OF “PUNTA MELISO”
Toti Semerano·Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy
LANDSCAPE REDEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL RENOVATION OF “PUNTA MELISO”
- Year
- 2026
- Status
- Built
- Firm
- Toti Semerano
- Location
- Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy
The renovation project of the former Colonia Scarciglia dates back to 2004, which provided for the renovation of the entire original volume in accordance with current legislation. A ruin of that intervention remains, the imposing façade supported on one side by the attics of the first and second floors and on the other by a stone cage. Despite the interventions to make the building safe already carried out, further interventions will certainly have to be foreseen in a short time.The project is supported by project financing. Instead of restoring the existing volume, the design project plans to drastically reduce it by making the hill, now completely hidden from view, reappear, an intervention where architecture dialogues, integrates, merges with the landscape: The main goal becomes the environmental recovery of Punta Meliso. The decision to reduce the volume not only reduces the environmental impact but also the static pressure of the building on the ground. The load structure reduction and its uniform distribution determine a significant attenuation of the geomorphological danger. Only the ground floor is used of the imposing volume of the Colony. The part of the main body facing the tourist residence is used to design a "Lido" which includes, in addition to specific functions such as swimming pools, fitness, spa and related services, also a restaurant and bar designed to be usable independently of the functioning of the Lido itself.The remaining part of the former Colony remains in public availability and is recovered as a Museum of the Sea, proposed as an active cultural project rather than a conservation space for finds, a place that will make available all that human intelligence has proposed in a creative form on the theme of sea and travel: documentaries, films, sound recordings, within a program of activities that will develop in the spirit of the cultural indications proposed by the Puglia Region. A single element stands out in the recovered landscape, a Tower of great symbolic value, whose height is the memory of the size of the former colony, a volume which one chooses to give up. The tower recalls an identifying sign of the Salento coastal landscape, but it is also the gateway to the hill above, which is to be made accessible not only as a walk, but also by extending, through a botanical restoration, the tree-lined part so as to form a wood that with its shade it offers a shelter from the scorching summer sun. These paths are designed with the appropriate slopes to eliminate any architectural barrier, and in their initial development they give access to the terrace that develops above the museum and becomes an outdoor arena that can be used as a cinema and obviously for other events
The renovation project of the former Colonia Scarciglia dates back to 2004, which provided for the renovation of the entire original volume in accordance with current legislation. A ruin of that intervention remains, the imposing façade supported on one side by the attics of the first and second floors and on the other by a stone cage. Despite the interventions to make the building safe already carried out, further interventions will certainly have to be foreseen in a short time.The project is supported by project financing. Instead of restoring the existing volume, the design project plans to drastically reduce it by making the hill, now completely hidden from view, reappear, an intervention where architecture dialogues, integrates, merges with the landscape: The main goal becomes the environmental recovery of Punta Meliso. The decision to reduce the volume not only reduces the environmental impact but also the static pressure of the building on the ground. The load structure reduction and its uniform distribution determine a significant attenuation of the geomorphological danger. Only the ground floor is used of the imposing volume of the Colony. The part of the main body facing the tourist residence is used to design a "Lido" which includes, in addition to specific functions such as swimming pools, fitness, spa and related services, also a restaurant and bar designed to be usable independently of the functioning of the Lido itself.The remaining part of the former Colony remains in public availability and is recovered as a Museum of the Sea, proposed as an active cultural project rather than a conservation space for finds, a place that will make available all that human intelligence has proposed in a creative form on the theme of sea and travel: documentaries, films, sound recordings, within a program of activities that will develop in the spirit of the cultural indications proposed by the Puglia Region. A single element stands out in the recovered landscape, a Tower of great symbolic value, whose height is the memory of the size of the former colony, a volume which one chooses to give up. The tower recalls an identifying sign of the Salento coastal landscape, but it is also the gateway to the hill above, which is to be made accessible not only as a walk, but also by extending, through a botanical restoration, the tree-lined part so as to form a wood that with its shade it offers a shelter from the scorching summer sun. These paths are designed with the appropriate slopes to eliminate any architectural barrier, and in their initial development they give access to the terrace that develops above the museum and becomes an outdoor arena that can be used as a cinema and obviously for other events